On the 8th May 2013, Daybreak sadly said goodbye to one of its Acomb Service Users.
Sean Buckland, who had attended the service for many years passed away after becoming ill just before Christmas.

Daybreak Staff and Service Users have many fond memories of Sean and he will be sadly missed.

During his time at Daybreak, Sean took part in many activities and was known for his beaming smile.

We would like to pass on our thoughts and wishes to his family.

Service Users at our Newcastle Centre are busy rehearsing and planning for an upcoming performance that is to take place later on in the year at the Baltic Art Centre in Gateshead.

Paul Nicholson (who is taking part) has written an article about the event:

“We are starting a performance project called ‘This Is Your Strife’ which is going to be performed at the Baltic in November 2013.

We are using photographs and peoples stories.

‘This Is Your Strife’ is a story about our life and we will tell the story through music, singing and dancing.

It will take us 7 months to be ready to perform in front of the public, friends and family.

Paul Nicholson


As the event draws nearer we will update this news story and also feature an article following the event in November.

Daybreak’s swimming group at Acomb recently organised a sponsored swim in order to raise some funds.

The swimming group agreed that they would like some new gardening equipment, in particular a garden hose. They decided that the money they raise would go towards these items.

The group, along with their instructor Tony Laidler, approached Angela, the centre manager, who agreed that a sponsored swim was a good idea and she provided them with the sponsor forms.

The group made the decision that the aim of the sponsored swim would be to swim as many lengths as they could in 40 minutes and the group collected as many sponsors as they could.

The sponsored swim took place on the 26th April 2013 with the swimming group proudly raising over £400 for Daybreak. They swam over 200 combined lengths of Hexham pool!

These are the results:

• Paul Moran completed 60 lengths


• Stephen Hall completed 46 lengths


• Jackie Henderson completed 36 lengths


• David Thompson completed 26 lengths


• Jonathan Pike completed 34 lengths


• Anna Martin completed 48 lengths

Tony (Life skills instructor) states,
“I am extremely proud of the groups’ achievement they did really well. Well done to everyone.”

Paul Moran spoke about the experience and said,
“It was pretty hard but worth it to raise money for the gardens at Daybreak. We are going to buy a hose pipe and some garden furniture. This will make the garden nicer for us to sit in.”

This was a really great activity for the swimming group to organise and take part in.
It is empowering that our service users were able to raise money to put back into their own service.

Daybreak would like to thank everyone involved in this tremendous achievement and say a big “Thank you” to all our sponsors.