Author: admin

Barnet TV recorded a session on the 25th September 2018. Today was the official launch of the Dementia Club at St John’s United Reformed Church in association with the Rotary Club of Barnet.

I would like to say a few words with affection about a special club Mollie and I have found.

It has about seven or eight different nationalities as members. They talk and get on well together. They laugh and joke together and also sometimes dance and sing together, even including “She Will Be Coming Round The Mountain When She Comes”!

Strangely enough they also play indoors golf together. Wouldn’t it be marvellous if the whole world behaved like that without conflict or war?

BY JAMES HALE – Thanks to Dementia Club UK

After yesterday’s session at Finchley Memorial Hospital with Elvis, today’s session was not very busy. We had 2 visitors from Barnet Copthall – Jalpa Assani and Annalisa Cellini.

Lisa started the session with True and False quiz questions and then followed with some poetry reading about what makes people happy. Lisa then encouraged members to talk about what makes them happy.

Lisa was then nicely surprised to see an old friend Patricia Waldron arrive. Patricia is a care home manager at Aarandale Manor Luxury care Home in Mill Hill and she arrived today with one of the residents as she was interested to see the dementia club.

Jane then arrived and members were ready for their exercises. The exercises finished off with the 3 music song favourites that members enjoy dancing to and this followed with some social activities – ball catching and Putting golf.

Today’s session was led by Eleanor with the help of Dr Angela and Melissa.

We had a good turn out and plenty of chat and laughter. We started with a picture quiz about well-known people. This proved to be a popular team activity which everyone could participate in. The most challenging picture was a photo of John Paul the Second! Pat’s team were the winners with twenty correct answers out of twenty. Well done!

Afterwards, we had two games of card bingo. Nearly everyone can play this game without any help and at one point, James was left in charge of three cards while Joan and Lynn were washing up!

It is lovely to see the enjoyment some of our members who have memory difficulties get from playing card bingo and to watch them correcting their carers when they make a mistake.

We finished with another team activity naming things associated with Scotland: food and drink, clothing, sports and pastimes, famous buildings and famous people. Between us we came up with a very long list!

This activity also led to discussions about Scottish holidays. At the end, we listened to a humorous song called ‘Donald Where’s Your Troosers’. It was a high note on which to end our session.

Thank you to our volunteers and especially to Marina, Lynn, Joan and Helen who stepped in to help with the refreshments and washing up in the absence of Melvyn.

Today’s session was run by Mark as Lisa had to attend a meeting in London. There were only a few members today but it was still a very enjoyable session.

Mark started with a few true or false quiz questions which always gets members to chat.

Jane then arrived and members enjoyed some exercises. The session then followed with music entertainment with Moshe who never fails to really entertain everyone and get them up dancing.

Thank you to Mark for running the session today.

As usual we had so many members today, we had 4 new members. It was a beautiful sunny and warm day.

Lisa welcomed everyone and gave everyone a quiz to start with which all enjoyed.

We then celebrated 2 birthdays. Miltis’s birthday on 15th October will be 84 years old and Ruth’s birthday which was on the 6th October. Both were celebrated in the usual DCUK fashion.

Dr Angela then gave members an update about the Flu jab and suggested that everyone should book their Flu jabs with their GP’s as the FMH chemist this year is in short supply. Dr Angela also advised everyone that they should check before they have the vaccine to make sure that they have the ‘adjuvanted vaccine’ as this is the vaccine which has the extra ingredients for older age to help them develop a stronger defence.

The session then followed with some singing and name that tune and then bingo which is a real favourite. Lisa then played their favourite songs ‘Coming Round the Mountain’, the ‘Birdy song’ and the ‘Hokey Kokey’. This got members up dancing including the new members. The finale dance was the Zorba dance which Lisa got all members moving by exercising to the music. Everyone was buzzing with joy.

It was then time for the Tovertafel and we also had our new members round the table. It was lovely to see how members interacted with the games with smiles. It was a really fun pack afternoon.

Thank you to our volunteers Melvyn and Eleanor for their help today during the session and Dr Angela.

PICTURES TO FOLLOW