Lego Club with Derek Merson

28/03/2018

I’m afraid to report that we (as the charity Action for Children) are unable to run Lego club for the foreseeable future. Saturday marks the end of the financial year and unfortunately despite my best efforts to demonstrate its worth, we have no funding to continue the sessions 😢

Lego club has grown in popularity for the past couple of years I’ve been hosting/running the activity and it has been a pleasure to feed all your positive comments back to the charity, along with the children’s drawings and stories, and photos of their Lego models. We’ve welcomed children and their families from all over Moray, as far away as Lhanbryde and Dufftown to our Buckie sessions! I’ve seen first hand the improvements to all the children’s confidence, social skills, energy and enthusiasm at both the public sessions and at the schools I visit. I hope that all us volunteers have positively contributed to the children’s development and I would like to thank each and every parent, friend, high school student, granny and granda etc etc for giving up their time for a worthy cause.

I will of course keep you all posted with any potential future Lego clubs but for now it’s a very sad see you later.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to share.

Derek Merson

26/03/2018

Another fun session at Portessie primary school today, loved the spring themed stories! 🙂

24/03/2018

☺️ thank you as well to Jack and Rhonda for today!

24/03/2018

We continued the Mr Men/Little Miss theme today at Buckie library, which featured Mr Fixit, Mr Classy, Little Miss Pink, Little Miss Bossy, Mr Scrapyard (and why not? 😆) and Mr Strong! Whew! Great to see some of the parents joining in too 👍🏻 I’ll be back in 2 weeks all going well. 01542 832121 to book

23/03/2018

Location: Portessie primary
Theme: Mr Men/Little Miss
Skills: teamwork, handwriting, punctuation (I’m really impressed!), new words learned (they now know what a dendrochronologist does), and imagination of course 😃

16/03/2018

We recreated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today at Portessie primary school. Great job by the children 🙂

10/03/2018

We were feeling the love at Lego club this morning! Mother’s Day was the theme resulting in a lot of awwwwws from the mums, and a few promises from the children to clean up and treat mum to a relaxing day tomorrow.... Check out the story we got from one lego clubber:

“Ingredients love fairness sweetness hugs and kisses happiness sharing caring

1. fill a bowl with sweetness
2. add a pinch of sharing
3. fill a pan of caring
4. pour a cup of fairness
5. squeeze some love in
6. add lots of hugs and kisses”

Isn’t that just awesome? ☺️

Lego club. It’s much much more than playing with Lego! 😃

24/02/2018

It was the winter olympics today at Lego club, and the children created a curling rink complete with a basketball court (and why not?), a snowboarding ramp plus a ski jump ramp! Great imaginations all round with stories and show and tells to match. We welcomed new friends to Lego club including some all the way from Dufftown and a new adult helper who showed the kind of initiative I look for in fellow volunteers. Loads of positives to feed back to the charity! Thank you everyone 👍🏻😃

23/02/2018

We only had about an hour for Lego club at school today but the amount of hard work and effort the children put into their work was impressive! I asked for the drawings and stories to be handed in at the end of the session so I can feed it all back to the charity. One child asked “is that to show how awesome you are?” Eh no my friend, it’s you guys that are awesome! 😃

22/02/2018

The register is filling up fast for Saturday’s Lego club at Buckie library! I’ve just taken a booking from New York 😳 no really, I have 🇺🇸 and no it wasn’t Donald Trump asking for spare bricks to build a wall 🤣 give the library a 📞 on 01542 832121 if you’d like to book. It’s free to attend, and is this and every second Saturday morning 10am-1130am ish. Imagination required 👍🏻

18/02/2018

18/02/2018

10/02/2018

🙂

10/02/2018

Laughing
Enthusiasm
Green Boards
Orange bricks

Children
Loud
Understand the rules
Build

13/01/2018

Amazing lego builds at our robot themed lego club this morning! We had an awesome fully equipped gym with minifigs feeling the burn, a fully functioning bumblebee transformer car and Disney’s magic kingdom to name a few. All complemented with equally imaginative stories and drawings. Inspiring work from all 18 children! Big thank yous to my glamorous assistant and fiancée Laura, and the other parents who stayed and joined in. I have to remind parents that booking is required. It’s brilliant to see lego club continue to grow in popularity - depending on my future as a volunteer, I’d definitely be looking at running extra sessions for Buckie based on the numbers at the library this morning. Watch this space 😁

15/12/2017

Thank you Moira and Theresa at Portsoy library on behalf of Action for Children for allowing me to host Lego Club there this year! We had great fun this afternoon turning our xmas jumpers into lego models, writing letters to santa explaining that we’ve been good this year and even turning our names into acrostics (the children’s idea). They were rewarded for their imagination and hard work with xmas presents and I received compliments from Moira and the children ☺️ thanks everybody! 😁 Keep a lookout on my lego page for news about 2018 and have a merry xmas to all my Portsoy pals 🎄🎅🏻🙂

11/12/2017

Poll number 2 has ended. Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote and I will mention these results at a meeting on Wednesday with the boss of Action for Children.

