The Co-op has selected the Meriden Residents Association as one of their causes for the second year.

The money we received really helped to subsidise our annual coach trip to Southend this year. Thank you to all those who purchased a Co-op membership card and phoned the Co-op or went online to select the MRA as your chosen cause.

However ! In order for you to help us again this year, you need to either phone the Co-op or go online to select us again – selecting us before is not automatically carried forward to this year, you need to do it again!

If you haven’t got a card already, please purchase one from the Co-op for £1 and phone or go online.

Phone: 0800 023 4708
Online: https://www.coop.co.uk/membership

You could be entitled to free or discounted home energy improvements. The Hertfordshire Warmer Homes Scheme could help if you are on a low income or receiving certain benefits.

The ice, snow and frost in the winter months bring lots of challenges, but for many there are very real concerns about the costs of heating their homes.

Help is available for households with incomes of less than £20,000 (or applications from those on selected benefits) needing assistance to keep their home warm.

The Herts Warmer Homes scheme run in partnership with Hertfordshire County Council can provide help with home insulation or emergency heaters as well as a range of advice.

Anyone concerned about themselves or perhaps someone they know who could do with support should contact HertsHelp on 0300 123 4044 or info@hertshelp.net.

Find out more: www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/…/Hertfordshire-Warmer-Homes-schem

On Friday 27th September, The Badger and the Meriden Residents Association (MRA) hosted a Macmillan Coffee Morning at The Badger.

Over £700 was raised! Thank you to all of you who gave generously by donating money and bringing along the most delicious cakes.

We had so many cakes, they were still be eaten in the evening by The Badger’s regulars!

It was such a great venue to hold this event in, and our thanks go to Sue Barwell, who worked so hard to make this event a great success.

Thanks too to Stacey, Kelly and many others who rallied around to help. Hoping we can join together for another event in the future.

We had a great time at the Meriden Community Day on Friday 30th August. We had an amazing family raffle that lots of residents took part in.

Congratulations to our winners; Rudra, Katie, Kareen, Carole and Nikki.

We also had a fun afternoon running our Bric-à-brac stall, which was full of great bargains.

We had a fantastic day trip to Southend on Saturday 3rd August with our residents, their families and friends. 

We took three coaches and everyone said what a great time they had. As a bonus, tickets into Sea Life Adventure were included.  Below is a selection of photographs taken throughout the day.

We had a great time walking around Sea Life Adventure, below are a few pictures of the variety of animals that you can enjoy inside.

Many of us went on the 1.34 miles long Southend Pier.

Everyone had such a lovely day, below some of our residents, their families and friends posing for a quick picture by the beach.

We would like to express our thanks to our County Councillor, Kareen Hastrick, Comms Wch Watford and the Co-op Community Fund for helping to fund this trip.

We all had a great time at our first Meriden Community Cafe on Wednesday 17th July at the Meriden Community Centre.

The Cafe is hosted by the Meriden Community Centre and the Meriden Residents Association.

Join us every Wednesday for refreshments, friendly chat and free internet access.

Drop in from 9.30am to 12pm (Wednesdays) at the Meriden Community Centre. It will be lovely to see you and everyone is welcome

It was great that the Meriden Residents Association (MRA) was asked to be a part of making this video.

Every year, the first week of June is dedicated to celebrating the fantastic work of volunteers across the country.

Watford Community Housing say ‘We might be biased, but we think our volunteer groups are the best ones out there – so we made a video to highlight their amazing work!’

Thank you for all those of you that came to join our litter pick at the Meriden park on Saturday 13th April. This was part of the Keep Britain Tidy campaign “Great British Spring Clean”. There were about 27 of us which was more than double the number we had last year.

We had both adults and children and great fun was had by all. We collected lots of bags for recycling as well as general waste.

At the end of the litter pick, we joined in Random Cafe’s event at the Meriden Community Centre (MCC) which we can highly recommend. Random Cafe meets on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month from 1 to 3pm at the MCC. Random Cafe provides delicious lunches, homemade cake (the bread pudding made with chocolate croissants was to die for) donated cakes and food that you can take away, you just put a donation in the pot.

There was a great community atmosphere, and the MRA held an Easter Bonnet competition and the four winners won a cuddly bunny or a lamb along with an Easter egg.

Everyone was invited to take home an Easter egg at the end of the day as a gift from the MRA.

We would like to thank John and Sarah from our sweet shop, Martin’s, for kindly donating the prize eggs. Our thanks also go to our local Co-op and ASDA for donating some of the eggs that we gave away at the end of the afternoon. Our thanks also go to the Meriden Community Centre for allowing us use of the large hall at no cost and to Veolia for loaning us your litter picking sets. Thanks to our new committee member, Piyush, for taking the photos.

The Living Room Watford Centre is now open at the Meriden Community Hub, 149 York Way, Watford, Herts, WD25 9UF. It is open from Monday to Thursday and hosts daytime group therapy for all addictions and a support group for Family and Carers.

Their vision is a future where people with the illness of addiction are able to live their lives free from an addiction to drugs, alcohol or behaviours, becoming contributing citizens in society.

At The Living Room, they maintain that on-going recovery from addiction is possible with a range of cognitive tools and the appropriate support networks.

Main addiction group

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 10.30am – 12pm and 1pm – 2.30pm

Family and Carers group

Wednesday 10.30am – 12pm and 1pm – 2.30pm

They are now taking referrals from local residents. You can book an appointment by calling 0300 365 0304. All calls are handled in strict confidence. Alternatively, please fill in their Enquiries Form.

For further information you can email: watford@livingroomherts.org

Working towards making Watford a Dementia Friendly Community, the Watford Dementia partnership would like to hear your views on living with, or caring for, a family member or friend with dementia. 

They are interested to know what you think about Watford as a place for someone with dementia and to better understand what might help make it more dementia friendly.

You can fill in the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Dementia-Survey-2019