Yorkshire

Royal Voluntary Service in Kirklees

For this Volunteering Spotlight, we spoke to Kerry Evans, Community Development and Engagement Worker for the Royal Voluntary Service in Kirklees.

The Women’s Voluntary Services for Air Raid Precautions was founded by Lady Stella Reading in 1938 and assisted civilians during and after air raids. It quickly became the largest volunteering organisation in British History, with over 1 million women volunteering by the end of the Second World War. 

It’s since evolved into the Royal Voluntary Service, and today provides various activities and services for people over 50, aiming to alleviate loneliness and isolation. They’re often known for shops in hospitals and have recently been involved with the NHS Responder Programme throughout the pandemic.

As Kerry puts it, the Royal Voluntary Service has always been in Kirklees “in various guises, but the funding after Jo’s sad death was something we were able to then just push on and really develop our offering.”

Batley & Spen currently has a range of groups where older people can “participate in food-related and chair-based activities, or just a general coffee and a chat”. 

All the groups are volunteer-led, with volunteers making the decisions. It’s an ethos Kerry holds in high regard, “it’s better when local, and local people then know what each area needs.”

In her words, Kerry provides guidance and assistance to support volunteers through a “minefield of compliance”, dealing with volunteer recruitment, promotion of groups, and looking for funding pots. It lets volunteers “run a group rather than worry about a DBS renewal,” making the experience for them more enjoyable. After all, “they’re giving their time, free of charge and they’ve got to be able to enjoy the time that they are giving and have fun.”

But that’s not all the Royal Voluntary Service and their 80 Kirklees volunteers do. For people who can’t get out of their homes, there’s a befriender service, which stretches across Kirklees. It’s how Kerry got her start in the service as a volunteer, where she had an eye-opening experience:

“I thought they’d recruit me and then try and find me somebody. That was not the case at all. We had an extensive waitlist throughout the whole of Kirklees…there were 60 or 70 people waiting for somebody to go and visit them and that shook me to my core. I could not believe we had that number of older people who were so lonely.”

It’s one of the reasons Kerry recommends volunteering to others, “I got as much from it as the member did…If you’re thinking about it, give it a go. There’s an awful lot of wonderful organisations out there looking for help…Out of all our lives, can we not find an hour to go and just cheer up an older person?”

And you’ll be well supported. Volunteers can sometimes get lost in an organisation as big as the Royal Voluntary Service, but here the journey is as supportive and engaging as possible. It includes regular bulletins, quick calls to check how a volunteer is getting along, and training modules to support them. It can be an incredibly rewarding experience and vital to providing a spark to people within your community.

One such occasion was when two volunteers of the Batley Lunch Club went “above and beyond” during the lockdowns after their activities were cancelled. They didn’t want the members to lose the social connections they had formed or feel isolated without their regular meetups. So, the two volunteers made weekly calls to the members of the Lunch Group:

“What they did is that they split the list and swapped it around each week, so at least the member was hearing a different voice every week. But they did that week in, week out. [They] did not miss throughout the whole of the COVID lockdown, through Christmas, new year, other holidays”.

The two volunteers even did shopping support and took gifts for every single Lunch Group member at Christmas and easter. As Kerry says: 

“It was amazing to see what they did to keep that group together. And as soon as the restrictions were eased and we could get back, they were the first group back.”

Whether you want to join a session or volunteer, the Royal Voluntary Service has posters up in local places with a list of activities, but you can also follow them via Facebook and Twitter. You can contact Kerry at 01924 446100 or email [email protected].

“If there’s ever anybody who has a particular idea of a group they might be interested in, whether it’s crafts or whatever, let’s see what we can do to develop that together.”

Streetbikes CIC – “Make friends, improve health, have fun”

For this Volunteering Spotlight, we spoke to Sally, David, and Richard from Streetbikes.

