Harry Specters Chocolate Factory

John had the day off yesterday so we set off to Ely to visit Harry Specters Social Enterprise.

As we now have a fledgling enterprise we thought it a good idea to support this one by buying their products and seeing how they worked.

Christmas is of course the busiest time of the year for a Chocolate factory and there were boxes of beautifully packed chocolates, pretty chocolate lollies, Bears and Santa’s and more delights everywhere you looked.

We were given a very warm welcome despite the pressures of getting massive corporate orders out and it being black Friday.

We met Rosie in the office and then Mona and Shah came through and chatted to us about how they came to set up this award winning enterprise.

Their son Ash who has autism came up with the name ‘Harry Specters’. Its a great name and very easy to remember. Mona had a job working for the NHS in Mental Health but recognised that Ash would never have the chance to be in employment due to the lack of opportunity for people who have a disability.

Mona who has a lifelong love of chocolate decided to open a chocolate factory as a  social enterprise to give her son and others who have autism the chance which they needed to work.

I feel very strongly that until the chance to work is taken away it is very hard to imagine a life which has little structure or meaningful activity.

There are so many opportunities of work for most of us but imagine if the chance of a job was never there and your life desperately needed some structure and purpose to it. For most of us work serves a number of purposes, not least it pays the mortgage and for all that we need and want but it is also somewhere that we have a role, however high or low we are in the pecking order within the organisation there is something people rely on us to do, we also see our colleagues at work, some of them we may get on very well with, others we might be less keen on but we are usually not isolated and lonely while we are at work.

Harry Specters has now been running for 6 years and their annual turnover is impressive. They will soon be moving into bigger and better premises. They have won recognition for the Enterprise itself but also for the chocolates which they are producing, 22 awards in just four years….These aren’t just any chocolates, they are Harry Specters Chocolates!

We met the team who were in yesterday while they were on their lunch break, what was really great about it was that it could have been a group of employees anywhere at their lunch break they were all sitting around the table and laughing and joking with one another. Someone had just been and purchased a massive box of Krispy Kreme donuts, was it a special occasion I asked? No, Mona answered they are always buying each other treats.

So after tasting many of the delicious, sophisticated varieties of chocolates, laden with bags of beautiful and luxurious chocolates, many of which Mona just kept adding to our bags so we could taste them,  we made our goodbyes.

We spent more than we intended but lots of friends and family will be receiving a box of these very special chocolates for Christmas.

These days many products you buy have a label saying ‘made with love’ well this product is made with so many things, love, drive, ambition for those who have autism, self belief that there wouldn’t be a label big enough to cover it.

Today I feel inspired, the drive of this  Mother-Father Team is changing lives and giving self esteem and confidence to a large number of beneficiaries and producing award winning luxury chocolates.

For information on Harry Specters please see their wonderful website http://www.harryschocs.co.uk if you are a chocolate lover you will be very tempted too I am sure.

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I am very pleased to let you know we are taking orders for Spectrum of Misconceptions first product!

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It’s been busy!

One of the things my blog is meant to be about is life, so it is a bit of nuisance when life gets in the way and there aren’t the hours in the day to do some writing!

The last couple of months have been a struggle.  My poor Mum had a nasty fall, resulting in broken bones and a miserable hospital stay.

As a student nurse the ‘Activities of Daily Living’ were what was drummed into us and the importance of ensuring that these needs were met during a hospital stay. It was hard to witness the lack of personal care and the malaise shown towards patients who were elderly. Modern medicine is great but if we are to keep people living for so much longer we surely need to offer services that reflect the interventions used to achieve this. Life must have value to and quality. We cannot treat people as though they are no longer important once they reach a certain age.

Mum is now in a nursing home and my Dad still at home in their flat. They have been married for 69 years and it seems very sad so I am spending a lot of time beetling between them and trying to ensure they see plenty of each other.

While all this has been going on we have had Zach’s 21st Birthday Party. It was so great to see so many people who have been such a big part of our journey all in one place. The look on Zach’s face as more and more people he cares about arrived was a picture. Thanks so much to everyone for coming, you are all fabulous!

 

There has also been plenty of work going on with the ‘Spectrum of Misconception’. We cannot thank you all enough for your generosity and support with our crowd funding. We have the first illustrations for our autism myth busting cards and we also have a great logo and a Christmas card.

Our logo is based on the triad of impairments which are often referred to in relation to the autistic spectrum.

Triad of Impairment is used to describe the main features of autism. These are social interaction, Communication and language and rigidity of thinking.

The triad of impairment will tell you all about the most negative aspects someone who has autism may have. I am sure I don’t need to explain the meaning of our logo!

We are now working hard to get the Christmas card out in a timely manner so that it isn’t too late for those who want to buy it. I know some people are incredibly organised and buy cards early so  I can’t bank on everyone being like me and buying, writing and posting my cards on the last day of posting.

Our Christmas Autism Awareness message is….Autism comes in all shapes and sizes! It will be on the inside left cover, so subtle but lets hope the message hits home.

We have all we need for the packaging so can post cards out to online orders. All our packaging and products will be environmentally friendly and recyclable.

Our Christmas card is a beautiful design which has a very subtle autism awareness message. We wanted our card to be able to sit happily alongside others whilst raising awareness at the same time. I hope you will love it as much as I do.

We have a face book page and have been working on the website. I am pretty much totally useless with anything on a computer so am waiting for expert support to make them look as interesting and professional as we want them to be.

Please keep an eye out for our Christmas Card design and if you would like to order some let me know, I promise it will be ready as soon as possible.

The website (when it goes live) is at http://www.spectrumofmisconception.com and the facebook page is Spectrum of Misconception.

I look forward to hearing from you (fingers crossed!) 🙂