Spring Blossoms

Break the bias through stories

International Women's Day 

March is the month for Ms Rose Blossom, it's the month of International Women's Day/Women's History Month and when this blog began, nine years ago. I've had remarkable opportunities to empower girls and young women ( boys also included) at primary, secondary schools and library centres as a storyteller and author, encouraging them to aspire higher and believe they can fly from World Book Day/Week to the month end. Sharing my own journey and other stories of fly girls/ pioneer women it was delightful to see how much of a positive impact a good story can make. I was also fortunate to be recruited on to the BBC 100 years of storytelling tour around the UK, with the aim to encourage the next generation into storytelling careers.

How awards can help writers growth

Queen's Honours Awards

Reflecting on June's journey in my work of girls and women empowerment I humbly received the honour of a BEM award from the Queen's Honour birthday list, this prompted me to do a blog post to share the importance of accepting awards and why one should. Whilst working to support women and girls in the community is a vocation and not expectant of awards, there is also a joy of being celebrated and your work recognised. The Prime Minister officially acknowledges the panel's shortlisted candidates, after the government hands them over to the Queen who has the final approval. Why would one dismiss the awards under Order of the British Empire? Well, one reason Black Asian and Ethnic Minorities, BAME people do not accept these awards is because of the title being associated with empire? 

How to improve your Creative Confidence- National Writing Day

A short story during the lockdown and some tips

On this scorching morning, a collective of emerging writers arose to the sun's rays. Their minds in sync, overcoming the fear of coming out as a writer on national writing day,  the hottest day of the year of 2020. They logged in to ZOOM one by one, the natural order of the day nowadays on lockdown. Stories shared, and the passion of creativity connected the participants. In suspense, we as a group of promising writers now wait to see the outcomes from today, as they churn away creating their works.

Run Together : COVID-19

Stay Socially Connected

Fly Girls UK - Stronger Together

On Tuesday going on information by our governing body England Athletics and Public Health England we suspended our social meetings, run activities and so forth until April because of COVID19. It was disheartening to hear that the epidemic would cancel our meetings until further notice and social distancing is the order of the day. Our members had recently returned to join the Spring Season Sunday meetings after long-term injuries and were looking forward to exciting expeditions along the canals and further afield.

Over the years members have made friends and bonded and also made Fly Girls Wellness Sunday morning activities their routine. In the same vein, emerging writers and others who attend the writing workshops for wellbeing enjoyed the benefits of meeting each other and new people to share writing and discuss topics they write about in a trusting space. So the news of postponed activities hit everyone hard.

How we celebrate IWD 2020

Each for Equal with Fly Girls

We are in our favourite period celebrating International Women's Day, Week, Month and looking forward to the year 2020 for the Fly Girls Wellness project.

On Sunday 8th, International Women's Day Fly Girls be active walk & run group met for Sunday celebrations after our regular run, to share stories and have a healthy drink, it was cheering to all who took part in the Vitality Big Half Marathon, and a special cheers to three of our first time half marathoners.

Our first-timers are still smiling since the 1st March, they say running uplifts you and we know that buzz you get afterward. However, our team are feeling on a high for their achievements, Jackie a very easy going gentle paced runner had recently started training for the event and had a smashing time of 2hrs and 34 mins, running most of the race and walking the last 3 miles.

National Storytelling Week

Celebrating Multicultural Stories

Amanda Epe at Rich Mix

The first of February marks National Storytelling Week, a great tool for building confidence and self-esteem. We are more familiar with storytelling as a vocal art, and then as the written art. Telling is to speak to the public, the receivers of the story being listeners, similarly, readers say of tales and literature "the story is telling us..." so we can agree that storytelling is telling stories through public speaking or writing.

The mission of storytellers are to spin a sequence of events from beginning to end with an underlying message, mission, and solution. We all love to tell narratives of our own, as "everyone has a story in them," alternatively sharing other people's stories and folktales are highly popular for storytellers. We cannot define storytelling in this correct way or that way, each culture has its own version of telling. Great vocal storytelling, however, uses other art forms to make the delivery more interesting and entertaining, such as gesture and movement, and writers "show and don't tell" with their words.

National Reading Day 2020

Book Chat and Book Recommendations

Happier by Tal Ben Shahar

At the start of the new year we set goals to do a number of things to improve ourselves in personal or professional development. One of the goals I've set over the years is to read more, did I set time aside? That's another question. A smart goal is to read a book a month especially if you are in a book club that have monthly meetings. So being in our book group it is mandatory to read at least one book a month. Within the Creative Writing Workshop and Book Group at SEIDs Hub, Wembley we discuss books that we've read and enjoyed and want to share it/them with others.

Climbing from 2019 to 2020

Time to recollect and envisage our growth

Fly Girls Wellness Pride of Brent/
Fly Girls UK Sundays at Wembley Stadium

We have climbed! Be it steep hills or mountains, in taking our baby steps and keeping moving we have gone from strength to strength in the Fly Girls Community and with our collaborative partner projects in 2019. We started the year on a walking mission up and down the hills of Harrow, starting from Wembley Park and taking a detour back to Wembley Park. Led by our walk leader Priti Khatri it was a cold Sunday morning on our first-morning meeting back for the year. The objective was to get some strength training in and enjoy the local surroundings especially for the members entering the Vitality Big Half Marathon.

Pride of Brent Awards 2019

The Fly Girls Pride

Fly Girls Wellness being awarded
by Brent Council Leaders and Mayor of Brent
Leader Cllr Muhammed Butt, Mayor Cllr Ernest Ezeajughi
and far-right Chief Executive Carolyn Downs

A fortnight ago our community group celebrated being awarded the Pride of Brent at The Drum in a glitzy and glamorous event. The Fly Girls Wellness originally started as a running group in 2016 for beginner runners before catering for the needs of all its members and listening to the voices of the community by adding the walking element.