A key obstacle to cycling is having access to a bicycle. It can be a costly expense for many families, preventing adults and children from taking up the sport. Gill and David Greaves realised this and began “picking up bikes from local tips, that had been thrown away,” to refurbish, recycle, and give away to kids in deprived neighbourhoods and from deprived families. As well as reducing unwanted waste, they banded together with avid cyclists to hold regular community rides on the Spen-Valley Greenway and this evolved into Streetbikes.

Streetbikes CIC enables people of “all ages, all abilities, and all disabilities” to cycle safely using adapted and non-adapted bikes. They do this through a few main projects: their “flagship” Mixed Ability cycling sessions at the Spen Valley Running track, community rides on the Greenway, Learn to Ride sessions, and affordable bikes available to purchase. 

The unique mixed ability sessions take place every Tuesday and Saturday, with no booking required. It costs £5 per person and regularly has attendees from Sowerby Bridge and further using the service. As Sally points out, “it’s quite cost-effective and affordable,” with anyone who has special or additional needs getting “up to two carers that can come for free”. 

Streetbikes are able to keep its projects going strong with such a small staff team because of its invaluable volunteers, who are more than just “people who can ride a bike”. Their effectiveness lies in the way “they interact, the social side of it, the engagement, how they talk to people, how they understand people”. As Sally notes, these small interactions really help to bring everyone together:

“I’ve got my [Huddersfield] Town hat on here and there’s a couple of people that come down and they’re Leeds fans and we have a little bit of banter. it’s just a nice place to be and everyone’s equal at this point, it doesn’t matter if you’re staff or volunteer.” 

It’s something that David, or Bondy as he’s known, has felt since he joined the group. Bondy has been cycling all his life and joined the group in 2016, a year after he retired. He had “seen the spotted jumpers on the Greenway on the rides…and I thought, that’s something I wouldn’t mind doing…My mum used to say ‘here, our David, he were riding a bike before he could walk’.” 

He felt, like many volunteers, he had “a lot to give back” and an experience he could share with others, “I had a right natter with myself and I came down one day and had a look around, and I was blown away with the adapted bikes and what we have here… I’m a big softie with kids and adults with disabilities… I were near to tears.”

It’s become “a lot of fun” for him, and he’s loved meeting new people that come down. As we sat indoors looking out at the relentless rain, he pointed out a lady cycling around the track on an adapted bike and a volunteer to keep her company. She’s a regular, coming to Streetbikes every week without fail, “she’s so stubborn, that she comes down here, and she’s probably done about 20 or 30 laps in pouring rain.” For him, it’s been one the best moments of his time volunteering at Streetbikes, “It’s being able to engage with somebody like that, to encourage them like that and be here to help them as well.”

This type of attitude isn’t a one-off from the people that use Streetbikes’ services. It’s possibly the only place they can cycle “traffic free” without fear of being stranded 3 miles on their bike and having to make their own way back. As Sally often says, “Everyone who comes has got their own story.”

Bondy works to train new volunteers, both adults and teenagers, for Streetbikes, ensuring they have the right skills to help all those that attend the sessions. For Bondy, training children has been a learning curve, but it’s all about “giving them something that they might not get. They’re coming down here, they’re getting life skills, I get them to engage with the customers that come down here, they’re learning about bicycles, they’re learning about themselves, and they’re taking away something from here I hope will help them in adult life.” 

Another volunteer, Richard has had a similar story to Bondy. Having joined in 2019, he had “a few skills and it’s just nice to give a bit back”. Like Bondy, and many other Streetbikes volunteers, he’s seen first-hand how vital the cycling sessions have been in developing confidence in people and helped him appreciate the little things in his life.

Richard has found “being valued” and “being accepted as the crew” one of his best moments of being a volunteer and would recommend it to anyone. He adds: 

“Along with other things, it’s a reason to get out of bed on a morning. And when you get a bit older, you need that motivation and a good sort of wellbeing feeling.”

