AUGUST NEWSLETTER

Welcome to our August round robin where you can find what we’ve been up to and most importantly, when and where our Jolly Days are happening this month.

Instant Theatre

Liz Reeve and I are both long-term members of the Dorset-based touring Theatre Company Word And Action and recently we treated visitors to Gillingham’s Mindful Memory Cafe and our Jolly West Moors groups to a taste of ‘Instant Theatre’.

We invited guests to create their own plays and helped to act them out. Hilarious plots emerged – from a very drunk Dick Whittington stealing alcohol from Lidl and Waitrose one Christmas Eve to an unhappy stepmother who ended up escaping on a broom and marrying a king. 

With Instant Theatre the audience’s imaginations can run wild and there are no constraints. People also feel comfortable as all participation is voluntary. I’ve noticed that people with memory issues particularly enjoy the Instant Theatre format as there are no wrong answers or ideas and everything is acceptable. Audience members got stuck into acting their parts from a snoring husband to the very impressive King Phillip played by Shirley who spent her career on the stage singing, dancing, and acting and has lost none of her skill, wit, and charm in her 90’s. What a pleasure and a privilege it is for us to work with such people and enable them to explore their creativity through theatre.

Fabulous Fundraisers

Thanks to hard work and sterling fundraising efforts we have managed to raise the following in the last month to keep our much-needed Jolly services up and running – Julie Foulkes raised a total of £707 with her terrifying ‘Three Peaks Challenge’ she says, ‘Never again!’ – we shall see!

In addition, the Jolly Tea on Sunday 21st July raised an impressive £1094.78. A huge thank you to all who worked so hard to make both events happen and everyone who attended the tea.  We are very grateful to Lisa Osman for her lovely Raffle prize and The Knitting Angels stall of handcrafted goodies that boosted our takings. 

We are proud to say we are now a charity, and our Registered Charity Number is 1208917. We would like to thank Rita Chada who helped us with this daunting process and our Trustees who work tirelessly in the background to keep things running smoothly.

What’s on in August

Please note there will be no session in Blandford on Monday 26th August as it’s a Bank Holiday

Wimborne

Museum of East Dorset, 23-29 High Street, BH21 1HR
(2 - 4 pm)

Thursday 1st
Watercolour art workshop (no experience necessary) with Joh Kennedy Wall plus poetry, refreshments, and fun.

Thursday 15th
Music and dance with Sandi Macy Hart.

Wimborne St Giles

Wimborne St Giles Village Hall, BH21 5LX
(12 pm - 4 pm)

Monday 5th
Lunch with The Friendly Food Club, Kate’s Insect Quiz and Music and dance with Sandi Macy Hart.

Monday 19th
Delicious lunch and flower arranging with Anne Bartlett – Chelsea Gold Medallist. Followed by Yoga with Suzanne.

Blandford

Woodhouse Gardens, DT11 7DN
(2 - 4 pm)

Monday 12th
Music with Paula and Yoga with Suzanne.

Shaftesbury

Royal British Legion, Coppice Street, SP7 8PF
(10 am - 12 pm)

Tuesday 6th
Bill’s famous Quiz and yoga with Suzanne.

Tuesday 20th
Music and dance with Sandi Macy Hart.

West Moors

The Guide Hall, 24 Ashurst Road, BH22 0LS
(2 - 4 pm)

Wednesday 14th
Music and dance with Sandi Macy Hart.

Wednesday 28th
Music with Kate and Yoga with Suzanne.

Step Outside Garden Group

Kingston Lacy Kitchen Gardens, BH21 4EG
(2 - 4 pm)

Friday 9th and 23rd
Enjoy the outdoors together, relaxing and chatting, with a spot of gardening and harvesting if you like.

Salad Days

We had a jolly good time hosting a salad making and tasting workshop with The Friendly Food Club at our Step Outside Gardening Group allotments at Kingston Lacy. I am proud to say we used the produce that we have grown with our own green fingers! Anni Sax and all the allotment volunteers are doing a marvellous job of making it a beautiful and very productive space that people enjoy spending time in.

We’ve received an Award

This month has been exciting, as we have worked with Bournemouth University providing two creative workshops for veterans with dementia and we have also had visits from BU students to our Jolly Days.

We were delighted to welcome Dora Singa Singa and Thi Phuong Yen Nguyen, who are both studying for an MSc in International Hospitality and Tourism Management at Bournemouth University to our Jolly Blandford session this month. They are writing their dissertation on leisure activities for active ageing and were interested in learning more about the facilities and activities available at Jolly Good Company. They chatted to our Jolly staff members to find out how our groups support active ageing.

 We all loved their visits and are proud to be able to assist them with their studies.  We were also part of the ‘Big Conversation on Dementia’ hosted by Dorset Council.

A big hello to Maxine

Meet our newest member of the Jolly Crew, Maxine Gonzalez Bridger. She is doing a great job supporting our groups and being our Jolly Ambassador, making sure people know about the services we offer. She has only been with us since May, but already our Jolly Days are growing – with impressive numbers of people coming to enjoy themselves at all our groups.