We have just finished our second ‘Holiday at Home’. Many organisations and activities cease during the school summer holidays and for anybody with no school age children, this can be a very long period with little to no routine or interaction. We decided to plug this gap by offering a programme of activities. This year we have had 3 days of activities in the first week in August and 3 days of activities in the third week in August. We were very lucky that we received so many offers of help or to run an activity from various members of the church and wider community.
Activities have included:
- A visit from the Animal Man
- The Organist Entertains
- A concert by the Rock Choir
- A visit to the local Transport Museum on a vintage bus
- A visit to the library for a 1950s reminiscence session
- A concert by the Senior Citizens Orchestra
- Craft Sessions
- A quiz
- A games morning including dominoes, scrabble, carpet bowls
- Watching the Lionesses World Cup match together
A hot meal and drinks have been provided each day which gave everyone the opportunity to enjoy a hot meal, in company.
The two concerts were particularly popular with over 60 people in attendance including people from the local community. We also had some interest from an orchestra member about volunteering.
We held a raffle and coffee morning in July to help raise funds for the project and this meant that no money from existing funds needed to be used to pay for anything and that we could offer everything for free which made it as inclusive as possible.
People were extremely thankful and reported the highlights to be:
- Enjoying spending time with other people.
- Meeting new people and growing friendships. Two people have made a weekly lunch date going forward.
- Being able to enjoy activities without the worry of the cost.
- Dining out in company without the worry of the cost.
- Trying new activities that they otherwise wouldn’t have thought of doing such as the animal man.
