Where's Santa

Well if you're a busy working mum like me, you're probably feeling the strain of work, family and Christmas right now.   I just did my first bit of Christmas shopping today and I haven't even thought about decorations or christmas food!   My youngest daughter breaks up from school on the 16th December so I have a whole week of entertaining before Christmas to organise.   If you're in the same dilema it's worth taking a look at our What's on guide for the Christmas Holiday - it's jam packed with things to do and has a full guide to all the Santa' grottos in Sheffield.   Unfortunately my kids are too old now to want to see Santa.

I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The importance of volunteering

I'm always amazed at the selflessness of people who want to volunteer.  Over the years I've had the priveledge of working with people from all walks of life in a voluntary capacity and their importance to charitable organisations like ours is beyond measure.

This week we are celebrating our trustees, many of whom have been with us for a long time.   It's national trustees week and it got me thinking about all the volunteers I've known over the last 35 years and my own experience of volunteering.  

I'd recommend it to anyone, there are many opportunities out there from helping out at your local playgroup, which is how I got started to full involvement in the running of a charity through management committee work.

We are really priveleged to have a great bunch of trustees with varied skills from finance, IT, strategic planning to business development.

Whilst by the very nature of it's name volunteering is not paid but you can't put a price on the feelgood factor and it can offer you personal and professional development that leads to employment or a change of career.

One of our ex-volunteers is now in paid employment with us and a valuable member of our data team.

If you're interested in finding out more, visit the get involved area of our website.

In the meantime I'd like to say a big thanks to all our volunteers both past and present.  Without you we wouldn't be where we are today.

New look Service

Hi, welcome to our new look website.  It's an apt time to change our website because our service is changing too.   Our drop in shop and telephone line are set to move over to Firstpoint, Sheffield City Council's call centre and we'll be focussing our outreach and brokerage in specific disadvantaged areas of Sheffield.

You can rely on us to still deliver the best possible service for Sheffield families.

It's an exciting time for SIL with the setting up of our new trading arm from which we plan to develop and market services and products with the help of transition funding.

Check out our new trading arm website at www.silsolutions.co.uk.

I'd love to hear your comments about our new website.  Let me know what you think about it.   There's a comment facility on each page so it should be relatively easy to give your feedback.

End of an Era

Our city centre shop front closed it's doors for the last time last Friday.   It was a sad event for the team at SIL but also for our clients who relied on it to drop in before work or during their lunchtime and pick up information to help them on a range of issues including childcare, leisure activities, family support and early education.   Over the last couple of years our service hours have been reduced in preparation for the closure of the shop and the eventual migration of our drop in service, telephone and email enquiries into Sheffield City Council's call centre at Howden House set originally to take place in August this year.   Because of delays in the migration process this won't happen now until September at the earliest.  In the meantime our team of dedicated staff are still running the drop in and telephone line from our offices next door at No 9 Leopold Street.   We're hoping this will minimise the immediate impact on the families who rely on us for free, friendly and impartial information.   Our outreach and brokerage service will continue as before.

We've been through a rough time this past year and a half but in spite of uncertainty regarding the future of our service and worries regarding jobs we recently achieved the covetted Investors in People gold standard award.  This in itself is remarkable in the current environment and a true testament to the commitment, dedication and passion for our area of expertise that our staff manage to maintain against all odds.

Thanks to you all.

Sheffield Information Link to stage two world record attempts in one day

We're inviting the children, parents and carers of Sheffield to come and help it break two world records in one day on the 2nd of June in Fargate, Sheffield when it hopes to break the Guinness World Records for the fastest game of hopscotch and the most games of hopscotch played in one hour.

The world record attempts are part of SIL’s celebration of National Family Week, 30th May – 5th June when it will be on the streets of Sheffield talking to families about health, education and family activities.

Hopscotch is a great fun game that virtually anyone can play and we hope that lots of parents, carers and children will come down and have a go at breaking the record. Both records are currently held by an American and it would be fantastic if someone from Sheffield could bring the record home to South Yorkshire.

The SIL team will be on Fargate from 10am till 4pm on the 2nd with its advice stand and two hopscotch courts marked out. Anyone passing can have a go at the game and the Family Information Service has already invited lots of city centre businesses to pop out and have a game. All the Sheffield Schools have been invited as have teams from the city’s children’s centres. An invitation has also been made to the supreme athletes at the English Institute for Sport to send some of the Olympic hopefuls along.

We are hoping that people will enter into the spirit of the world record attempt and have some fun as well. Hopscotch may be an old game but it is really popular all around the globe; what better way to have a little exercise and fun than to try to break a record and become a world champion?

Hopscotch teams are being sought from across Sheffield, and anyone wanting to put forward one or make the individual attempt at the most games in an hour record should call Graham Parker on 01623 638 023