It’s a sentiment Sally agrees with. She loves “coming down here and seeing people improve,” and “helping people do things that they perhaps didn’t think they could”. It’s having volunteers that feel involved and part of it that really helps put smiles on faces. 

Whether you want to volunteer, relearn how to ride, get in your weekly exercise, or just make new friends, it’s easy to do that at Streetbikes. Everyone’s welcome to attend a session, where you can talk to Sally or other volunteers. You can find out more about Streetbikes by keeping an eye out for their leaflets or following them on Twitter and Facebook. You can also call Sally on 07873773417, email [email protected] or visit their website.

“One thing I can guarantee is that as long as I’ve got breath in my body and I am able to get out and get here, I will be here. And I think that I speak generally for the others, that there is a passion and commitment down here from everybody, all the staff and volunteers and we will do our utmost to keep this going.”

6 million+ – “Stories of refuge, projects of hope”

For this Volunteering Spotlight, we spoke to Kim Strickson, one of the founders of 6 million+.

6 million+ Charitable Trust is a creative arts project working with refugees and local communities to exchange stories of the Holocaust, genocides, and contemporary persecution at home and abroad. They do this by creating temporary art installations and events that commemorate Jews and other minorities killed in the Holocaust and continuing genocides to “challenge discrimination of any kind and work towards a kinder future.”

The project evolved from an annual Holocaust Memorial Day held by Kirklees Council, which included community participation. In 2005, an art installation was created for Huddersfield Art Gallery, with over 6 million buttons, to illustrate the scale of the Holocaust and genocides since. It’s “a very important aspect,” says Kim, “As well as the Holocaust, we were remembering Bosnia, we were looking at Kurdistan…Burundi and also Rwanda”.

The community donated the buttons, which almost numbered 7 million by the time it was completed. This eventually evolved into 6 million+, to expand the work beyond one event and carry out a range of “projects that actively involved communities together with refugees”.

6 million+ achieve this by holding workshops in the run-up to events such as Holocaust Memorial Day or Remembering Srebrenica. The workshops help to bridge the divides between people from different communities through arts-based interactions, allowing for the sharing of cultures, languages and that all-important component of any relationship, food.

It’s something Kim’s seen in action at every workshop and event she’s run. Previously, people have brewed special tea and coffee related to their culture that “allowed people to have conversations around the table”. It created a crucial icebreaker that lets anyone and everyone get involved.

Kim also has fond memories of a recent event for Remembering Srebrenica where she asked everyone to bring bread from their culture:

“Everybody brought a decorated basket with their bread, including the Ukrainians, so that was particularly poignant. And we had the big Bosnian weeping sister [puppet], and I don’t know, there was something about them all reaching up to her with their breads and the hands coming down. That’s all it was, it was very simple, but it was really moving. And then we ate the breads with the foods that the Bosnians had made later. It just felt really lovely.” 

The Weeping Sisters

One of their largest pieces of work (quite literally) has been the Weeping Sisters, 7 giant figures, created over several years by local people, artists, refugees, and students in West Yorkshire. Each puppet takes 4-5 people to operate but is an incredible visual display of the work 6 million+ do. 

The idea came from Adam Strickson, Kim’s husband, who volunteers for 6 million+. Whilst intimate indoor events for days of commemoration happened at Kirklees town halls and the University of Huddersfield, the attendees included people who were either impacted or aware of genocides and persecution happening globally. Adam realised something needed to highlight the issues beyond those working with and supporting refugees and migrants. They needed an “on-the-street presence to get people’s attention,” and create an atmosphere to reach outside this circle of attendees. And so, the idea of a big Weeping Sister puppet was born.

Very quickly, one puppet turned into two, which turned into seven. With each new puppet, a new community of local people and refugees were brought together, “with more people coming forward” for each one. It’s one of the best things that Kim has seen come out of the project:

“I think that’s been the most significant development, in terms of people working on them, making them, but also the effect it’s had on people outside on the streets.”