02/12/2017

We did a story themed lego club this morning at Buckie library (it’s too early for xmas!) Brilliant work from all 14 children 😁 and a massive thank you to Thea and her mummy and daddy for mine and Oliver’s xmas pressies ☺️

01/12/2017

Only 5 children at Lego club today but loads of energy and imagination! Our theme was health and safety (after Oliver’s car park incident at school 😳 don’t worry, he’s ok) so we had conversations about crossing roads correctly and lolllipop men/ladies. See you in 2 weeks at Portsoy library for a Christmas special 😁🎅🏻

17/11/2017

I was worried that changing Portsoy lego club to an earlier time and on a different day wouldn’t work but I’m chuffed to say this afternoon’s Pudsey themed session at the library was magic! And thanks to the parents who joined in, especially Carolynn McQuat 👍🏻 see you again in 2 weeks

17/11/2017

I’m pleased to say that the list for today’s lego club at Portsoy library is now full 👍🏻 see you all at 3:30pm

The next session in Portsoy will be 2 weeks from today, on Friday 1st December at 3:30pm again. Thank you 🙂

09/11/2017

I’ve got an update regarding Portsoy lego club: Due to upcoming Tuesday nights being taken up with my work with Police Scotland (PSYV) I’ve spoken to Moira at the library about changing to alternate Fridays instead. So Portsoy lego club would be from 3:30pm until 5pm starting Friday 17th November, and every second Friday thereafter. (There will be no lego club on Tuesday 21st).

In the meantime I’m putting the feelers out to see if there would be a demand for the activity at this new time and day. Moira has very kindly agreed to keep the library open a while longer to accommodate us.

Hope that all makes sense, and I welcome any feedback. Remember, it’s a free activity and I run and host these sessions as volunteer. Fellow parent input and support is vital to its sustainability.

Thank you 😁

23/10/2017

I meant to say earlier but I’ve been busy with the police training, drawing, new girlfriend etc etc... next lego club is tomorrow at Portsoy library 5:30 til 7pm if you’d like to book a place. Comment below or send a pm. Thank you 😁 also, I’ve decided not to run an extra session for the tattie holidays. I need a rest! 🙂

21/10/2017

We tried a different set up at Buckie lego club this morning, which better suited our 19 builders and their parents; tables pushed aside and sat on the floor 👍🏻 thank you to my glamorous assistant Laura for taking the photos and generally being awesome 😎

19/10/2017

How awesome was lego club this morning in Cullen? We had a policeman (thank you PC Bruce!) and even a retired police dog visit us. The children were fascinated seeing a policeman in full uniform, complete with handcuffs, who joined in with drawing and building, then told us all about what his role is in our community. And he was a brilliant sport getting his photo taken dressed up as a banana 🤣 huge thank you also to the parents who joined in! You all deserved your rewards 🙂 ps I must see about getting the proper consent to share all the photos on here cos they’re brilliant!

18/10/2017

Reminder... it’s the second Lego club of the tattie holidays tomorrow morning at Cullen Community Centre (10-12). We’ve got 12 children on the booking list so there’s room for more. Comment below or pm if you’d like to join in 😀

12/10/2017

Despite our special guests not showing up, and with nearly half the children on the list not there we still had fun at the Cullen Lego club this morning 😁 and thank you to the parents who stayed and joined in 👍🏻

11/10/2017

I can’t sleep as I’m in so much pain. But reading this review has me wiping tears from my eyes. Happy tears ☺️

10/10/2017

Portsoy lego club tonight:

• was full of 11 imaginative, creative and energetic children ✅
• was child led with one of the children coming up with a great idea for the theme ✅
• had parents joining in with drawing, building and show & tell ✅
• featured a never seen before glider and a snail car! ✅✅
• had brilliant stories ✅
• the children showed initiative and teamwork ✅
• everyone had fun ☺️✅

See you in 2 weeks at Portsoy library 👍🏻

10/10/2017

I’ve only got 4 children booked in for lego club this afternoon at Portsoy library. The list for Thursday at Cullen is full with more asking to be added. There were 19 children at the Buckie session on Saturday. So it’s not looking great for us expanding the activity in Portsoy if there’s a lack of interest I’m afraid 😕

09/10/2017

Who’s up for some lego building fun tomorrow at Portsoy library? It’s free and the whole family can join in! 5:30pm-7pm. Leave a comment below or pm me to book 🙂

07/10/2017

Scottish books was the theme at Buckie lego club this morning (to tie in with the library’s book reading challenge) and we got loads of brilliant drawings, models and stories from all 19 children. Yes 19!! Even though we exceeded the limit of spaces it’s fantastic that the popularity of lego club continues to grow. And we made friends with a family who travelled all the way from Keith to join in the fun 😁It shows there’s sustainability for it in Buckie, especially with my plans to expand the activity. So let’s see if we can fill the registers for Portsoy and Cullen (on Tuesday and Thursday respectively this coming week) and keep the children’s imaginations firing 😀 thanks again for all your support 👍🏻

06/10/2017

I'm chuffed to announce that we'll have special guests at both Cullen Lego clubs over the tattie holidays! It pays to have great contacts 😁 there are still some spaces available for both sessions, on Thursday 12th and Thursday 19th October at Cullen Community Centre from 10am til 12 noon. Post below or pm me to book