Category: Friends Group

A busy session with plenty quizzes and word searches.

Tony made his second appearance in a row.

He got so excited, he broke a string.

Fortunately Pearl stepped-in with acappella versions of “Heads, shoulders, knees & toes” and “Ging-gang-gooley”.

Tony sorted out his string and we were soon back with his popular sing-and-dance-a-long.

It was good to see the recent purchase of some second hand drums being put to good use.

Thank you to Janice, from the Greenwich Carers Centre, who came along in place of Sharon and held one-to-one sessions with a few people.

It was also lovely that Caroline, from Asda, popped in for a visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very hot day for everyone, and particularly for our singer Tony.

We had a very good turnout – 48 group members and 15 volunteers.

The quizzes, word searches and other brain exercises were as popular as ever.

Surprisingly, given the heat, there was lots of dancing.

We enjoyed Tony’s performance so much we have invited him back for next time.

Many thanks to Sharon, from the Greenwich Carers Centre for coming along and running a series of one-to-one advice sessions.

And we were very pleased to have a visit from our friends from the Rotary Club of Greenwich: Liz Gale (president) and Sarah Campbell (community/vocational). The Club has generously provided funds to enable us to run our Reminiscence Project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mayor, councillor Mick Hayes and his wife Gillian the Mayoress came to wish us well.

Maritime Radio popped in to interview some of the attendees.

We had some relaxing chats, puzzles…

and cakes, strawberries and drinks, supplied by the wonderful Carole from Asda, Charlton.

It was all very restrained

Until our new singer, Andrew, opened the entertainment.

Then the party really started.

And everyone – including the Mayor and Mayoress – joined in.

It was good to have Sarah, one of our trustees, plus Natasha, Janice and Macie from the Carers Centre with us, helping out and dancing up a storm.

A wonderful afternoon. Thanks to everyone who came. Special thanks to our fabulous volunteers.

Today was probably the best Reflections birthday bash since this one

 

 

 

 

 

The Pearly Queens returned this week for entertainment and lots of photo opportunities.

It was great to have Sharon, an outreach worker,  from The Carers Centre, joining in as well. As part of a new initiative with the Carers Centre, she will be coming along regularly to offer support to carers. For her first official visit she started by talking to some members of the group about carer contingency plans should they become unwell. She will be doing more of this over the coming weeks. We also had a visit from the lovely ladies from The Alzheimer’s Society, Leanne and Hannah who popped in to say hello and have a catch up with some of the group.

We started with some puzzles, quizzes, word searches, aqua painting and dominoes.

Then we moved on to a cockney knees-up with time to  test our knowledge of cockney rhyming slang.

Nearly everyone knew the words, or sang along even if they didn’t.

Thank you Gwen, Pearly Queen of Royal Greenwich and Kim Pearly Queen of Woolwich for a lovely afternoon. The Pearly Queens raised £63.34 from their bucket collection from the group. A good day for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a big turn-out today, including two new people – they gave us some lovely feedback, which you can see on our Testimonials Page. We also welcomed our friends from the Greenwich Carers Centre who will be attending our group once each month to provide information for carers. We are pleased to have been invited to their Carers Event on 14th June.

Tony was back and he was in very good form.

Everyone seems comfortable with using two rooms in the first hour. Those in the Green Room were even more comfortable once they had rearranged the tables – we are always open to ideas from group members.

The dancers were particularly keen – and rather flexible. Here the tune was Ring of Fire and we got to the part in the song which goes: “I fell into a burning ring of fire – I went down, down, down“…

As it was Volunteers Week last week, as chair of the Reflections trustees, I was very pleased to present certificates to our regular volunteers in recognition of their excellent work. Each volunteer was given a certificate and a much deserved round of applause.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The warm weather seemed to delay some of our group, but in the end we had a lot of chatting people, doing quizzes and colouring.

While everyone settled in we asked them to complete a questionnaire about their use (or non use) of the internet. We aim to gain a clearer understanding of whether our members use the web to access information they need. As many services are now wholly or mainly accessible only via web sites, it will be interesting to see if these “solutions” meet our groups needs.

It was soon time for some singing from Viki and group members.

Then the dancing started…

and continued to our close at 3pm

The sun was out and we all enjoyed another fun afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We started quietly, with a few gentle quizzes.

Until Jamie started to perform.

Then there was singing and dancing.

Janet gave us a twirl and our newest volunteer, Ann, joined in and had fun.

We were also pleased to welcome Natasha from The Greenwich Carers Centre who popped in.

More next time.

 

 

 

 

We had a few “old friends” drop-in to see us this week, which was lovely. We were pleased Kirsty (Commissioning Manager, Older People, for Greenwich) came to discuss the current and future provision of dementia advice services in the Borough. She spoke to people individually for two hours and still didn’t get to hear from everyone – so, we are collecting names of people who are interested, for Kirsty to call them

Tony continues to entertain the group – he might be due for a long service award from Reflections soon.

He quickly got people up and dancing.

They have all got more energy than me!

As part of Dementia Action Week the Royal borough of Greenwich is holding an event at the Maritime Museum on 9th May and we will be there and running two activities – more info here.

See you soon,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week we had the pleasure of Elvis performing some of his greatest hits. He was very popular, as he interacted with the group, and gave out some garlands.

There was plenty of opportunity for dancing.

Before his arrival, people were busy chatting, colouring, doing Easter themed puzzles and eating cakes kindly donated by Asda Charlton – brought by Caroline.

We are very pleased and grateful to Caroline, and Asda Charlton, for their support. We received the most tokens in their green token scheme and were awarded £500!

See you all in two weeks time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual we started the afternoon with conversations, jigsaws and other puzzles.

We had guests with us at the group again today, all having relaxed chats with our members. Today there was Tricia, continuing her research interviews about people’s experiences with dentists and two student nurses from Oxleas.

The domino crew were too busy playing to have their picture taken. But our domino scorer and artist David managed a short break to discuss his latest idea – painting water-colour pictures of group members, based on photos from the Reflections Friendship Group Memory Book, and raising money from the resulting masterpieces for the group. The paintings will be presented in a frame. Interested group members were invited to chat to our artist. Janet and I are keen to have our very own painting and are very grateful that David has come up with this initiative.

It was soon showtime. Our visiting students joined in the fun.

Jamie, our favourite pantomime dame (now appearing at Butlins Bognor and Minehead as Queen Camila in Sleeping Beauty), gave us a rock ‘n’ roll sing-a-long.

Buddy Holly and friends sang tunes that we all enjoyed – and most of us knew all the words too.

 

More fun in a fortnight.