The Weeping Sisters have an annual procession or appearance with music alternating between Dewsbury and Huddersfield, where it captures the audience’s imagination and brings to life the work of 6 million+.

But that’s not all. The Sisters have even been on the road, with five sisters attending the Big Ideas by the Sea Festival in Scarborough during the summer of 2022, where they shared stories, music and theatre to encourage people to think about and empathise with asylum seekers throughout the last century.

Unfortunately, due to storage and the sheer number of people required to manoeuvre each one, there won’t be any new Weeping Sisters any time soon. But, Kim has left the door ajar to making something else for the streets.

So, how can you get involved?

The next big event for 6 million+ is Holocaust Memorial Day, where they will have an event outside and inside Dewsbury Town Hall. They’ll be running workshops throughout January that will take place on Sunday afternoons, focusing on this year’s theme of (Extra)Ordinary People. It will explore the role of bystanders and ordinary people, not only during the Holocaust and other genocides but in everyday situations where people may be discriminated against for being different. 

“It focuses on the individual and people who have experienced some kind of persecution trauma, but also the rescuers and the helpers, particularly in this country. When people have arrived, who’s actually put their hand out, reached out and welcomed them.”

For Kim, the line between a participant and volunteer, especially at the workshops, is so fine, it’s invisible, “people who participate are also volunteering…because everybody’s learning and everybody’s teaching in the organisation.”

The events have “performances that rely on very few words, but are quite visual, so it overcomes language barriers between people who are actually doing it together as well as with people who are watching”. It means everybody, of any age, language, or background can get involved, with no special skills required: “You don’t have to be a skilled anything you don’t have to be a skilled artist or a skilled performer…you just need to want to do it”.

The workshops are all about:

“people learning from one another’s stories. So, it may be a refugee story, but equally, it could be a story of somebody who is a migrant; who’s family are migrants; or people who are just living in Kirklees that want to hear those stories, share them, and share their own as well. Everybody has a story to tell, it doesn’t matter where they come from.”

6 million+ are always looking to work with new people and groups to commemorate the Holocaust, genocides and contemporary persecution at home and abroad, challenging discrimination of any kind and working towards a kinder future.

To find out how you can get involved, you are warmly invited to contact [email protected]. Alternatively, follow them on Twitter and Facebook, look out for their posters or visit their website to get updates on their upcoming projects. 

For this Volunteering Spotlight, we spoke to Sharron Wilkinson, Founder of Give…A Few Words.

The lockdown was an incredibly challenging period for many, especially people living in care homes. Without family and friends, the residents became increasingly isolated, and that’s where inspiration struck for Sharron:

“I was working for a charity, and it came about from a care home contacting us saying that the residents were really isolated and they weren’t going to see family and friends at that point, so could we think of anything to try and alleviate some of that isolation? And this idea of letter writing came up, and then it just completely snowballed.”

And snowball it did. With hundreds of volunteer letter writers rising to the challenge, the idea of letter writing grew and transformed into Give…A Few Words, a Community Interest Company aiming to “reduce social isolation and improve social connections within the community” through letter writing, surprise pop-up events and their Give…A Few Words Network Meetings.

Give…A Few Words organises volunteers across the country to write letters, make crafts, and create art. These can either be done at pop-up workshops, submitted online, or sent to Give…A Few Words PO BOX. The completed gifts of letters are bundled up and sent out monthly to care homes, charities, and even workplaces in Kirklees and Calderdale.

“Workplace loneliness is a thing as well with people working from home…there’s a batch of letters we send out, so people don’t just receive one letter, they actually receive an envelope with 4 or 5 different letters and arts and crafts and all sorts of things.”

There’s a real “diversity to it,” says Sharron, “because every single letter or craft or anything that comes in is unique to the person that’s done it…You’re getting this bundle of loveliness really from different people.” 

