Wednesday is often referred to as “hump day” as it marks the middle of the traditional working week, representing the hump of a metaphorical hill, and once Wednesday is over, people are said to be on the slide down; looking forward to the weekend.
But what if Wednesday IS the highlight of the week and the one day out of seven that you eagerly await? The day you look forward to seeing on your calendar and the day where you meet up with friends. This is exactly how Sheila feels.
I pull up a chair, at a table, within a hall I have been in a hundred times before, and within seconds, am in a conversation. Sheila, and to her left, Megan, are clearly good friends who enjoy a cuppa and a chat at Brownhills Community Centre’s Place of Welcome every Wednesday. Known locally as The Friendship Group, it doesn’t take long to see why it got its name. An hour before our chat, Megan had approached staff within the office at the Community Centre as she was worried about her friend who had been missing from the group for a couple of weeks and was not answering her phone. Staff’s initial advice was to speak with the visiting PCSO’s who were holding a Pop-Up Surgery at the group that morning – a drop in, where you can ask advice and talk about anything related to neighbourhood policing – to request a safe and well check if she was worried. But Megan was soon relieved to see her friend of two years walking through the door and settling into a chair for her favourite part of the week. Sheila tells me:
“I come every week because I am on my own. I don’t have any visitors and even spent Christmas and New Year on my own. If it wasn’t for coming to these groups, I would have no company at all.”
Sheila and Megan met at the Brownhills Community Centre Place of Welcome after the death of Sheila’s husband two years ago.
“I mentioned to someone that I needed advice with something, and they recommended I came to the community centre. I got the advice I needed from the staff in the office and, after telling them how lonely I was, they recommended I come to the coffee morning here on a Wednesday. So, I started coming and have found out about lots of other groups from coming here. If I hadn’t found this, I don’t know what I would have done as I would have just been stuck in the house.”
Megan tells me there is another regular friend, Synthia, missing from the group today but the three ladies always meet up here each week and often attend other events at the centre too such as the theatre shows.
Cath, to my left, tells me she too started attending the Place of Welcome after her husband passed away and feels
“it has been a Godsend to me. I look forward to coming here every week but originally, I didn’t know anyone. When I saw that there was a Northern Soul Night on, I was worried I would be on my own; Megan and Synthia took me under their wing, and I went along with them!”
The group is a hive of activity and with people coming and going, chatting and laughing and regaling stories of how they came to find out about this thriving Friendship Group running from an old school building, behind the now infamous Tin Man Statue on Brownhills Island.
And milling about within the group are PSCO’s Tracey and Adam who were holding the first of their Pop-Up Police Surgery’s at the Place of Welcome group, listening to concerns and offering crime prevention advice including handing out signal blocking pouches for car keys to try and reduce car theft. These local Neighbourhood Policing pop up sessions will take place once a month at the group offering residents and guests reassurance in their community from within their local community centre.
Tea break over, it was time to head back to my desk but not before taking a couple of photos of smiling friends, old and new, and promising to pop in again soon for a cup of tea and a slice of toast. Taking place in the heart of the community in Brownhills, Wednesdays 11.30am-1.30pm, this Place of Welcome truly is a Friendship Group in every sense of the word.
For details of Brownhills Community Centre’s Place of Welcome and other Places of Welcome in Walsall please click here