Looking ahead to family events for 2023

Ellie McGowan, Trustee for Action for XP, ​Events and Safeguarding Officer

I’m Ellie and I’m the Trustee responsible for Safeguarding and Events here at Action for XP. I was previously a volunteer for XP Support Group for 10 years, with responsibility for planning and running Owl Patrol for seven of those. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to say hi and introduce myself, as well as let you know what we’ve got planned for events over the coming 12 months.
 
As you know, much of our time during the last six months of 2022 was focused on bringing together the XP Support Group and Teddington Trust, including developing our mission and values, as well as our new branding and logo. We have also been dealing with an unprecedented level of enquiries which have needed our priority attention. This has meant that unfortunately there wasn’t sufficient time left for us to properly focus on, and plan any imminent events.

As a result of this, we made the difficult decision to postpone our Big Teddington Sleepover in Autumn 2022 and Owl Patrol in February 2023. We know that for many of our families, these events are a highlight in your yearly calendar and I know, having been a part of such events for many years, just how special they are.

 But fear not, this is certainly not the end! In joining together two well established charities, we now have the opportunity to also bring together the best of both organisations, including events. ​

During the first half of 2023 we’ll be planning a series of further consultations with as many of our families as possible to better understand what you liked best from previous events delivered by both organisations, as well as find out what you want to see planned in the future. We want to make sure that our time, resources and funding is spent planning and delivering the right events, that continue to meet your needs and wishes.
 
We also want time to have time to meet with our incredible volunteers, past and present. We simply couldn’t deliver our events without them and so their input into our planning will be crucial to being able to develop and deliver a programme of events throughout the year. 
 
We’ll be in touch early next year to let you know how you can feed into our consultations and we look forward to speaking with you then. However, if you have any thoughts in the meantime please do get in touch; you can drop me an email via ellie@actionforxp.org
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