Busting the fear and the myths that hang on the word hospice

SussexWorld

Three exciting spaces are poised to become new venues for the Festival of Chichester next year as St Wilfrid’s Hospice aims to show the world just how bright, light and welcoming the hospice actually is.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Greek Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers and also

00:06Chairman of the Festival of Chichester. Now, really lovely to meet and speak to Lois Howell

00:10this afternoon. Lois is the Chief Executive at St Wilfrid's Hospice. Now, Lois, you have a really

00:16exciting, interesting proposal for next year's Festival of Chichester, which is to use some

00:22of the spaces which you have, really attractive, interesting spaces that you have at the hospice,

00:27as event venues for next year's Festival. What are the spaces you're thinking of?

00:34Absolutely, Phil. We'd love to welcome people into the hospice. One of the most beautiful areas that

00:38we can offer as an event venue is our Courtyard Garden. It's a beautiful rectangular garden,

00:46beautiful planting and surrounded by our lovely modern purpose-built venue. It is calm, it's enclosed,

00:54it's peaceful. It will be a charming, charming venue for a recital or small musical performance or even

01:04poetry or other forms of verbal recital. We've also got our Living Well Centre, which is another

01:13opportunity for performance or exhibition, which would support, I would guess, about 100 people,

01:21probably in concert seating. We could probably fit about 100 people in the Courtyard as well.

01:26And our Living Well Centre opens out onto the Courtyard, so just in case of that dreadful downpour,

01:32we can all go inside. We've got some lovely corridor space around the Living Well Centre as well that

01:39would lend itself to further supporting exhibition space. And to complement it all, we have a lovely,

01:45large reception area, seating area and the cafe area which could be used in conjunction or separately

01:52from those other two areas to welcome people to an event or even to hold event space in there as well.

01:58It sounds a fantastic range of venues and a tiny part of this is the fact that you could potentially

02:04use this as a degree of fundraising. But overall, this is about demystifying the hospice, isn't it?

02:10Taking the fear out of the hospice. Tell me more. It is, absolutely. So many people think that hospices

02:16must be dark, depressing places, perhaps with a one-way door on the front. But we really want to

02:24encourage people to understand that our hospice is light, it's bright, it's welcoming. Many people come

02:30in for outpatient appointments, for short-term admissions and then go home again. It is a place that

02:36you will hear somebody laugh within two or three minutes of being in the building is very, very

02:42welcoming. And we want people to get over the threshold, to get over their fear so that they

02:47can understand that our service is about helping people live well to the end of their life.

02:52And events could potentially have a death, dying, grief connection. But equally,

02:57you're looking for events and exhibitions which are a celebration of life, which is equally your mission,

03:02isn't it? Absolutely. We have hosted a lovely photography exhibition here once before that was

03:09life-size print photographs of people who had died with the people who had loved them,

03:16also in the photograph with their arms around the big print cut on, talking about the person who had

03:21died and how much they loved them and how much their life had meant to them. And it was a beautiful

03:27celebratory way to think about people who are dying. And that's exactly the kind of way that we would

03:32encourage people to think here, celebrate. But equally, completely open-ended.

03:37Absolutely. Absolutely. We're open to anything.

03:39Yeah. And we will open registration for events for next year's Festival of Chichester, which will run

03:44mid-June to mid-July. We'll open registration early, probably November, running through to the end of

03:52January. So it's not too early to think about venues, and especially to start thinking about

03:58St Wilfrid's as a venue for next year's Festival. It sounds potentially a hugely lovely addition to the

04:04Festival. Thank you ever so much for making that suggestion. Anyone wanting to get in touch to

04:09discuss the possibilities for that commitment, but just to see what's possible, should get in touch at

04:16marketing at stwh.co.uk, and whenever you like. Absolutely. And we look forward to hearing,

04:24we're very welcome to show people around and talk to them more about the venue. We'll get some

04:28photographs and there's lots of walkthrough tours on our website already, actually. So people may want

04:33to go and have a look on the St Wilfrid's website. Make sure it's the St Wilfrid's in Chichester.

04:37There is another St Wilfrid's office out there and have a look at the information on there.

04:42Well, it would be lovely if you really did become very, very much part of the Festival of Chichester

04:46next year. Looking forward to it. Thank you so much for the suggestion. Let's hope something happens.

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