On Thursday 20th June, we held a friendship day with our Golden Oldies Seniors Group. Friendship Day was about celebrating the Golden Oldies community with a focus on connection and honouring all their friendships, new and old. This day was an opportunity to get to know more about each other and to reflect and on all the amazing Golden Oldies memories created through this social group.
On the day, we celebrated Dave and Edna’s 65th Wedding anniversary! The couple have been attending Golden Oldies since 2000 and have created 24 years of memories and friendship with those in the room.
To facilitate this connection to others, NCNS Admin and Community Worker, Jerry created a Social Bingo Card, which involved members getting up, and walking around to find other people that shared common interests.
Some examples of this were finding someone who was wearing nail polish, or someone born in the same month, allowing them to start a conversation with others who they may not usually speak to and support them to get to know new members.
It started slow, but everyone got up and found a way to connect with others so they could collect their answers. It was so nice to do something different and, in the end, the group really enjoyed the activity.
We featured pictures of a Facebook post showing their activities over the years, including group and individual birthdays, Mother’s and Father’s Day events, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, high teas, winter soup in July, movie days, and bus trips.
On the day we celebrated the birthdays of several members in the room including Christine, Rose, Lyn, Barbara, and Morag, as well as some members who were unable to attend, Ellen, Mary, Corrie, and Joan, who all had birthdays from April, May, and June.
As well as the social bingo, the seniors completed an ‘All About Me’ card, which included information about members birthdays, heritage, favourite things, food, drink, movies, holidays, and some interesting facts about them.
We plan to put this all together in a little profile booklet to make it easier for the seniors to get to know others within the group. The day was an incredible success, thanks to Jerry who worked hard to make this day a fun, exciting experience for our Golden Oldies seniors!
