Lieutenant Governor visits KGV community centre

The organisations based at KGV were delighted to welcome the Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant General Richard Cripwell and Mrs Cripwell to the community centre last month. Headway, The Guernsey Community Foundation, the Health Improvement Commission and the KGV team all operate from the site, and each do vital work for the local community. 

Stuart Falla, retiring Chairman, and Jonathan Creasey new Chairman of the Friends of KGV Limited, spoke with His Excellency and Mrs Cripwell about the history and transformation of KGV. The KGV playing fields were left in trust to the people of Guernsey and the facility has charitable status, being run as a not-for-profit venture. The site has been developed to become a community centre and home to several local charities, which were all visited by His Excellency and Mrs Cripwell. With a recently opened café and an ever-improving nature trial, the centre continues to expand welcoming regular and new visitors alike.

Headway is a local charity supporting islanders and their families who are living with the long-term effects of brain injury. His Excellency and Mrs Cripwell met Executive Director Philippa Stahelin and Services Director Orla-Marie Manning and were keen to find out more about how serious brain injury had affected the lives of the members Headway supports. They saw how members were overcoming serious challenges, dealing with barriers but most importantly, preparing for and accepting their new lives following brain injury. 

The Health Improvement Commission works to empower, enable and encourage healthy living though five workstreams, ‘Eat Well’, ‘Healthier Weight’, ‘Be Active’, ‘Substance Use’ and ‘Bailiwick Social Prescribing’. His Excellency and Mrs Cripwell met Chief Executive Officer, Dr Simon Sebire and leads from each workstream who presented their individual work to improve health. The guests asked questions and learned about the different approaches taken and were very interested in Bailiwick Social Prescribing’s work in the community.

Finally, His Excellency and Mrs Cripwell met Sir Richard Collas and Jim Roberts, Chair and Chief Executive, respectively, of the Guernsey Community Foundation, and the rest of the Foundation team. 

The Foundation works to improve the quality of Island life, especially for those most in need. It does this by awarding grants to charities, supporting the third sector and undertaking social policy projects. The visitors were keen to hear about the challenges facing the third sector and interested in finding out more about the actions being taken by the Foundation following the publication of its homelessness report, which they were already familiar with.