Sharron believes that negative messages can be overpowering, and it’s vital to try and change that narrative “so that we’re receiving more positive messages. I think with this, it epitomises the best of humanity really. You’re seeing the kindest of people. You’re seeing compassion. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and think I’m really lucky to be able to work on this. ”

She sees this flowing positivity every day, concluding, “People are nice. I think sometimes we’re given that people aren’t that, but generally, most people – people involved in this – are really lovely.” 

The roughly 500 volunteers hail from across the country, and even the world, with writers in Paris, Mexico, America, and Canada giving their time to bring a little joy to the residents of Kirklees and Calderdale. However, this number doesn’t cover the letters and crafts arriving from local businesses and schools, or during regular workshops and campaigns, where volunteers could number into the thousands. It’s one of the best things Sharron has seen grow out of the project.

“Every time I open a letter from somebody, I’m just always really humbled that somebody will write to somebody that they don’t know and they’ll go to so much effort for nothing in return…the amount of effort and the amount that people put into the letters that they send…I’m humbled by that.” 

The letters and crafts they send cover a whole host of topics, “anything you can think of. They’ve written about history, films, movies, usual, sports, football, and rugby. More unusual things, floods, things that have happened, steam trains…people have sent their own artwork.”

So, how can you get involved?

Sharron is keen to collaborate and expand letter writing across Kirklees and Calderdale. She’s always looking for volunteers to get involved in writing letters, which you can do by signing up on the Give…A Few Words website with a list of your interests. You’ll then be matched up with someone with similar interests.

If you’re local to Kirklees, there are author and creative workshops bringing volunteers together and collection boxes where you can drop off handmade crafts or handwritten messages. Sharron has seen how uplifting the workshops and letter writing can be to the writers, helping them to be more positive in their lives, “It’s really helped them out to focus on something positive and be a little bit mindful as well. It’s an activity you can come in, sit in a coffee shop and just have an hour and just write something.”

Charities, care homes, workplaces, and other organisations can similarly sign up for individuals to receive letters. All Give…A Few Words needs is the first name and interests of the recipient. From a safeguarding perspective, letter writers don’t have the full name, location, or any other personal recipient details.

Letter bundles go out monthly, and there’s no obligation for volunteers to write each month, providing an accessible opportunity for everyone. Each bundle can be incredibly uplifting to someone feeling isolated, giving them a “massive boost,” that recipients can “come back to them again and again. So every time they need that bit of a boost and that happens again.”

For Sharron, one “impressive” moment over the last few years has stuck firmly in her mind. A lady from Derbyshire who writes with her husband always seems to craft something different and send in different “creative things every single time”. On one occasion, she was writing to a visually impaired woman who went through some floods in Holmfirth in the 1940s. After doing some research, “she wrote a letter that she actually made a cushion cover and then out of this cushion cover, she’d done like the river in corduroy and then something else in velvet. Basically, because she knew the lady was visually impaired, she’d be able to feel the textures when she felt this cushion and that related to the story.”

For further information and to find out more about Give…A Few Words letter-writing campaigns and workshops, you can follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, or visit their website. Additionally, you can contact Sharron directly at [email protected] if you have any queries.

“It’s a really simple thing to be able to do. One postcard, one craft, one drawing. It’s something you can do with your family. We’ve got quite a lot of couples doing it together, and they really enjoy doing it, talking about who they’re writing to, and it’s given them a bit of a common interest. It’s for anybody. Anybody can get involved. You can do as much or as little as you like, but actually, every single thing we get sent makes a difference to somebody else.”

For this Volunteering Spotlight, we spoke to Natalia, the coordinator for PeerTalk support groups in West Yorkshire.

PeerTalk is a registered UK charity providing in-person peer support for groups of individuals experiencing depression, anxiety, and related distress. They currently have 16 support groups in England, with 2 in Kirklees, taking place in Batley and Huddersfield.

Typically meeting once a week, two trained volunteers facilitate each support group. Whilst they don’t provide therapy, they ensure a safe space and environment enabling attendees to share their experiences.