Balancing For Better in Brent

Being Fly and a Pride in Brent

                                                                              Poet Iman Hamid

March is always a great month of celebrations for Ms Rose Blossom's fly girls projects. It is the anniversary of this blog which commenced on International Women's Day 2013. During this period collaborating with other women's projects, with individuals and organisations celebrating women is part of our major focus. One such is the partnership with Brent Council who invited participation form Fly Girls Wellness to share and inspire other women and the community at large.

Fly Girls at The Vitality Big Half London Marathon

Fly Girls Weather the Storm

BBC Clip on The Big Half Vitality Run

Two weeks ago on Sunday 10th March a few of our team were anxious as for most it was their first ever half marathon. Fly Girls Running Community are a beginners running group that meets on Sunday mornings for a run around Wembley Stadium, ten signed up to do the 13.5mile run as a group and others separately for alternative distance runs scheduled for the day. The motivation for our team to do this was the knowledge that your peers were with you on the route, regardless of the distance you were from each other during the race. Having entered the 5km and 10km races locally and London wide the next progressive step was to try this race out, but by no means was anyone under pressure to enter.

Lace Up for 2019

What was and is to come

It's been a while since the last post on this blog, and what a great year 2018 has been for Fly Girls Wellness services with our running and writing communities. Our work empowering women has had a significant successful impact on members and inspiring others in the wider community. Two participants of the writing workshops have published their debut books at the end of the year.

Fly Girl Marcia

Marcia at BMR
Brooklyn, New York

One of the founding members and our front-runner for Fly Girls (FG) Running Community Marcia is a passionate runner whose essence motivates the team. Mileage Marcia loves running with her community on Sunday morning at Wembley Stadium. On event days at the Stadium FG runners run independently and Marcia does just that and encourages the others through the group chat.

Pushing for Progress

International Women's Month Review

Amanda & Leena Khatri at The Grand Hall
Brent Civic Centre

We celebrated the fifth anniversary of Ms Rose Blossom project on International Women's Day with a large community of women at the Brent Council Pressing For Progress Event. It was an honour to be part of the speakers/presenters included on the 8th of March. A diverse mix of women, young and old and in between shared stories of activism in pushing for progress for the empowerment of women, including Samira-Caterina Monteleone from Brent's UK Youth Parliament, Maggie Toy on the Suffragettes in Brent. Also on the line up for entertainments were an Asian Bollywood troupe, from the over 60s Brent Punjabi Association Dance Group.

Anthony Joshua's Victory

Boxing Bootcamp

Anthony Joshua's tug of war Victory
Victory Park

Despite being a freezing cold morning last Thursday, hundreds of parkers turned up for a fun filled boxing fitness session, an Our Parks and Lucozade partnership with world champion undefeated heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua, AJ as special guest chief trainer.

Turn up tone up team of OurParks coaches kept the sports enthusiasts motivated and warmed up for 30mins before AJ took the centre stage in Victory Park fields in East Village, Stratford. The cheerful boxer got everyone doing squats to sprinting on the spot, and we did shadow boxing techniques in this masterclass.

The hype continued in part two with the tug of war game, of course AJ on the landslide victory side. It was an amazing and magical morning training with the Sportsman, leaving everyone feeling pumped to have trained with AJ and engage with him, needless to say the buzz of outdoor exercise.

Making it Important

Make it Happen

On the second Sunday of the month it was the first Fly Girls RunTogether meet for 2018, nine of us turned up ready to get active at Wembley Stadium, no matter the cold weather this morning. It's around about this time, the middle of the first month that we tend to forget our new year resolutions and goals we wish to achieve for the year. However our team were vibrant this morning and we talked about running goals individually and what 5km races we could do together as a group at our brief meeting before our warm up.  Here's a few tips on making sure you make it happen for an active 2018.

New You for New Year

Fly Girls Fitness for You

It's the best time to join in new groups and activities in January, one because you are not on your own as most of us start new things this month and also because this is an economical way of getting active. You'll be sure of burning fat and not your bank account if you decide with signing up to new gym membership. The benefits are many such as being part of a community, making friends who cheer you along and this really helps you get through the winter months together. So come fly with us on the weekends at Wembley if you want to:

Crossing into 2018

Review, reflect and be ready

As we close the chapter of 2017, it's time to review and be grateful for the blessings and challenges encountered during the year. Each of us have our own personal challenges to confront and as a community of runners we set goals in the first week of January. By affirming aloud our intentions we were accountable to each other. Listen here

Season's Greetings to You

Glad to have connected

To our community of writers, runners, readers of the blog, and you too. It has been a pleasure meeting you in 2017 for writing workshops, running and fitness sessions and e-meeting others who communicate through the social media, here's wishing you warm Christmas wishes xx

Fly Girl Sita's Story

Speaking Positive Words into Action

Sita feeling accomplished after The Colour Run, Wembley

Last week we featured  Lene's story believing that she could and did, that story has inspired other members in our group as well as readers on social media.

This week we celebrate the achievements during 2017 of Sita another member of the Fly Girls. Sita has made remarkable progress and transformation from a novice runner to an active runner, now running 5km. At the beginning of the year she affirmed her goal of loosing weight, listen to her on this clip. And she has achieved it!

So inspiring, Sita was the first to be featured by London Sport on the 1 million Londoners stories to tell. Read her interview here and be inspired to get active for 2018.

Being active makes you feel good, it'll make you smile!😊😊😊