Our amazing Sarah Collins, charity director at First Touch for 20 years left us for greener pastures in Dorset 6 months ago. We keenly miss Sarah at the charity, and we know that there will be many families and members of the First Touch community out there who remember her will be keen to hear how she’s getting on. So here’s Sarah’s update! It’s no surprise that she is putting her energy, joy and imagination to good use!
Living in Wareham is wonderful, although our house is currently without a shower, bath or working oven! Hopefully this will all be rectified over the next few weeks.
I have a job in Swanage library, and you’ll find me among the books each Friday morning singing and reading stories to babies and under fives at Rhyme Time. (My ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ with puppets is legendary in Swanage now!) As a youngster I told my family I’d like to become a librarian or an archeologist, so this library work is a dream come true for me. As well as stamping books we also devise and run craft workshops for adults and children, hold chess & board game clubs, and we visit schools to encourage the love of reading; The last part is a super link to the Books For Babies scheme we created at First Touch, with the monthly book gifts to every baby at the neonatal unit. As Sonja knows only too well, I do fail spectacularly on the IT/computer support part of my role – but I hope I’ll get better at that! And be assured that I wore purple to work on the Saturday and Monday closest to World Prematurity Day (‘You can take the woman out of the nnu but you can’t take the nnu out of the woman’!)
I volunteer at REX cinema, and hope to be trained as a projectionist in the new year. I’ve also been volunteering at Wareham Town Museum (now closed for the winter months) and at the local Weldmar Hospice charity shop, meeting new people and learning lots about the area.
We are completely spoilt with beautiful countryside dog walks and the Jurassic coast, and I wake up every morning in awe of nature and the changing seasons.
I miss you all, and I hope you remember me fondly. I know that my colleagues are ensuring that First Touch goes from strength to strength and that the vital support for precious babies, their families and the magnificent staff who take care of them continues and grows.
Have a beautiful festive season (I’ll be sending First Touch charity Christmas cards, as ever!) and a healthy 2025 everyone!
