News – The Sunshine Centre

OUT NOW: Autumn Brochure 2023

Download a copy of our Autumn Brochure from our “What’s On” page to find out what we are offering this term.

NEW: Soft Play for 3 & 4 year olds.

The Sunshine Centre celebrates after receiving £300,000 in National Lottery funding

The Sunshine Centre in Banbury is celebrating today after being awarded £300,000 in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.

The Sunshine Centre was conceived by the community to provide activities and support for families in the area. We have been at the heart of the community for 25 years and will celebrate with the community in October. The lottery grant will enable us to build upon our current services. While the focus of our work is with children and families, the importance of multi-generational work and providing support for all is important to us.

National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. The National Lottery Community Fund distributes a share of this to projects to support people and communities to prosper and thrive.

Jill Edge for the The Sunshine Centre said this grant is amazing news for the community, staff, Trustees and partners. It gives us security going forward and we will of course continue to fund raise to secure other areas of our work. I cannot express my gratitude enough to all those who support us and work with us to make The Sunshine Centre what it is today.’’

Warriner Farm 2023

Last week, we took some children to Warriner School Farm where they got the chance to hold and feed a variety of animals, collected eggs, made nettle pasta from scratch, learnt how sausages are made, cooked their lunch camp fire style and then finished off the week by making and enjoying s’mores.

Summer Special – Make A Meal

Pick up one of our limited offer Summer Specials on Wednesday, 2nd August.

Make A Meal: Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes

Each pack contains Pasta with a jar of Pesto and a jar of Tomato Sauce for you choose between and juicy Cherry Tomatoes. We have also included 6 apples for you to whip up something healthy and creative for dessert.

Our Make a Meal packs are just £2 (worth £5 or more) and can make up to 5 portions. Available while stock lasts.

Summer Calendar 2023

National Lottery Community Fund 3-Year Grant

We are excited to announce that we have been awarded a 3-year grant by the National Lottery Community Fund which will allow us to make a huge difference to the lives of people in the Banbury Community.

Thanks to #NationalLottery players for making this possible.

Entry Sheet

Ocean Adventures Family Fun Session

Rrrr, we had a splashing time at our Ocean Adventure event today.

Thank you to everyone that joined. It was lovely to see so many families in our community enjoying the event together and we are so glad that everyone enjoyed the lunch pasta bakes, fruit kebabs and snacks. He are a few of the best photos of the day.

#familyevent #familyfunday #banbury #communityhub

What do young parents need?

Can you help University of Oxford and the Department of Psychiatry by sharing your thoughts, suggestions and giving feedback?

Find out more about getting involved by emailing: aadapt@psych.ox.ac.uk

A Date For The Diary: Banbury Play Day 2023

Banbury Play Day 2023

People’s Park.

July 26th, 11am to 3pm.

A FREE family event where you can take part in activities and make memories over the summer. This year’s theme: “Playing on a shoestring”.

Summer Trips 2023

Our Summer Trips are now open for booking!!

🦖All Things Wild, August 4th, £11 per person, £6 for under 3s.

🌳Cutteslowe Park, August 11th, £6 per person.

⛱Bournemouth, August 25th, £16 per person.

Spaces are limited and a £5 per person deposit is required per trip. Please visit our reception for a booking form.

Coronation Champion Awards

We are thrilled that our wonderful volunteer, Juliet Dessain, has been selected as one of the 500 official Coronation Champions!

The #CoronationChampionsAwards, launched by Royal Voluntary Service, is all about celebrating the work of extraordinary volunteers across the UK. Coronation Champions will receive an official Coronation Champions pin badge, a signed certificate from Their Majesties, and an invite to one of the Coronation Celebrations, such as the Windsor Castle Coronation Concert or a Coronation Garden Party.

Congratulations Juliet, we hope you enjoy your celebrations. You deserve it.

We would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all our other volunteers, that continue to dedicate their time and efforts to the Centre. We are grateful for all that you do.

Find out more about the awards here: https://www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/…/coronation…/

Easter Family Fun Session

Thank you to everyone that joined us for our Easter Family Fun Session! We are so glad that everybody had such a lovely time and enjoyed getting lots of goodies to take home.

#easterevent #easter #family #familyfun #community #communityevent #local #banbury

Free NHS Health Checks

Book your FREE NHS Health Check today with Health Checks Oxfordshire

We work with a number of local partners to ensure that you have access to the support you need following your health check. Whether you need help to quit smoking, lose some weight or cut down on your alcohol intake – we’ll signpost you to free and local services that can help you achieve these goals.

