Ready, set, launch!

Well the big day has finally arrived. Today marked the launch event of our What's your Goal campaign here in Leeds. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day. The sun was shining, families were out in force and the What's your Goal team were ready and raring to go! 

Our launch event took place in Millennium Square on the Ice Rink. We had two stalls available. The What’s your Goal campaign stall had information for people to find out more about the campaign,  goal setting cards and bunting making! We were joined by the lovely Leeds Lets Change team at NHS Airedale, Bradford and Leeds.

David Stone, Paralympic Champion and Ambassador for the campaign came along to mark the launch event. He spoke to passersby and encouraged people to set their goal. David is pictured below with Buddy, the Trust Mascot and Stuart from Community Ventures. 

Community Ventures have been extremely supportive of our campaign and very kindly provided us with the sponsorship for today’s event. Huge thank you to Community Ventures!!

Thank you to everyone that entered our What’s your Goal competition (for a chance to win tickets for today’s event). It was brilliant to meet so many of our members today as they helped us celebrate the launch event on ice. There will be lots of other opportunities for you to get involved in activities we are organising, so keep your eyes peeled!

I have included a picture of the What’s your Goal team on ice. We all had great fun. That’s me, third on the right with the hamster cheeks and cheesy grin. Ice skating is a great way to get active and have lots of fun. Apparently in a 40 minute sesh you burn over 300 calories! For me exercise is all about having fun and socialising at the same time. At the Ice Cube in Millennium Sq you can have time for plenty of both. There is also some funky music to really help you get into it. If you like to have fun while exercising, I would definitely recommend trying ice skating out for size. The ice skating rink in Leeds will be open until Sunday 26 Feb and is just £7 for adults and £5 for kids (it’s even cheaper if you have a BreezeCard). It is definitely worth a check out. 

I have set my goals and made my pieces of bunting (although as one of the campaign organisers I think I may end up having more than two goals)....  

1. My first goal is to complete the Race for Life. This is something very close to my heart and something that I am hoping is achievable.

2. My second goal is to organise and complete a Zumbathon. I would be very grateful for some support with this. If you think you can wiggle and shake for 3 hours solid please do get in touch: gemma.wharton@nhs.net Dani our Zumba queen is heading up the event which will take place at the end of April.

Please, please don't forget to take the time out and set your goal. Go to www.whatsyourgoal.org.uk to find out how.

That’s all from me for now. We will be sure to update you again soon.

Gemma x

Why 'What's your Goal?'...

The simple purpose of our 2012 What’s your Goal? campaign is to reduce stigma, by getting people talking about mental health and wellbeing – something important to people who use our services and to us as providers of care. We’re doing this through a positive message about the benefits of setting goals for our wellbeing – something we hope that everyone can relate to and be happy to talk about and also very topical in the year of London 2012.

We’ve found that people are often reticent to talk about mental health. That’s why we employ different tactics to give them an excuse to come over and get chatting. During 2012 we are asking people to set a goal and then represent it on a piece of bunting. We hope the fact that they are contributing to a world record attempt (for the longest piece of bunting) will be an additional draw and we’ve already had lots of interest from all sorts of community groups who want to get involved. We’ll be providing packs to craft groups, schools, clubs and many more so they can contribute.  We’ll be giving them facts and figures about mental health for them to discuss whilst they are being creative.

Our Trust strategy has recovery principles at its core – hope and optimism for the future and enabling people to set their own goals and take control of their lives. That’s why we also want to support people who use our services to set their own goals and contribute to our world record breaking challenge. We’re recruiting volunteers to visit groups, and other spaces where people who use our services congregate, to talk about the campaign and help them set goals. If you’d like us organise a session with your service then please do get in touch.

Our campaign is a purposeful and meaningful way to recruit members and to keep them involved and interested in our work. We survey our members once a year to find out their opinions about mental health stigma and we hope to see attitudes improve over time.

We deliver our campaigns through a small in-house resource, lots of in-kind support and sponsorship. We’re delighted that Hobbycraft are supporting us with free bunting material throughout the year. Community Ventures are kindly sponsoring our launch event.

This year, in partnership with the Healthy Living Service, we’re also fundraising for equipment and resources that we can use to help people who use our services be physically active.

If you’d like to find out more about the campaign, get involved either individually or as a service, we’d love to hear from you.

Here’s a link to more campaign information and a regular blog on our website: www.whatsyourgoal.org.uk

Whats the campaign all about?...

What’s your Goal? What’s the campaign all about?

Our 2012 What’s your Goal? campaign is all about reducing mental health stigma by getting people talking. We’re continually searching for ways to make our member* recruitment meaningful by influencing attitudes and behaviours of people we come in contact with. We hope that by getting people talking, we will improve the experience and outcomes of people using our services, by making Leeds a better place to live. It’s really that simple.

By having an annual campaign, we hope to find fresh ways to get people thinking, talking and coming together. What’s your Goal? is inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic Games – we know everyone’s going to be talking about them and we want help people make the connections between setting aspirations/goals and sporting achievement with positive mental health and wellbeing.

So what ideas underpin our campaign? There’s quite a bit of evidence that setting goals is good for our wellbeing. Writing down a goal means we’re much more likely to achieve it. Achieving a goal is good for our self-esteem. Looking after our physical health is good for our mental health. Exercise has positive benefits for people experiencing mental distress. Lastly, coming together to work towards a common goal is good for all of us.

We hope to raise awareness by sharing information, stories and directing people to local resources. We’ll be organising and participating in lots of events throughout the year where we’ll encourage people to set a personal goal. We’ll be asking people to represent their goal on a piece of bunting. We’ll then connect all the individual bunting-goals into one enormous (hopefully!) record-breaking piece of bunting. We love the idea that each individual goal will be an integral part of an overall goal – bringing lots of different people at different events together for a common purpose – in this way we want to hit the wellbeing jackpot! And we hope to recruit some members along the way, so we can keep you in touch with our campaigns and increase the influence of local people in the future direction of our NHS Trust.

The campaign is organised by our communication and engagement team. We’re so keen that we’re all setting goals for ourselves to raise money for physical exercise equipment for people who use our services. We’ll be doing this through a sponsored run, zumbathon, football tournament, sponsored walks and cycle. Who knows what else we’ll cook up during the year. If you want to get involved then we’d love to hear from you.

Keith Woodhouse (one of our non-executive directors) has set himself a massive goal to undertake a sponsored climb up the highest mountain in the Americas. You can find his blog here and his just giving page here We’re massively grateful for his support.

If you’d like to get involved, or find out more, then please do get in touch. You can reach our team on ftmembership.lpft@nhs.net

Watch this space for more blogs from the team throughout the year.

Victoria

*As a Foundation Trust, we are part of the NHS as well as being a public benefit corporation. This means that people can become members of our organisation who are eligible to stand to be a governor and/or vote for who becomes a governor. Governors have an important role in setting the future direction of our organisation and are made up of people who use our services, care for people who use our services, staff and the general public with an interest in our Trust.