Looking back at 2022
As a voluntary, community and social enterprise The Nest Southwest Community Interest Company is committed to making positive change in the world through everything it does. We are non-profit, meaning that 100% of our profits go back into The Nest to enable us to continue doing our work to support women and people who menstruate in Exeter.
Often we are so busy setting up groups, organising our volunteers, updating social media and all the other 100’s of jobs involved in running an organisation like this that we forget to look back at what we have achieved. We now have a social impact team of volunteers who work, not only to create ways of collecting and measuring data, but collating it into easy ways for us to understand.
We want to know how many people came to our groups, how they found us, why they came, and what they got out of coming. We want to know if our groups fulfil our mission to provide social, emotional and informational support to women and menstruators going through menstruation, pregnancy, birth and menopause. We also like to know what we can do better.
Total number of attendances: 1,193
The Nest Southwest CIC 2022 social impact report
Total numbers of sessions and events: 147
Total number of team members: 26 people
List of Nest 2022 groups for Menstruation, Pregnancy, Birth, New parents and Menopause
Menstruation
Menstrual wellbeing sessions
RSE sessions for year 7 in local secondary schools
7 sessions with 163 attendees
“Informative, inclusive, friendly”
– Teacher feedback
Transitioneer volunteers: delivering menstrual wellbeing sessions in schools
5 volunteers
Perinatal
Nesters antenatal: a fortnightly drop in group for pregnant people and partners
46 sessions
184 attendees
Nestlings postnatal: weekly drop in peer support for new parents
54 sessions
473 attendees
“Support when you need it most’”
– Nestlings participant
Perinatal Peer Support Network Volunteers: recruitment, training and supervision for volunteers to support perinatal groups
7 peer support volunteers
Walk & Talk: weekly walk for pregnant and new parents
15 sessions
118 attendees
Menopause
Menopause Cafe: Monthly open meeting for all genders and ages
11 sessions
79 attendees
Meno Monday: Monthly peer support meeting for menopause
4 sessions
9 attendees
“Made me more comfortable with my menopause and met new friends”
– Menopause café participant
Menopause peer support volunteers ‘Nest Friends’: recruitment, training and supervision for volunteers to support menopause groups
8 volunteers
Sessions for all women and people who menstruate
Yoga and Core Restore Classes
10 sessions
93 attendees
One off events: webinars, community day
7 sessions
74 attendances
“Normalising the need to talk and be listened to”
Why people came
We asked people why they come to our groups, both in person, via polls, and online surveys, as well as more in depth case studies.
This pie chart comes from a 2022 survey sent to our perinatal group participants – Nesters & Nestlings – asking why they came.
Nest Team:
3 Co-directors
6 Perinatal Peer Supporters
5 Menstrual ‘Transitioneers’
8 Menopause ‘Friends’
2 University Interns
4 Extra helpers
= 26 volunteers
How these groups got funded in 2022
In 2022 we received grant funding to help run our groups from The People’s Postcode Community Fund, and were supported in partnership with NHS CCG and Exeter university.
Our income came from the hire of low cost birth items (pool, TENS, birth balls) and donations.
Future plans
Well we are now nearly at the end of 2023 and this year has been about finding out what works, what we are capable of and where we want to go from here. We have run a Baby Loss Café for people affected by baby loss, and a woman’s well-being day specifically for women of colour and from diverse cultural backgrounds. We feel strongly about being inclusive and making space for different voices, especially those from marginalised communities. We are currently open for applications for potential new directors to join our leadership team. You can read the volunteer role description HERE