Relaunch BCDL Friendship Club

Description

The BCDL club is a social club for the senior members of our communities in the Ballinagore,Castletown Geoghegan,Dysart and Loughnavalley areas and for some of our older members is their only outing in the week. The club, like many others, stopped during covid and unfortunately for a variety of reasons the original committee felt unable to restart it. A number of members of our community could see the loss this valuable service was, particularly when the very people who needed it were the ones most affected by the covid restrictions and most in need of social interaction with their peers and others. A meeting was held with members of the original committee in Autumn 2023 to get advice and and exchange of information and knowledge and following on from that it was decided to post notices in the local papers, parish bulletins and in local businesses to guage the level of interest from potential members of the club and also volunteers who would help to run it. The response from both was very positive and it was decided to proceed in January 2024.The Club had previously met in the local parish hall but as this is not currently available on weekday mornings, the club now meets in the new GAA complex. This has actually allowed us the opportunity to use the additional onsite facilties such as the walking track and as the weather improves, the astro turf will also be available.The club now meets weekly every Monday morning from 10am-1pm.The day starts with tea/coffee and a chat and catchup. This is usually followed by some light exercise–chair exercises for those who find standing/walking difficult and more difficult exercises for the more able bodied. We can then have someone in from time to time to give a talk to the group or a local musician will pop in for a singalong. Then its onto games time–with a variety every week from indoor bowls to shuffleboard to boccia, followed by cards and bingo and the day usually ends with soup and sandwiches.We have registered with Active Retirement Ireland and no doubt will add many more activities as we grow. We are committed to a couple of projects which the group have expressed an interest in carrying out this year–one is the collection of old photos of local people and places which it is intended to exhibit in the Autumn – we are commencing this project on 1st July. We also hope to link in with the local schools and have the students come and chat with the members and learn how life has changed during their lifetime. We had our first outing in May and hosted the Live Longer and Prosper programme over two weeks in June. We hope to have several more outings during the year and are also looking into providing courses in areas such as healthy eating, art & crafts and our goal at the end of the year is to reintroduce the Christmas Party for senior citizens in the area which was held for many years and was always a enjoyable start to the festivities.

Aim of Initiative

To provide a social outlet combined with some level of activity to senior members of our community with a view to alleviating social isolation and the lingering effects of Covid.

Who is it aimed at

Retired/semi-retired people.

3 Steps critical to success

1. Ensure a suitable venue was available and enough potential clients and volunteers.
2. Establish a committee and register with Active Retirement Ireland.
3. Ensure enough equipment/supplies/speakers etc to make the club enjoyable and a place where people want to come to catch up with friends, educate themselves and part-take in some form of activity.

3 Challenges in Planning / Delivery

1. Volunteers – ensuring we have sufficient volunteers to help on Monday mornings. We have been extremely lucky and have a group of about 15 volunteers and generally have approximately 6/7 each Monday morning. Apart from providing refreshments these volunteers also run the activities, help the less able bodied take part in activities (find the numbers in bingo etc) and also just sit and chat with members which is a big part of the morning.
2. Ensuring we have a good mix of actvities/outtings/talks etc to ensure the group continues to be enjoyable for members and attracts new members. Our volunteers have been very active in attending workshops on physical activities, services available and also dementia awareness in order to support our members to the best of our ability.
3. Funding. We have been lucky to date in securing some grant funding which has allowed us to purchase sports equipment and also the equipment required for our photo project. We also received some donations from people/clubs in our community for which we are very grateful. We charge a nominal fee each week (€5) to members and intend fund raising later in the year. We want to ensure that whenever we run an outting or organise an event no one is excluded because of cost so intend to subsidise these activities.

3 Outcomes / Benefits

1. Reduce social isolation. For some of our members the club is the only place that they go. It has had such a positive effect on everyone involved – both members and volunteers alike – and everyone looks forward to it.
2. Increase mobility/exercise. We have many levels of exercise available to members from chair exercises and boccia for those less mobile, to shuffleboard, bowling, table tennis, walking. We are all aware of the importance of moving as much as we can and the various games allow members to get some exercise in in a fun way.
3. Interaction with the wider community. We begin our photo project next week which involves obtaining photos of local people/places/events, identifying them, scanning them and exhibiting them in the Autumn. The club will be inviting the wider community to become involved in the project and the exhibition will be open to everyone. Our next project will involve linking in with the younger people in the community to compare how life has changed over the past 60/70 years. We intend to record this project which will be of interest to many in our communities.