We were honoured that tonight’s concert was in aid of Dementia Club UK. The theme tonight was music from around the world, the music started in the UK, went across Europe, ended in Australia and came back to the UK via the Americas.
The concert was held in St Andrews Church, Southgate. We were introduced to the different clarinets some of which were very rare. Adele played a solo in “Waltzing Soprilda” with an ‘Ab Clarinet’ which is the smallest Clarinet in existence and might be the only one in the UK today. The largest instrument was Craig’s Contra Bass Clarinet which was capable of playing the very low deep notes.
The ICC can be contacted at the following websites:
Lisa decided to let our two Rotary clubs run this week’s session without her and delighted to say, thanks to her guidance over the past few months, we did ok.
Danielle made the introductions and was glad to welcome a new gentleman service user with his lovely wife from Canons Park. Dr Nandini answered some particular medical queries and comments about our good cups of tea by the ladies of Northwick Park : Helen, Ritu, Mollie and Lucille were, in part, down to having a good tea pot and proper cups and saucers, all very English! Yummy cakes and biscuits where served, and eaten whilst colouring in using groovy 60s patterns.
Much chatter and laughs with Kevin and Mabel until Richard started the chair yoga, which we all participated in with smiles. Musician Ronnie kept the 60s theme going with ‘why must I be a teenager in love’? and everyone joined in dancing. No real time for games this week, as it was a rather chatty and active session with Sonia and Anne from Edgware and Stanmore tapping to the beat till packing up time.
Looking forward to our Christmas meet-up 19 December. Time flies when you’re having fun, which we certainly did.
We had an arts and crafts session today to start with as Dr Angela brought in some blank male and female figurines for members to colour. The idea would be for Angela to use these figurines to decorate a Christmas tree for the Christmas tree festival at Christ Church Southgate.
Members were therefore very busy with their colouring and produced some really lovely colourful figurines. Nick, one of the Trustees and Lisa’s son also attended today. Nick is the IT expert and Lisa announced to members that Nick would be taking these figurines away to create a poster for the church and will also create a banner and also to create a new Christmas card for Dementia Club UK.
Members of Dementia Club UK busy colouring in figures for the banner
The session then followed with Lisa doing exercises with the members which they all enjoyed. Some singing then followed and then the Tovertafel. It was an enjoyable session. My thanks to our volunteers – Melvyn, Eleanor, Nick and Dr Angela.
This is the last session unfortunately at Allum Manor. Despite all the advertising it has not attracted many members to this beautiful venue. Lisa has therefore decided to start another new dementia club at a different venue in Borehamwood in the New Year.
Although only 2 members attended today, Lisa still made it enjoyable and challenging. Lisa brought some artificial fruit and organised it in a bowl. The members then tried to draw the fruit bowl. Mel was very proud of his picture. This was then followed by a quiz and other games.
Mel with his excellent rendition of a bowl of fruit
Dementia Club UK joined together with 1st year Pharmacists from Boots Brent Cross today to do a Dementia Awareness Day.
We displayed various literature about dementia, the Pharmacists from Boots had designed a pull up banner depicting the Alzheimers bookshelf. At the bottom of the bookshelf are all the memories of your younger days and as you move up the bookshelf you have the recent occurrences. If the bookshelf wobbles then the recent memories will start falling off so new memories are hard to retain. The memories at the bottom of the bookshelf are not affected but in time these will also be affected as the bookshelf gets weaker.
Alzheimer’s bookshelf
When approached by the public today the Alzheimers bookshelf was explained and each person was given a yellow sticker to write one of their memories. Dementia Club UK Christmas cards in packs of 10 were also given as a freebie to raise awareness.
Pharmacists from Boots and Lisa and Mark from Dementia Club UK
It was a very successful day. I would like to thank Anisha from Boots Brent Cross for organising the event and inviting Dementia Club UK. I also like to thank other Staff from other Boots stores from around North London who joined us – Ting, Heather, Narmeen, Anmol, Vishnu and Bhumika. It was also a pleasure to meet the Boots Brent Cross General Manager Kunjal Sutaria and also the Boots NW Regional Manager Andrew Gordon. I would also like to thank Brent Cross for hosting this event and Karl from the from the Brent Cross Information desk who offered to help with some bucket collecting.
“Today’s session went well and Moshe was very good, neither him nor the members were eager to end the session at 4p.m!
There were 41 members today and we were grateful to have Volunteer, Melissa and her husband Bob on hand to help.
The afternoon was spent creating Christmas cards for our loved ones. As the year comes close to an end, the session was spent making customised cards for members to send out to some of these people to show them how much appreciated they are.
