As we approach the end of the year, I’d like to spend a few minutes just going over what we, at Time To Talk, have achieved in 2025.
Firstly, I am so thankful for all the members, the moderators and observers (who provide online support to all), and everybody involved in the charity.
What do we do ?
The charity provides online peer support, for people struggling with poor mental health or mental illness. We are not professions but have heaps of “lived experience” to enable people to talk openly about the struggles they are going through. The community is highly interactive and fully moderated.
The Numbers….
In terms of numbers, we currently have 3157 members in our safe, secure, online platform – supported by around 20 [DBS Checked] moderators that provide online support 7 days a week, from 9am to 10:30pm every day of the year (although we do allow a bit of a break over Christmas). The moderators are trained in safeguarding and are the core of the day to day running of the charity.
Volunteer opportunities
If you feel you would like to help the charity, we are always open for people to become a moderator. Training will be provided, and you’re likely to be on a rota for a few hours per week. (this is a voluntary role, none of our members, managers or trustees are paid!).
We’d also like to provide an opportunity for anybody who can help with the moderator induction process, so if admin is something that you feel you can tackle easily and have a bit of time . please let us know.
Action on Loneliness
The Action On Loneliness project has continued to provide a list of activities that people can find local to themselves. This is not limited to members of the community we have developed, but for anybody at all.
Currently we have 1748 different activities spread throughout the UK. We recently added 243 Renew Wellbeing locations to our database – who provide a network of wellbeing spaces to support others in their local community.
If you work with, or know of, organisations that provide activities that you think might be worth including, please let me know. If know of individual activities that might be welcome to be open to new people, then you can submit them yourself to our database at http://actiononloneliness.org.uk/
Collaborative Poetry Book
One exciting project this year was the publication of a Collaborative Poetry Book, called “The Poetry of the Peers: Healing Through Honesty and Hope”, with contributions from other Peer Support networks around the uk, including: BT Groups ‘Peer to Peer Support Network’, the BBC ‘Peer Support network’, Channel 4’s ‘4Minds network’ and The Speakers Collective.
It was a pleasure to work with other supportive teams to share a collection of poems from people with lived experience of mental health issues, The book was published on 10th October 2025 (World Mental Health Day), and sold over 60 copies in its first month.
More details, including some individual videos of authors reading their poems are available online at https://www.timetotalkuk.org.uk/poetry-of-the-peers/
Eurovision
Our main fundraiser over recent years is our Great Big Eurovision Sweepstake. We had fun this year with a total of 544 entries, which equated to £544 raised for the charity, and a further £544 given back as prizes. Big Congratulations to Kam for wining the top prize of £150 – not bad from an entry that only cost £2!
Full details at https://www.timetotalkuk.org.uk/the-great-big-eurovision-time-to-talk-sweepstake-2025/
Eurovision in 2026 appears to be going through some political issues at the moment, but if all goes to plan, we’ll be running the (licenced) Sweep Stake again in 2026 – I’ll send out further details in March.
Presentations & working with organisations
We’ve worked with several external organisations to share our experience of improving wellbeing and helping people’s mental health or menta illness
These have led to a couple of blog posts on the subjects below:
– World Suicide Prevention day
If you feel you could benefit with a presentation and discussion about improving mental health, then do let us know.
Thanks
Once again, I have to thank the rest of the admin and management team in Time To talk, the Moderators and Observers who provide day to day support to our 3000+ members.
If you’d like to chat about the charity, what we do or how we can help you, drop me an email.
As we approach the end of the year,
- If you’re celebrating Christmas – have a wonderful one!
- If you’re taking time off – enjoy every moment!
- And to everyone – thank you for your incredible support.
Cheers,
Graham
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