“Essentially what our volunteers do is they use their active listening skills and paraphrase and summarise what an attendee has shared in a meeting and they open up the group a little bit more to ask other people if they have any advice, any coping strategies that they can advise of.”

The support groups are open to everyone aged 18+, regardless of gender, with no waiting lists, referrals, or bookings required. “People can just come along,” says Natalia, “They can give it a go, and if they don’t like it they don’t have to come again, so it’s kind of a non-pressure environment, which I think is really good.”

PeerTalk is dedicated to ensuring everyone has a non-judgemental space to share their lived experiences, whether they’re regulars or only attend for a short while. The facilitators are always on hand to listen, even if nobody comes to a session for a few weeks, “our volunteers are still there waiting for the first half an hour of the meeting or so, waiting to welcome people and we don’t give up. So we are there every single week, no matter what.”

Given the demand for mental health services in the UK, Natalia believes organisations like PeerTalk can work to alleviate the pressure on the NHS, providing an option for people who might benefit from low-intensity, talking support. It’s supported by a recent evaluation conducted by Sheffield Hallam University that brought together a focus group of PeerTalk attendees to discuss their experiences. 

Many of them shared similar sentiments in the evaluation. By having a place to talk, be heard, and find out they’re not alone in their struggles, the PeerTalk groups triggered a sense of self-worth, purpose and meaning. They could apply coping strategies shared by their peers experiencing similar issues, giving a sense of camaraderie and creating a positive impact on their lives and well-being.

“We know that we are actually valued by other people, but we do not always feel it, so, to go and share with people and hear them share gives you that real– yes, it’s that high five together, all for one, one for all kind of thing, musketeers.”

Additionally, they meet with their volunteer facilitators every 8 weeks to provide support and help them carry out their role with confidence, as well as discuss the support group and understand the current issues facing the attendees. Each volunteer goes through a training process, with training days typically taking place in each area once a year.

All someone has to do to volunteer, says Natalia, is get in touch, “our volunteering application system is open all year round. So, all volunteers have to do is go on our website.”

Once you’ve filled out the application form and provided a couple of references, you’ll be invited to a training day and asked to “commit to 18 months of volunteering”. While each support group will have between 6-9 volunteers facilitating 3-4 sessions per quarter, a long-term commitment ensures the sustainability of the groups and provides familiar faces for attendees. 

Volunteers are incredibly important to the self-sustainability aim and functioning of PeerTalk, which has only a handful of staff. With around 120 volunteers in the UK and 40 in West Yorkshire, they’re vital in creating a place for attendees to rediscover and develop their confidence as they talk freely about their experience without fear of judgement. As one participant said in the Evaluation report, “So, you are in a safe space, and you have not got anybody there that is going to judge what you are saying, and nobody is going to laugh because you felt a particular way in a particular situation or you watched Yogi Bear and cried because it made you think of something else.”

And volunteers will play a critical part in the future of PeerTalk too. Their initial aim was to set up 100 support groups across England, ensuring “one support group that is accessible to everyone, so it’s within like travelling distance…so we could provide the support to as many people as possible.”

Having started as a PeerTalk volunteer facilitator in Bradford, Natalia thinks volunteering is a great thing to do. “I think because you choose to volunteer yourself, you can pick out the opportunity that’s best for you, but I think the advice I would give is to research the kind of thing you would be doing.”

If you’re looking to join a support group in Kirklees, the Batley support group takes place every Wednesday 11:30am-12:30pm at Jo Cox House and the Huddersfield support group is on Thursdays 7:30pm-9pm at The Lounge, St Paul’s Methodist Church.

For further information and discover how to join a PeerTalk support group or volunteer your time, you can follow them on Twitter, Facebook, or visit their website. Additionally, you can email them at [email protected] if you have any queries.

Batley Poets – “Everyone’s a Batley Poet” 

For this Volunteering Spotlight, we spoke to Mohamed, Batley Poets co-founder, and Jem, a regular Batley Poet. 