Thereafter, we had a quiz on cities and things. Moshe took over and at the end of the session, I reminded members to join us at Brent Cross on Friday and also at the next two sessions. We definitely had a wonderful time together as usual.”
It was a smaller group today but it was still a very enjoyable and very busy session. Lisa started with a quiz and asked members to make some words from random letters in a wheel picture. The challenge was to first find the 9 letter word and 8 letter word. There was a lot of thinking and they all did very well.
Richard then arrived to do chair Yoga. Members always look forward to this as Richard makes it a really fun way of exercising.
The session then followed with Helen Tierney who brings her accordion, harp and piano keyboard. She started playing ‘She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain’ and then leading on with music from the war years to commemorate Remembrance Day which was yesterday. Members then heard further favourites which everyone enjoyed and sang along to and even danced.
Helen Tierney playing the electric piano and harp for members at Dementia Club UK
Thank you to our Rotarians – Valerie who is also one of our Trustees, Kuljit and his wife, Ian and Michael. Thank you also to Mark my husband who is also one of the Trustees and of course thank you to Risom for looking after everyone with refreshments.
It was Halloween today at the Finchley Memorial Hospital. Lisa decorated the tables with Halloween chocolates and lovely cakes.
Members were also given some colouring crayons and a Halloween picture to colour. Everyone got very busy concentrating on their colouring and produced some really lovely pictures.
Some examples of the lovely colouring today
We also had a presentation today. Richard Turner from Action Loss Hearing attended to talk to members about the importance of making sure their hearing is checked out. People with hearing problems often feel very isolated and this can also lead to early onset dementia as you become very disoriented. Members were grateful to receive Richard’s talk and Richard also offered to give members a Hearing test. The hospital provided a quiet room on the second floor so that Richard could do the Hearing tests. There were quite a few members who wanted the test.
Richard Turner from Action Loss Hearing telling the members of Dementia Club UK the importance of getting their hearing checked
The session then followed with Halloween Bingo and again this was enjoyable as it was different. Each number that Lisa called was a Halloween shape which had to be coloured by members. The first table to make a line were winners.
It was then time for some quiz questions and Mark our quiz master was ready with some chocolate quiz questions. Questions like What is the name of the 4th Planet. The answer was Mars which is also a chocolate. Members enjoyed the quiz.
It was then time for some singing and as usual the members enjoy. This also included our usual 3 favourite songs which members always get up and dance to.
Lisa finished off the session with a bit of advice for members to make sure they are careful if answering their doors tonight when Trick or Treat callers could also be burglars using this opportunity.
The session started as usual with members chatting and enjoying their teas, coffees and biscuits. Simon our Rotary quiz master then distributed a picture quiz asking the members to identify the persons, whose names were related to towns and cities.
The members enjoyed the quiz and did really well. This was followed by Chair Yoga exercises by Richard, our yoga teacher. The colourful beanbags were used during this session and again this resulted in a very enjoyable atmosphere.
James LeBec entertaining members with old time favourites
The yoga session was then followed with James Le Bec our musical entertainment. James sang some old-time favourites which members enjoyed listening to and joined in singing followed with some dancing. James is well known for his music quiz using a large dice which becomes challenging amongst members and very enjoyable.
James asked the members to identify the singers before throwing the dice. The members did very well and managed to get more points than the other clubs. Everyone left with a smile.
Dr Rebecca giving members a few tips on playing Golf. Denis about to take a Put and the Francis followed with a hole in one
Thank you to our church volunteers making teas and coffees, setting up the venue and making the necessary preparations for the sessions; Dorothy and Andrew.
Thank you to our Rotarians from Barnet; Jim (President), John, Malcolm and Simon. Many thanks to our Doctor Rebecca Hatjiosif. Also, thanks to Lisa, Chairman of Dementia Club UK, for her continuous support to make the Dementia Club at St John’s Church successful.
Members always enjoy attending at the Britannia centre. When everyone was settled with their teas and coffees Lisa welcomed everyone and introduced Mark who was ready to give members a quiz. The questions were a little hard but members always enjoy the challenge.
The session followed with celebrating and this was celebrated in the usual DCUK fashion.
Chrystalla’s 90th Birthday
It was then time for some dancing as Moshe attended and as always Moshe always gets people up and dancing. Pam and John enjoyed doing the Jive and Tita was given the microphone by Moshe to sing an Italian song which happen to be Tita’s favourite song.
Pam and John enjoyed doing the JiveTita singing her favourite Italian song
The session as usual was very enjoyable. Thank you to Mark for his help during the session.
