There was a lot of interest in the VDFCA stall at the Rustic Fayre.
We gained several new members and some interesting conversation took place. It is often a difficult subject to talk about so we also had some activities to encourage people to visit.
The weather was very hot and sunny which sadly caused some of the sweets in the jar to melt. Never mind, the winner, John Turner who guessed exactly the right amount, didn’t seem to mind when he took delivery of the jar!!
Working together to make Verwood and Three Legged Cross Dementia Friendly – The Launch Event
In June, the Verwood and Three Legged Cross Dementia Friendly Community Association (VDFC) held the
ir launch event at the Crane Valley Golf Club. It was a lively affair and well supported by members of the public as well as local businesses and services supporting people with dementia and their family/carers.
What is a ‘dementia friendly community’ do I hear you ask? This is a great initiative from the Alzheimer’s Society. The aim is to support local communities to take responsibility for making sure that people living with dementia and their carers feel understood and valued and able to contribute to their local community. People living with dementia and their families can feel isolated as there is quite a stigma attached to the condition.
At the end of the day, people are just people, but living with a challenging condition. Like all members of the community we want them to feel valued and welcome and understood by local businesses and community groups. Part of this is helping more people understand about dementia and get some simple tips about enhancing communication. This was one of the aims of the launch event.
VDFC is championed by the town council but is an independent community association run by local residents. The lunch event comprised an exhibition of organisations supporting people with dementia including local care homes (Waypoints, Oakdene, Waterloo), GP practices (The Surgery, Cranborne Practice), Music for the Mind, Aster Living Telecare, Wiltshire Farm Foods.
Also,(shown below,) Ann Mayo Senior Springtime exercise classes,
Alzheimers Society, POPPS and Wayfinders. Running alongside was a programme of events, interspersed with wonderful tea and cakes provided by the Golf Club and funded by a grant from Verwood Town Council. . This included an introduction from the VDFC chair, Dr Janet Scammell who shared some of her experiences of a family member with dementia, plus talks from Vince Seabright, the local community psychiatric nurse, Ros Fricker the local Community Police Officer, Debbie Horlock from the Alzheimer’s society and finally a talk about the importance of nutrition and hydration from Dr Jane Murphy from Bournemouth University. At the mid-point Ann ran a snippet from one of her exercise classes, which went down very well as it got everybody moving (and laughing)!
There was a photography competition with 14 entries. The winner was Martina who received a wonderful hamper donated by Morrison’s supermarket Verwood; her entry will feature on the front of our new leaflet. We had a suggestions board to help us think about our way forward to serve our community better. We have a number of priorities:
We would love to hear your ideas too, so feel free to get in touch on the above email. If want to know more please explore our website www.vdfc.com
Verwood carnival saw the first outing of our new gazebo and banner, courtesy of the Wimborne & Ferndown Lions and Verwood Rotary Club, as well as our Forget-me-not sign, crocheted sign made by the Verwood crochet group. We felt pretty chuffed as you can see from our photos!
It might seem strange to have a stall about dementia at an event like the carnival. Our aims were two-fold:
• First to raise awareness about the Verwood and Three Legged Cross Dementia Friendly Community Association and our role in supporting people with dementia and their carers living in our community.
• Second to provide information to anyone interested, as well as advertise our launch event on June 14th, 1.30pm at Crane Valley Golf Club.
To entice people to visit our stall, we had a ‘Guess the name of the bunny’ competition: in case you entered, the winning name was Flopsy. We also had a ‘Guess the number of sweets in the jar’ competition and the winning number was 150. There were actually 154 sweets in the jar!
However our most popular activity was ‘Splat the rat’! The weather was lovely and we had some great conversations with visitors to our stall. We even managed to cover our costs with a tiny profit which was an unexpected surprise!