Making A Will
by Will Solicitors
You should make a will as soon as you have assets or dependents. Major life events like marriage, having children, buying property, or significant changes in financial circumstances are good times to create or update your will.
If you die without a will (intestate), your assets will be distributed according to intestacy rules rather than your wishes. This may not reflect your intentions and can cause complications for your loved ones. Creating a will gives you control over how your estate is distributed and how your children would be looked after.
We can also assist with Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA's) which is a legal document that allows you to choose someone you trust to make decisions on your behalf if you lose mental capacity or become unable to make decisions yourself.
Will Solicitors offer remote video appointments (including out of hours office appointments) with legally trained advisors part of an award winning regulated law firm. To book in use the live availability diary: https://www.willsolicitor.co.uk/book-consultation
Live Well Spring Festival
Between Monday 9 March and Monday 23 March 2026, Greater Manchester will be hosting the first ever Live Well Spring Festival.
Rather than one system-wide event, the festival will pop-up locally with many things happening at once across neighbourhoods, in spaces, community centres, high streets and online places.
The festival period coincides with the holy month of Ramadan and Lent, as well as Eid al-Fitr (expected 19-20 March) and International Women's Day (8 March). Spring festival pop-ups should be planned with care and consideration for religious observances and equality events, including awareness of fasting, prayer times and respectful ways to acknowledge communities of identity.
Rather than one system-wide event, the festival will pop-up locally with many things happening at once across neighbourhoods, in spaces, community centres, high streets and online places. Imagine:
Community pop-ups and street socials
Wellbeing walks or walking audits through parks, canals and green spaces
Storytelling corners and listening circles where local voices are heard and valued
Participation parties that feel joyful, shaping neighbourhoods and local decision-making
Roving public living rooms and food shares that bring neighbours and communities together
Podcast clubs sparking big conversations around what it means to Live Well
Community reporters sharing what Live Well looks like where they live in their own way
Visits to community spaces and centres where Live Well is being brought to life
And more
Together, these local festival pop-ups will showcase how the emerging Live Well hallmarks show up in practice across Greater Manchester’s spaces, places and neighbourhoods.
The four festival 'stages'
The festival will be built around four (metaphorical) stages. Unlike traditional festivals, these are not physical stages. Instead, they act as shared foundations that support local pop-ups to grow, while ensuring a strong, consistent thread runs throughout the festival.
Each pop-up can connect with one or more stages, reflecting the many different ways Live Well is visible across Greater Manchester.
Spaces of hope and connection: Celebrating the trusted, community-rooted places that bring people together – where belonging grows, relationships deepen, and support flows.
Great everyday support: Showcasing inspiring examples of relational and inclusive support in communities that helps people Live Well.
Building bridges and weaving trust: Bringing people, places, and experiences together – strengthening trust, connection and belonging between communities, and with public services.
Participation and community power: Celebrating the ways communities shape the places they live and the decisions that affect their lives – shifting power, driving change, and growing collective action.
You can use this opportunity to showcase the excellent work that you are doing as VCFSE organisations working in the migration sector. This platform is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and expertise and connect with others. If you have an idea for a festival pop-up, you can share it with the Live Well team before Friday 30 January 2026.
Ways to share:
Online form - email gmlivewell@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk if you need support completing it.
Book a 15-minute chat to talk through your idea
The GM Live Well team will walk alongside pop-up curators, enabling ideas to take shape and come to life. A Live Well Spring Festival Fund is also available to resource involvement, participation, and the costs of running events or activities. Any support needed can be shared through the options above.
You can also contact the GMCA migration team at: katie.howe@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk if you would like support in developing your idea.
DRAWING BOARD PRODUCTIONS CIC SECURES FUNDING TO BOOST ELECTRICAL SAFETY AWARENESS IN GREATER MANCHESTER
Drawing Board Productions Community Interest Company, the Stockport-based, profit for purpose organisation behind the Post Newspapers, has won significant funding to deliver a project which will help to increase awareness of electrical safety across Greater Manchester.
The grant award will be used to publish a special Electrical Safety supplement within the five Post Newspapers published by the organisation covering Stockport, Manchester, Trafford, Salford and Cheshire East.
The Electrical Safety Fund is an annual grant scheme run by the charity Electrical Safety First. The Fund provides £1m to support community projects across the UK that aim to reduce domestic electrical risks.
Around half of all domestic fires in the UK are caused by electricity, with most of those arising from electrical products.
Lesley Rudd, chief executive at Electrical Safety First, says: “We are delighted to award this grant to Drawing Board Productions Community Interest Company. Our Electrical Safety Fund is designed to empower groups to help keep local people in their communities safe. Our website provides free advice for everyone to avoid fatal electrical fires and shocks in their home – visit: electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk.”
Keep a look out on the Post Newspapers website in March to read this special edition supplement: www.communitynewsgm.co.uk
How donating data can transform our understanding of knee replacement surgery
by The University of Manchester
University of Manchester researchers are to trial the groundbreaking linkage of historical step counts from patients’ smart devices to their healthcare data in a bid to transform our understanding of how knee replacement surgery affects them.
Knee osteoarthritis - the most common reason for replacement surgery - affects around one in five people over 50 in the UK, with over 120,000 people having a knee replacement each year.
“Osteoarthritis causes pain and limits normal daily activities, like walking or climbing stairs. Knee replacement surgery is one of the only definitive treatments. But how much better does physical activity, like walking, get after a knee replacement?” said Professor Will Dixon who is leading the research.
“To make informed decisions about whether to have surgery or not, we need to know this - yet the current evidence is patchy.”
The Manchester research team are asking for the help of people who have already had a knee replacement to develop and test this way of conducting health research.
They want to make use of data that has already been collected, inside and outside of the health service, and piece it together.
Prof Dixon added: “All of the data needed to understand how activity improves after knee replacement surgery already exists.
“Millions of people in the UK routinely track their step count using their smartphone or fitness tracker. In fact, over 95% of adults now own a smartphone.
“By joining together step counts from people’s smartphones and wearables with information about their surgery, we can understand how much physical activity improves after knee replacement.”
The PAPrKA study (which stands for Physical Activity Patterns after Knee Arthroplasty) wants to recruit UK adults who had a knee replacement surgery between January 2017 and December 2023, and who used an iPhone, Apple Watch, Fitbit or Oura ring before and after their surgery.
Interested people can visit the study website at: bit.ly/knee3 to donate their activity data, which will be securely transferred from the University to the National Joint Registry where it will be linked with data about their operation.
This will allow the researchers to examine how activity patterns change following surgery, including how this differs by levels of activity before surgery, types of operation, patient age and more.
Matt’s story
In November 2022, former Iron Man Triathlete Matt Barker had a partial knee replacement following years of increasing pain and reduced mobility. Before surgery, even standing became painful and his job as a teacher was getting progressively harder.
“Colleagues would worry about me and ask if I was alright” Matt recalls. “This was especially difficult as I still saw myself as fit and active, but the reality became impossible to ignore.”
Since having surgery, his physical activity improved dramatically - no longer experiencing the previous swelling and pain. He was able to resume much of the daily activity he was doing before his knee issues developed.
Matt concludes: “Most of us base our activity on what we have to do and what we feel able to do. The availability of data from our devices can really bring home the extent to which your mobility is changing. Post operation, they have been a great motivator to view improvement, as well as alerting me to my limits. My hope is that PAPrKA can give people like me a clearer understanding before surgery of how much better their activity is likely to get.”
The PAPrKA study is part of the Health Research from Home programme funded by the Medical Research Council [grant number MR/Y003624/1]
