A beautiful sunny day and quite a few members arrived today. Volunteers Annette, Theresa, Annalisa, Muz and Faz and Mark one of our Trustees were all at hand to welcome members as they arrived and made sure they were seated to enjoy their teas, coffees and lovely cakes.
Lisa welcomed everyone and mentioned a few programme updates and introduced Muz and Faz who are session leaders. Jalpa the Community Sports Manager popped in to say hello. We then had a new visitor Dan Morris who is the new General Manager of Barnet Copthall Leisure Centre. Lisa welcomed him and Dan was very pleased to stay for a while and meet the members and volunteers. Welcome Dan.
Muz prepared each table with some pictures for members to enjoy colouring and also a word challenge whilst they were enjoying their teas. Everyone was given 9 letters on a whiteboard - R I F L E D E C K - and were asked to make as many words as they could from these letters. There were some great results as members made quite a few words.
We had 3 birthdays to celebrate today for Athena, Chris and Gina. Gina’s birthday was actually today and Chris’s momentous birthday is on the 10th February but they were happy for members to sing Happy Birthday to both of them. As usual Lisa makes sure that birthdays are celebrated in the usual Dementia Club UK fashion with a cake and a firework candle. Chris and Gina were really grateful and excited to see the firework candle.
Athena had to leave early so sadly she missed the celebration. It was then time for Annalisa to do some exercises with the members. Annalisa makes sure that members exercise all parts of their body but also makes the exercises fun. Her buzzing personality makes members enjoy exercising.
The session then followed with our talented music entertainer Aaron who played some familiar songs which got members up and dancing and singing along. At one point everyone was holding hands in a circle on the dance floor which was lovely to see. The music quiz part is also great fun with Aaron as this is competitive and fun. Members love the fact that they get to roll a dice to determine how many points they get to score for each question they answer correctly.
This was a very enjoyable session and big thanks to all our volunteers today.
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Mark was session leader today as Lisa was at a meeting with Nigel Wray and was going to arrive later. Teas/coffees and lovely cakes were served as usual as members arrived. Lisa made sure Mark was prepared and organised with various activities.
Mark made sure the tables were set as members arrived with various word searches and other fun quizzes like spotting the differences in 2 pictures and also some trivia challenge. When members were settled Mark read an article to members from the Friern Barnet Newsletter published in February. This Newsletter always has some interesting reading and this article was about – A Year to Remember 1979 written by David Berguer.
As Mark was reading, this stirred up a lot of memories for members and a lot of chatting. Mark then followed this with a 1979 quiz which again members really enjoyed. As members were very quick going through all the activities, there was still time for some singing and Terry one of our members started to sing and this prompted Ernie to sing too.
Everyone enjoyed the singing by which time Dennis our music entertainer then arrived and everyone was buzzing with excitement. Dennis played some favourites for members and as usual there was a lot of dancing.
Lisa arrived 30 minutes before the end of the session and members were very pleased to see her. Lisa reported that she had a wonderful meeting with Nigel and everyone responded loudly ‘We all love Nigel’
Thank you to Mark today for leading the session. Thank you to our volunteers Melvyn, Angela Chen and Melissa
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This is always a very enjoyable session. Whilst members were enjoying their teas/coffees and cakes, Lisa welcomed everyone and provided some programme updates. This is always a favourite time as members enjoy chatting together whilst also being busy colouring some beautiful pictures with magic water painting.
The fabulous Richard then led our Yoga session which all members participated and enjoyed. Then our talented Aaron entertained our members with a variety of popular songs which members and volunteers danced. Aaron then did a music quiz which is always a great challenge and lot of cheating when rolling the dice to try and get a six.
Thank you to day to Rotary Club Northwick Park volunteers – Helen our session leader, Mollie and Ritu for making the teas and coffees and serving them to members and of course Mark one of our Trustees for all his help throughout the session.
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Our monthly Dementia Club UK session was held on the 3rd February at Sha’arei Tsedek Synagogue in Whetstone.
Our members were served tea, coffee, delicious biscuits and cake at the start of our session and were happy chatting to each other.
The fabulous Jane then led an exercise session which all our members participated in and enjoyed.
It was Keith, one of our amazing volunteers, birthday and we gave him a birthday cake and sang 'Happy Birthday' to him! He was very chuffed!
Then the very talented Aaron entertained our members with a variety of popular songs to which many of the members and helpers danced. He also did a music quiz and everyone got very involved in guessing the artists!
32 members and carers attended the session with the assistance of eight helpers who were:- Justine, Gilda, Stephen, Caroline, Keith, Dot, Judy & Risom.
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It was a busy session today as we were also joined by a group from Aarundel Manor Care Home. Lisa welcomed everyone and provided some programme updates and other news. She introduced Muz and Faz as the session leaders and welcomed and thanked all the volunteers. Lisa had a surprise visit from Sarah who used as a volunteer for the dementia club and she very kindly gave a small soft memory ball as a gift to Dementia Club UK. Everyone thanked Sarah and wished her all the best for the future.
Muz and Faz started the session with some fun games on the tables and also handed out some colouring in while everyone had their teas and coffees. Whilst chatting to one of the members Muz was inspired to do a fun game using the phonetic alphabet. Another member then decided to recount the phonetic alphabet in German and amazed us all!
The session then followed with Richard who always runs a fun packed seated Yoga session. As well as making everyone work their muscles, Richard also uses humour to make exercising fun and as it was also Brexit Day he also added a joke to mark the occasion.
After the seated exercise, Muz decided to also use the memory ball that Sarah had brought and started to throw the ball around to members asking them to catch it and share a memory. The members enjoyed sharing facts about themselves. There was an avid gardener in the room. Someone recounted that their longest journey ever had been to Tunisia. Amongst the memories, we also found out that Doris Day was a member’s favourite singer. Lisa then played some music and distributed the lyrics to all the members. This was like turning on the light in the room as members started singing and were also up and dancing.
The room was now buzzing with joy and everyone was having lots of fun so we brought the games over to the dance area. There was a tin can alley game, a ball throwing game and a hoop throwing game where Muz even became a table for the target cone to rest on! Finally, there was table tennis to finish the afternoon. Some members played seated but today there was also a table for people to play standing up, which some members thoroughly enjoyed.
[Everyone had a really fun afternoon with lots of games, singing and dancing.
Thank you to our Rotarians from Mill Hill - Rotary Club President Desmond, Bobsie, Jeanette & Graham and thank you also to our other volunteers - Theresa, Annette, Risom and of course Lisa.
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