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A very good attendance to today’s session. We had 34 clients including about 17 from the members of Friends in Need. Again, we registered four new persons who became members of the Dementia Club UK.

The session started as usual with members chatting and enjoying their teas, coffees, biscuits and cakes.

Lisa made the following announcements for future events: ·

• Thursday 2nd of May at 2pm to 4pm – Launch of a new dementia club at Barnet Copthall
• Thursday 16th of May – 7.15 for 8.00 – Understanding Dementia at St Andrew’s Parish Church in Totteridge
• Monday 20th of May – Dementia Action Day at Brent Cross Centre from 9am to 8pm in the centre area. Main attractions from 2pm to 4pm.

Simon, our Rotary quiz master, then distributed his quiz, which consisted of 15 faces of famous people to be identified and 9 countries to identify their national flowers. The members found the questions to identify the faces a bit difficult, however, they all did very well with the identification of the national flowers.

After the quiz Richard, our yoga exercises teacher, did about 30 minutes of chair yoga exercises. All attendees joined in and had a very enjoyable time.

The yoga session was then followed with our entertainer James Le Bec who sang songs selected by the members. James then asked the members to identify various songs and when they guessed them correctly, they were asked to throw a large dice to get points. The members managed to identify all 10 songs and they got more points than the previous maximum from other Dementia Clubs.

The members enjoyed listening to James’s songs and joined in singing and dancing. James’s assistant Joy helped to get the members to join the dancing. Members Dancing to James’s songs

Thank you to our church volunteers for making teas and coffees, setting up the venue and making the necessary preparations for the session; Dorothy, Sue and Andrew.

Thank you also to our Rotarians from Barnet; Jim (President), John, Malcolm, Simon and Victor plus his wife Barbara. Many thanks to Doctor Angela Parker and to our new volunteer Annette.

Also thank you to Lisa the Chairman of Dementia Club UK, for her continuous support making the Dementia Club at St John’s Church so successful.

This was an arts and crafts session today and lovely to see so many artistic talents.

Lisa welcomed everyone and explained the Greek Cypriot traditions with the eggs. Lisa boiled lots of white hard boiled eggs the night before and brought them in for members to paint.

She also explained how they can knock the eggs and play a challenging game. The egg that doesn’t get smashed is the winner.

Lizzy our volunteer also mentioned that in Northern Ireland they also have a similar tradition but eggs are rolled down a hill instead, the eggs not broken are put in a fairy circle to grow mushrooms. Everyone was very busy in this session concentrating on their art work.

We also did some singing with song sheets and Ernie one of the carers read out some funny short stories.

The last part of the session then followed with Tovertafel which everyone enjoys. Thank you to our volunteer Lizzy today who was very helpful throughout and Mark our Trustee and carers who always step in to help.

A very busy session as usual and unfortunately we only had one volunteer today – Annette. As always however a few of the carers step in at times like this which is so helpful.

Members arriving were pleased to see the Easter decorative tables with lots of chocolate Easter eggs and Easter cakes with sunflower stick decorations. They enjoyed eating their eggs and chatting over cups of tea and coffee whilst also doing an Easter word search and a quiz on the 1950’s to name some famous faces which members found very interesting.

Lisa then welcomed everyone and gave some programme updates reminding them also of the launch event of The Rotary Club of Hendon next Thursday 25th April. Zack from the BBC also attended today to meet and interview Lisa and chat about the forthcoming documentary which BBC is planning to start filming and showing in the summer.

Zack was also able to meet some of the previous members that had previously been interviewed and introduced to 2 other new families to be included in the documentary.

Peter Webb As Elvis then arrived and members were excited to see him as always. Elvis as usual was winning a lot of hearts around the room and there was lots of smiles and dancing.

A big thank you to our volunteer Annette and Marina one of the carers who worked very hard throughout the session today and of course Mark our Trustee who set up the room and was also very helpful throughout the session.

Lisa wished everyone a Happy Easter and Passover.

I was invited as a guest speaker this evening at The Rotary Club of Mill Hill at The Hendon Golf Club to talk about Dementia and how I started my charity.

It was a pleasure meeting President Desmond and other member Rotarians and guests.

I would like to thank the Rotary Club of Mill Hill for their warm welcome and especially like to thank Jeanette Poulton for initiating this introduction. It was a very pleasant evening.

Today was our first session at The Venue in Borehamwood. We had a few members and also a visit from 2 new members living locally who wanted to see what the session was like.

It was also a lovely surprise to see Cynthia Barker The President of Rotary Club Elstree & Borehamwood who joined in all the session activities and helped during the session.

Members enjoyed sitting and chatting and working on a word search quiz. They also enjoyed playing Jenga building blocks until it falls down.Karen then arrived to do some chair yoga with members which they all enjoyed especially using the colourful silk scarves.

It was then time for musical entertainment with Moshe and as always Moshe surprises everyone with his many languages. Cynthia took the microphone and sang a beautiful Philippine song then Danielle also sang a Bulgarian song, Alfonso joined in singing an Italian song and Mel and Monique joined together to sing a traditional Jewish song called Hallelujah.

It was a really fun afternoon enjoyed by all.

Annette took the session today.

Everyone had a great time. There was so much energy in the atmosphere and as usual it was joyful to see so many lightbulb moments on members faces.

The announcements were made as Lisa requested to start off the session and the register of attendees taken. Annette prepared photos for reminiscing today and also included a quiz and jokes; It was all centred on Cars.

The members enjoyed participating in the exercises which also prompted conversations around the theme. Members travelled down memory lane and shared stories highlighting treasured memories.

Moshe then arrived to entertain members with his music and took special requests from members. He included a Bollywood song for two of the members which they enjoyed. Happiness was on high level and most people were on their feet, dancing.

Everyone left with a smile. Thank you to Dr Angela and Melissa and Melvyn for their help today at the session.

This was our first session today and we had a small group of 6 people. Members who attended commented what a wonderful bright and large venue it is.

Lisa welcomed everyone and gave them a word search puzzle and some colouring to do which they found enjoyable whilst chatting and drinking their teas and coffees.

We were then joined by Richard who attended to do some chair yoga but one of the members was very keen to do more challenging exercises and therefore Richard ended up doing more standing up yoga. Everyone felt they really exercised well and it was nice to finish off with some deep breathing exercises with the eyes shut which was very relaxing.

The session then followed with Lisa playing some of the music favourites which everyone enjoyed singing and dancing to. Members also enjoyed some golf putting too. For a first session it was very successful.