If you are aged 40-74 years and live in Oxfordshire, you could be eligible for a FREE NHS Health Check with Health Checks Oxfordshire.

The new service launched earlier this year to assist GP practices in catching up with Health Checks that were missed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The health check takes 30-45 to complete and will give you a snapshot of what is going on inside your body to help you tackle health problems before they become a concern.

The check aims to reduce your risk developing heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease and certain types of dementia and achieves this by assessing the risk factors. Your expert health advisor will ask a number of questions relating to your health, measure your height and weight, take your blood pressure and a quick and easy finger prick blood sample.

At the end of a health check, you’ll be given a personalised report outlining your results to take away from the appointment. Depending on your results, you’ll be receive advice on how to lower your risk with lifestyle changes.

Book Your Free NHS Health Check

Please call 0800 122 3790 or visit www.healthchecksoxfordshire.org

#nhs #freehealthcheck #healthcheck #oxfordshire #banbury #over40

World Book Day – Early Years Trip

For #WorldBookDay, a small group of children from our Early Years setting were invited down to Waterstones in Banbury, for a 1 hour workshop where the children could colour, craft and write stories. At the end of the workshop, the children swapped their Free £1 book vouchers from National Book Tokens, for a “You Choose Your Adventure” book for them to take home and keep. Here are some photos of us all enjoying the trip.

#earlyyears #books #reading #Banbury

Family Fun Day

We had a LOVEly time at our Family Fun Day. Thank you to all that attended.

Fruit & Vegetable Bags

To help keep our community eating well especially during the cost of living crisis, The Sunshine Centre will have Fruit and Vegetable bags available to purchase for £2 from February 7th, on Tuesdays and Fridays, between 10:30am and Noon.

The bag will contain more than £2 worth of fruit and veg and will be available on a first serve first come basis.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

We were truly overwhelmed by the generosity of companies and individuals over the festive season. Thank you for helping us help those in our local community.

Primary School Registration

If your child turns 4 on or before the 31st August 2023, then it is time for you to register for your school of choice.

Registrations are done online and families that need to, can come into the Sunshine Centre to use our community laptops to complete the registration process.

The DEADLINE for registering your child is January 15th 2023.

Winter Wishes 2022

Join us for some festive fun at this year’s Winter Wishes event.

Entrance is FREE with no booking required.

Children can visit Santa Clause and receive a gift. (£2/child booking required). Santa bookings must be booked in reception and paid for at time of booking. Limited slots available.

Christmas Snacks from Around the World will be available to buy. Some games and activities are pay per play.

Click Here to view poster

Talking Tales Entertains Our Early Years

Yesterday, Kevin from Talking Tales visited some of the children in our Early Years. The children loved listening to and watching the story being told with the use of props and instruments

. They also enjoyed participating in the story and drawing parts of the story on paper to reveal it at the end and we all had a giggle at some of our EY staff who had to pretend to be cheeky monkeys

To find out more about Talking Tales and how the session aims to help to nurture creativity and foster communication in a fun and interactive way, please visit https://talkingtales.org/early-years.html

Just Giving Fundraising Page – Now Live

As a non-profit organisation, The Sunshine Centre is hoping to raise money to refurbish parts of the centre and give it some much needed updates to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for the children in our early years classes and our other centre users from our local community.

Visit our Just Giving page to donate or to become a fundraiser for us and please share our Just Giving page to spread the word

https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/thesunshinecentre

We thank all donors for their generosity during this tough time.

Spooky Day Success

Spook Day went down a treat! We are glad that everyone had a great time

And of course, Spooky Day calls for spooky houses! It was great to see all of the families getting stuck in and creating spooky haunted houses. Congratulations to the winners!!

Take a look at some of the photos of everyone enjoying all of the different activities and of all the creepy creations.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on our Facebook page and stories to stay updated on our next event day, sessions, courses and activities!!

Thank You TK Maxx and Homesense Foundation

The Sunshine Centre would like to share our deepest gratitude to the TK Maxx and Homesense Fondation for their generous donation of £500. The money will go toward helping us support the community through the current crisis.

So, this donation will greatly contribute to helping us support our local community.

Queen, Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Great Grandmother. Rest in peace Queen Elizabeth II.

Heart felt condolences from The Sunshine are with the Royal family at this sad time.

OUR NEW ACTIVITIES BROCHURE FOR AUTUMN 2022 IS NOW AVAILABLE

Download our new activities brochure