TALK Surrey CIO

Supporting people with aphasia after stroke

TALK received the

Queen's Award
for Voluntary Service
in recognition of the outstanding
contribution made by volunteers

TALK GROUPS ARE OPEN

MusicTherapy

In October, we were delighted to resume our face to face groups, giving our members the opportunity to rebuild their friendships with other TALK members, as well as being socially independent again. It has been truly wonderful to see our members enjoying the company of other people withaphasia whilst at the groups, getting involved and engaging in the sessions put together by our dedicated volunteers and guest speakers.

During the group closures in 2020-21, our staff and volunteer group leaders kept in touch with all our members, having regular phone calls, emails, facetimes and Zoom meetings and quizzes. Our Groups Coordinator also sent out weekly activity packs, which were differently themed each week, including activities such as quizzes, wordsearches, drawing activities and discussion topics. TALK will continue to support members who don’t feel ready to return to face to face groups yet, with new and exciting weekly activity packs, regular contact, and we will be constantly exploring new ways to support these members until they feel ready to return.

We have lots of exciting sessions coming up, which include music and art therapy, tabletop gardening, cartoon drawing and much more. If you would like more information about our groups, please contact ourOperations Manager, Sharon Spurdle on 07718 425 953.

Please read our latest update on how we arekeeping safe at our groups.

Do I need to be vaccinated to attend the TALK groups?

We continue to offer everyone affected byaphasia access to our services. This way we can continue to support people to live well withaphasia. We don’t ask the group members we support, our volunteers, or staff about their vaccination status.

But we do believe having an effective vaccine is the best way to protect the most vulnerable, our friends and our families. We therefore encourage people to attend their vaccine appointment.

Find out more about at:
Stroke and the coronavirus vaccine | Stroke Association

We are looking for more Trustees
...can you help?

We are seeking new Trustees to help lead our charity and make a real difference to people’s lives. The Board currently consists of seven Trustees and we are looking to recruit up to four more. This is an exciting time to be joining TALK as we develop our services post-Covid to ensure we meet the needs of people withaphasia in our local community. You will be joining a friendly, committed and active Board and training will be provided. Please open the link here to see full details, thank you.

Trustee advert details

TALK and the Aphasia Alliance

Carol Sacchett, our Chair, recently attended the Aphasia Alliance meeting on Zoom. The Aphasia Alliance is a group of UK organisations that work together to:

raise awareness of aphasia
encourage collaboration
promote good communication
exchange ideas and resources

aphasia alliance march 2022 21142

We are very pleased that TALK is a member of the Aphasia Alliance. It's so important to keep in touch with other similar organisations and to speak with one voice.

You can find out more about the Aphasia Alliance here

Goodbye to Alison

We also recently said 'Goodbye' to Alison, our Group Coordinator. She has been a fantastic member of the TALK team and all the Groups will really miss her. Here she is with some of her leaving gifts.

Thank you from all of us at TALK.

Alison leaving 67528

Thank you for your Donations

TALK is very grateful to have received the following donations:

September 2021- £500 received in memory of Dorothy Baillee from her sister Chloe Armstrong
September 2021 - £612 donated by Nick & Nicky Flew from the sales of their 'Lockdown' book
November 2021 - £2000 donated by the Guildford RVS Onward Stroke Club
December 2021 - £100 donated from the Thornbury Rotary
January 2022 - Sadly one of our valued volunteers Steve Hand, passed away in January. He had volunteered at the Walton-on-Thames group for a number of years and will be very dearly missed by volunteers and members alike. His wife Jan and their children very kindly nominated TALK as their chosen in memoriam charity. We are very thankful as this has raised over £2500 for the Walton group.

Steve Hand db98a

London Vitality 10000 Run

The London Vitality 10000 Run took place on May 2nd 2022. We were lucky to have two runners including one of our amazing Volunteers from the Ashford group, Aileen. Here is a photo of Aileen and Marina after successfully completing the course.

marina and Aileen Vitality 10k 61fb8

Thank you for raising funds for TALK and being part of our team.

For further details contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you are organising your own fundraising event for TALK, please let us know so that we can support you and help publicise details of the event for you.

Please contactJo Matthews via the contact details page.

Clickhere to see what's happening at TALK?