Today was as usual a very busy session and a very fun and interesting session. Lisa welcomed everyone and announced various upcoming events. She then introduced some special visitors.

Everyone welcomed Mr Martin Russell – the Queen’s representative Deputy Lieutenant of Barnet. Lisa reminded members that the last time Martin attended to visit was on the 20th April 2016. Lisa invited Martin to say few words.

Lisa then introduced Cllr David Longstaff and reminded everyone that David was the Mayor of the Borough of Barnet in May 2016/2017 and he chose Dementia Club UK as one of his charities during his Mayoral year. Lisa informed everyone further that David is the Honorary Patron of Dementia Club UK. Lisa invited David to say a few words.

Lisa then introduced Neil Aitken (General Manager Operations) and Trent Simpson (Co-founder Head of Production) from The Wayback who came to do a presentation about their product. The Wayback is Virtual Reality series, designed to help persons living with dementia connect with their carers and loved ones. Neil and Trent explained the product to everyone and then passed round a Wayback box on each table for each person to view. The film was set at the time of The Queen’s Coronation and members were able to see for example a street party during that time period. Members found it very interesting and this triggered some memories and conversations.

The web address of The Wayback is https://thewaybackvr.com/

The session then continued with Lisa reading some jokes which everyone really enjoys and then the Tovertafel was set up. Some new games have recently been installed and the game that was enjoyed the most was football as members enjoyed the challenge of scoring goals.

For the last part of the session, Lisa played some of the music favourites and this as always gets members to start singing and dancing. Everyone had such a great time and left with plenty of smiles. My thanks to my volunteers Melvyn, Dr Angela, Melissa, Marina and Mark for all their help.