Getting older should not mean getting more and more isolated, connect with the local community of North Manchester via radio we have something for everyone!
Things are getting busy here at North Manchester FM HQ. We have lots of training taking place (email Lou if you’re interested) and MORE new shows!
TONIGHT, tune in from 7pm to hear the first ever Unsigned, Sealed, Delivered and Yours with Ray Bowles. Ray will be playing unsigned and local artists from North Manchester and the surrounding areas as well as featuring guests, interviews and live performances. Ray is one of the trainees from our February training – you may have already heard him testing out his skills on The M40 Show (Monday 4-5pm) and Community Champions (Wednesdays 4-5pm). Ray really knows his music and we cannot wait to hear him spreading his wings even further so make sure you tune in tonight 7-9pm! You can tweet him, phone the studio on 0161 918 6911 or text 07757 083438.
Well she’s been around a bit, she knows her eggs from her onions, indeed her mushrooms too, and serves up a delightful omelette of common sense. (pardon the foodie pun, but I think you’ll find it’s Germaine.)
Please click on the link and watch this great interview at the Hay Festival and then comeback and feel free to comment as a boomer grandparent!
Here’s our guide to the best of what’s on in and around Greater Manchester this weekend.
Grillstock Festival
The biggest BBQ festival in Europe comes to Manchester. At the heart of the event is US style eating competitions, delicious food traders and two music stages headlined by Grandmaster Flash and The Heavy.
Stockport Beer and Cider Festival
A celebration of quality real ale & traditional cider with more than 200 beers & ciders on offer. Great live entertainment is also promised, with bands, family activities and more.
FC United of Manchester v Benfica
Almost 10 years after the club formed, FC United of Manchester play a friendly against European giants Benfica at Broadhurst Park, their new stadium in Moston. The biggest fan-owned club in the country has just been promoted, over 4,000 fans are expected and the match marks the day that Manchester United first won the European Cup against Benfica back in…
Tomorrow my daughter Grace will be running for Grandparent Support in the Great Manchester Run – www.greatrun.org
I am immensely proud of her for doing so- this is not an easy run for her- its 10 k for a start! Although she looks like a super model, (I am a biased mother after all) – it will be punishing on her body- she has a tall willowy figure that holds a lung capacity typically associated with Marfan Syndrome. http://www.marfan.org/
Grace had a spontaneous pneumothorax (sudden lung collapse) when she was younger, but she is determined to keep fit and healthy and to strengthen all parts of her body.
Grace believes in Grandparent Support and continues to be an enormous supporter, graciously giving of her time both physically and emotionally having witnessed the complex issues that alienated grandparents and grandparent carers face.
Grace (left) & her friend Francesca at the start of last years Great Manchester Run
Please support Grace and Grandparent Support so we can raise awareness and help others.
Grandparents never run out of love, they just keep going no matter what! Thank you & Good luck Gracie xx
Read the article published in The guardian this weekend, if you can stomach it, go on and read some of the less vociferous but more informed comments, it never ceases to amaze me how uncompassionate “keyboard warriors” are!
When I went through the courts in the battle to maintain contact with my granddaughter there was one thing that stuck in my mind, if I lost the established contact with my granddaughter then so would the rest of my immediate family, all 40 + members, my brothers, sisters, her great Aunts & Uncles, my daughters – Aunts, and all the children, cousins and second cousins.
They didn’t all come along on those first prescribed, supervised contact visits, but I did take along a couple of my daughters, (her immediate Aunts,) because their relationship was already established, and to my mind it was important for the continuity and stability of my granddaughter, she needed to know that whilst she understood there was a problem and a breakdown in family relations, that her family would still be there to look out for, and love her.
You don’t need to have gone through a family separation to understand how vital those bonds are, but if you have already experienced it in your lifetime it can have a detrimental effect on your health and well-being – physically, emotionally and mentally.