Batley Poets are a poetry group hosting regular open-mic sessions, creating displays, and running poetry projects. Their website hosts more than 200 poems by over 60 local people. Their aim has always been to provide “a platform for bedroom poets to share their poetry”. 

They first gathered in 2012 at the inaugural Batley Festival. Mark, another co-founder, organised a poetry session in Batley Library, bringing together a handful of local poets. Mohamed attended his first session a year later and fondly remembers how the group formed.

“At the end of 2014, when we were putting things away, both Mark and myself thought this needs to be something more than an annual get-together at the Batley Festival. So it was at that moment we coined the name Batley Poets. That’s where it begins.”

Since then, the group has grown, with 20+ people attending each session. They’ve published a poetry book and undertaken various poetry projects such as the Bench Poets, Poems of Hope Tour, and Poets in Parliament, which was a highlight for Mohamed and the group.

They meet regularly throughout the year to celebrate important events like International Women’s Day, South Asian Heritage Month, and their annual Inter Faith Week event at Batley Library. During the lockdowns, their online sessions attracted poets from across the country and even as far as Chicago. 

Mohamed thinks the group’s strengths lie in their free-flowing and relaxed approach.

“The first time you read with the Batley Poets, it feels very natural. It feels very comfortable. There’s a lot of places where you can feel quite uncomfortable and feel a lot of pressure to perform.”

By his admission, the poetry sessions “seem a bit loose and unplanned”, but it’s an intentional ploy to give people the confidence to perform their poetry.

“Take South Asian Heritage Month. One person decided to compose their first poem while listening and came laughingly to the mic to read it. Whilst reading it you realised how insightful it was.”

It’s a notion that Jem agrees with and thinks if you want to share your poetry, you should just do it.

“There’s always a moment in a reading where I’m just blown away, and I think wow you’ve got something! It’s the constant discovery of other people’s work which otherwise I wouldn’t hear.”

Jem’s foray into poetry properly took hold when he and his wife decided to play a bigger part in Batley-life the year after Jo Cox’s murder. Having not long moved to the town, they attended the first Batley Iftar in 2017 where the Batley Poets performed in front of a fairly packed and sunny memorial garden.

“After the performance, I went up to Mohamed and asked, so ‘how do you get to be a Batley Poet?’ and he said the immortal words ‘do you like poetry?’ and I said ‘yes’ and he said, ‘well you’re in then.’ Literally, a month or two later I went to the first reading.”

It’s a story that many poets have when it comes to joining the Batley Poets. All sessions are free to attend, with no booking or membership needed. There’s no expectation to share anything, with many attendees choosing to listen.

Free, friendly, and informal sessions are crucial for Mohamed and a core part of what makes Batley Poets tick, “I’ve been writing for many years, but I never felt that I had the opportunity to share my poetry, and I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”

It becomes more important considering the impact of poetry on people. For Jem, the effects were enormous, helping to boost his confidence – not just as a poet, but as a person. Performance poetry has given him a new hobby, new friends, and an opportunity to share his words with hundreds of people.

“I can stand up anywhere and do five minutes [of poetry]. I’ve done standup comedy now and stuff like that, which I never thought I’d do. It’s been a dream, it’s all really been down to the Batley Poets, the confidence it’s given me to do that sort of thing. It’s added an extra dimension to my life.”

Mohamed sees the group’s future as continuing to grow and moving beyond Batley whilst staying true to who they are. “Batley Poets is not there to hold everybody into one platform. It’s a platform to free people”.

You can find out when the Batley Poets are meeting next by following them online on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They also have an active website, where they’ll post details of their upcoming events, projects, and share poetry submitted by local poets. You can contact them at [email protected] or message them via social media.

“Batley Poets is about giving a platform to bedroom poets to share their poetry, at a session, via the website, or tagging us on social media. We’re quite happy to get people’s poetry out there.”