The grass is always greener!

Today’s meeting was sponsored by Ian Stephens of LawnMasterNotts, who gave a fascinating insight into his business accompanied by a collection of colourful photographs and videos. Ian began his career near Brighton on the south coast, taking care of the grounds of Lewes Golf Course. Forty years later, he is still taking care of grass, maintaining lawns large and small.

Before and after photographs demonstrated the difference that the LawnMasterNotts treatment makes. Patchy, mossy, brown lawns are transformed into lush, green, weed-free lawns in just four to five weeks following treatment by LawnMasterNotts. One lawn became very green in just eight days after a lot of watering. 

In 2022, Ian began a challenge, taking one photo a day inspired by nature, without knowing that it would lead him to be a published author. Ian’s book, My Year in Photos – A 365 Day Nature-Inspired Photo Diary, has just been published by Green Cat Books. After continuing the challenge, he has now captured the beauty of nature in photos for over 600 days and plans to continue.

Venustas Clinic

Next on the agenda was the business card draw. The winners of a write-up each were Louise Sledmore-Hyde of Venustas Clinic, a first-time visitor.

Louise is a qualified aesthetics practitioner and State Registered Nurse. Venustas Clinic was formed in 2017 after Louise had completed her Aesthetics training in 2016 with one of the UK’s foremost plastic surgeons Mr Adrian Richards. She has been a State Registered Nurse with the NHS for over 40 years.

There are now 2 sides to Louise’s business- www.venustasclinic.co.uk The physical side where she has a clinic in Retford and she also peripatetic from her base in Gunthorpe, providing treatment for anti-wrinkle injections, fillers, superficial peels, Cryopen therapy, TCA peels, skin boosters, hay fever injections & B12 injections a lot of treatments which are no longer or difficult to obtain from a GP Surgery.

The online side- www.venustashealth.co.uk Louise provides an online shop for clients to purchase the beauty products she uses in clinic and additionally natural, organic and health beneficial products such as hemp oil and turmeric drinks.

Louise knows that after many years of treating peoples faces that not everyone is suitable for treatment, Injectables, fillers, boosters, cryopen, peels, whats going to be best for you and your skin type, we are all different, getting it right is best left to a professional, buying cheap products or by using an unqualified person for invasive facial treatment could have dire consequences.

Louise offers a FREE face mapping consultation in your own home and she is a fully qualified aesthetics practitioner and a qualified state registered nurse for your peace of mind, which will not only save you time and money, more importantly it will help you to understand what treatment will be suitable for your face.

Louise and Sue from Beaumond House showed how staff at the hospice go above and beyond to help their patients live happy and fulfilling lives through Jane’s story. After Jane mentioned how much it would mean to her to go to her son’s wedding later in the year, the staff arranged a blessing for her son’s wedding at Beaumond House so that Jane could attend. Photos of the wedding showed Jane looking on happily and enjoying the celebrations of which she was an important part. Sadly, she died the next day. A patient’s son explained how the staff at Beaumond House had enriched his mum’s life and made her laugh. This gave him a lot of comfort. His mum particularly liked the animal therapy, which allows patients to get close to dogs, ponies, alpacas and other animals.

Kathryn Holding of the Barnby Road Academy Community Wellbeing group explained how the group began during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way of helping people with food poverty. Volunteers collected surplus food from supermarkets and delivered it to people’s doors. They now collect food every evening, giving groceries to people in need the following day. Every Saturday, there is a community day. People queue to benefit from the scheme, and all food donations receive a new home . This highlights the incredible need for this group’s service in the local community. The group is run solely by volunteers and, three years after being set up, it is now a registered charity. It is in the process of moving into a purpose-built cabin in the car park of Barnby Road Academy, but extra funds and assistance are needed to set up the cabin and develop a community well-being and sensory garden with an outdoor classroom.

Becky and Caroline from YMCA Newark and Sherwood told Zoe’s story. When Zoe went into residential care with the YMCA, she was suffering from trauma and PTSD and wouldn’t leave the house. Following a lot of support from the staff at the YMCA, she is now thriving. She recently attended Camp Williams, immersed herself in all the activities without needing any support, and received a ‘Giving 100%’ certificate. She is just one of the children aged between 6 and 18 cared for in two YMCA residential homes in Newark. The YMCA also provides outdoor education for vulnerable children to help them gain confidence while having fun.

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