Welcome back to a quick update of an event I participated in. As you might already know, I have a Carers Stall which I use for raising awareness of unpaid carers. The stall is often located at hospitals or events.

This time I took the stall to a festival over in the London Borough of Southwark. The Camberwell Feel Good Festival returned for Summer 2024 with two Saturday festival events, packed full of fun and engaging health and wellbeing activities, free food and music, and vital support services for all ages.

With support from Catherine Gamble who is a fellow at the Royal College of Nursing, there was various stalls promoting wellbeing, information and information to make attendees feel good. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas, but I was amazed at the turnout.

However my stall contained information from Carers UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, Parkinsons UK and Southwark Carers which provides support to unpaid carers in the borough of Southwark.

The Event Highlights at the festival are listed below:

• Yoga, tai chi and physical exercise for all ages
• Mindful arts and crafts stalls
• Children’s active fun and games
• Free lunch and pantry from local food charities
• Children’s no-cook food workshop
• Live music and choirs
• Health support services stands
• Gardening & food growing workshops
• NHS physical and mental health advice and support

We also had some Members of the RCN lived experience group helping our with their own stalls and I was delighted to meet Hannah Cadogan who showed me the quilt she made during the pandemic to raise awareness. She also showed the book that promoted the quilt called “The Making of the Cassel Quilt”

It was not long before I checked out some other stalls located next to my carer stall which I shared with Catherine.

The Maudsley NHS and Kings college NHS stalls were out promoting health and wellbeing. This stall was smoking cessation and I actually took a CO2 lung test to see how healthy my lungs were.

Also at the feel good festival was the Maudsley Gallery, which provided arts and crafts for young children. Children were making shakers to go along with the music at the festival.

I then explored other stalls located at Camberwell Green park.

All in all, I had an excellent time helping to promote wellbeing, advice and information. I would like to thank Catherine for involving me and SE5 Forum for putting on an excellent festival.