Considering the bad weather yesterday and today, we again had a full house turnout at our lovely new venue in The Finchley Cricket Clubhouse - 30 members, Mark (a Trustee), Rotarians Sheila, Michael, Dick and myself

Julian and Jacqueline set the tables and prepared a lovely afternoon tea of sandwiches and cakes and biscuits and hot drinks and served on each table. Thank you to all our volunteers and carers today for helping to serve

Lisa welcomed members and provided some programme updates and also reminded members about the BBC1 film tonight. As today was a special Jewish holiday celebrating “Tu Bishvat”, Lisa explained that in Israel the day is celebrated as an ecological awareness day and trees are planted in celebration in honour or in memory of loved ones and friends. It’s the Jewish Festival of trees and also marks the beginning of Spring. It is also traditionally celebrated by eating lots of grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates

Lisa then talked about the importance of trees and how planting trees is important to stop climate change. A quiz then followed about trees and how some leaves from trees are used to treat various symptoms. Lisa lastly mentioned that Barnet Council was awarded the 2019 London Borough Tree Award after pledging to plant 900 trees per year for the next 5 years

Lisa then distributed to all members a “Tu Bishvat” greeting card picture of a fruit tree in colour and also distributed another picture of an outline of a tree asking members to colour their own tree. Members were very interested and enjoyed doing the colouring.

Lisa then introduced Julian, Chairman of The Finchley Cricket Club to say a few words about the Club and its history. Julian gave us a very interesting talk about the Club, which was founded in the 1830s and has had many famous Cricketers over the years and more recently has hosted quite a few Women’s teams, who are doing better than the men!

We then met the lovely Sian who took our seated exercises. She certainly kept everyone’s attention with great music and exercises. Many people commented how they enjoyed her session.

This was then followed with music entertainment by Ian who got everyone up and dancing. This was followed with a music quiz where members who get the right answer also get to throw the big soft red dice to try and get a six. We scored 138 with some jiggery-pokery cheating.

We all went home to watch Lisa on BBC 1 “Inside Out London.” I must congratulate Lisa on a great performance and for showing Dementia Club UK in such a great light. I’m sure you’ll get great feedback and many enquiries from this superb documentary about your work in starting up this wonderful support for sufferers in the community.

WELL DONE ! Valerie Chodosh Trustee