I had gone through it twice in my life as a child, firstly when I was adopted as a baby, (unusually my biological mother remained in the adoptive family home until I reached the age of 5) and then again when I was placed in a care home aged 12, until I reached 16 and was set ‘free’ to make my own way in the world!
You could argue that it informed the way I deal with alienation, and how abhorrent it has become to me, I don’t think I ever got over the feeling of rejection, that’s not to say I became a victim either!
This leads me to today, and just as I was contemplating giving up Grandparent Support Ltd, (there are far bigger organisations out there with vast resources, lottery and Government funding, doing amazing work, I prefer to work independently – I have the right to voice my opinion and shall not be censored!) I received a phone call from a lady wanting to know why the extended family couldn’t be included in their visit, (2 members only) I hadn’t had this problem as nobody had objected when I had done it, but I all too readily identified the problem, differing local authorities seem to adopt different practices- this unfortunately I had encountered, and as we know things are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
It is a basic human right- the right to family life, both for the child and the members of that child’s family,
Although as stated within the act it is “a qualified right”.
This lady has already qualified as a special guardian for her grandson and together they have periodic visits with his two siblings in foster care, and she has been assured by the local authority that they are all working towards reuniting the family in the future.
Surely then, one must apply common sense and include extended family, not én-masse obviously, but for those occasions when it would be normal to do so, i.e. holidays such as Easter! After all it is the natural family support network.
He failed to mention the “300,000 children in the UK, being brought up by grandparents and other family members (kinship carers). Many of these children have been neglected or abused or suffered the death or serious illness of a parent. Almost half have special needs or a disability.
Most of the children would be in care if their relative hadn’t stepped in to look after them. It would cost the taxpayer £12 billion each year in care costs alone if they were in independent foster care. Yet the enormous contribution that kinship carers make is often hidden or taken for granted. Too many kinship carers bringing up vulnerable children suffer isolation, poverty and stress.”
Source: Grandparents Plus.
Edward Timpson also failed to mention how little is done to prevent parent/grandparent/family alienation and how as a society, alienation has now become the cruellest “weapon of choice” between separating couples and families.
Yet the Department for Education is set to spend £1.597m from their Innovation Programme Funds, on adopting and no doubt adapting the U.S. Mocking Bird Programme:
Whilst I applaud the Under Secretary for addressing this issue, and creating help and much needed support for Foster Carers, we have a long way to go in order to “slay the beast that is – Family Alienation” and its subsequent victims, not least of all the children.
The £1.597m is a mere drop in the £12 BILLION Ocean that the government is saving by utilising kinship carers who are undervalued and largely ignored for the knowledge and contribution they make.
I wish you all a Happy and Peaceful Easter and wish folk would not try and teach Grandparents how to suck eggs!
More Radio Training for Unemployed People at North Manchester FM
Following the success of our February and March intakes, we are running another radio training course for unemployed people. The course starts on Thursday 9th April and will run each Thursday 10am-4.30pm for 5 weeks. The course is completely free and open to anyone who is unemployed, as long as they are over 18.
Participants will learn all about radio, including presenting, producing and journalism and will contribute to a live radio show. They will also gain lots of transferable skills, boost their confidence and have some fun. The course could even lead to you getting your own show on North Manchester FM!
If you are interested, please get in touch ASAP to book your place. Spaces are already filling up fast for this one! For more information, email lou@northmanchester.fm or phone her on 0161 918 6826.
For those of you who don’t know, ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’ is a book written by Matt Haig. For those of you with depression and/ or anxiety, ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’ is a beautiful articulation of life itself; of the battles one’s mind faces daily. And for that very reason, for me, ‘Reasons To Stay Alive’ was a thoughtful gift from a wonderful friend that was worth much beyond it’s £9.99 value, hardback.
I read the first three pages with no intention of carrying on at that particular moment (as I had other things I should have been doing). Two hours later, book finished, I found myself laid back on the sofa, gazing up at the ceiling as if I had the clearest view of the night stars (it was a plain white ceiling with the closest resemblance of a star being the odd needed touch up, in day light) in…
Grandparent Support 
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