Our Zoom choir was established during Covid. It was a way of bringing people together at a time when we were going through a period of our lives like we had never experienced before. We have all moved through that period and so has Zoom choir. We wondered if Zoom Choir would fade away as people were allowed to get out and about again and able to sing face to face. Not the case at all! We still have around twenty people gathering from all over the UK, we share in singing and telling stories. Life without Zoom choir would be strange and life without those people who make this choir what it is would be very different.
Eagle Lodge are back in their lovely new sitting room. New décor, new furniture and a lovely new sky light that floods light into the room. It was good to have more people being able to participate. Eildon House on Tuesday afternoon was a wonderful session. Eildon House is only a small care Home with about twenty people and most of them were in the sitting room. It is always good to have staff with us singing as it enables us to see a care home community participating together. Being a care worker isn’t easy, it can become so task focused, so any opportunity that we can take to enable a meaningful relationship to take place between staff and residents is great. Music allows us all to find things out about people we never knew before, this can be of great benefit to care staff.
Thursday was a wonderful day. Elizabeth, thank you so much for your organisation of the volunteer picnic. I think we had everything you could think of, seating, umbrellas, sun hats, musical instruments, drinks and cake! I have a feeling there were lots of other things in Elizabeth’s bag, but we didn’t need them. It was good to meet up and exchange stories of what it’s like to be a volunteer at Forget me Notes and celebrating the people we work with. The fact that it was in Saughton Park meant that we were able to sing together at Choir in the Park. The weather wasn’t hot, it was dry and a little less windy than the last time we were there. We must have had more than fifty people enjoying the community created through music.
The main aims at Forget me Notes is creating community, to “challenge isolation, build community and enhance self-expression using music”.
Do you remember those days of isolation during covid and just how awful it was? We never want to live in that setting ever again. However, there were important things to learn from such an experience and one of the most important was just how much we need each other. During the current election period when we are being told that the economy is the most important thing, we should remember that without people there is no economy. The world is full of people who are our most valuable commodity. Standing with each other at times when we need each other, those living with dementia and their carers need to feel that they are a part of a valued community and Forget Me Notes aim to make that clear.
Hope you have a great week.