I don’t know about you, but it seems amazing that it is February already.
What an amazing evening on Friday at the Ceilidh. There were so many moments that were highlights during the evening. Over ninety people turned up to share the evening and if you wanted to share an evening of respect then you couldn’t have chosen a better place to be. The participants were symbolic of the song Union of Different Kinds that we sang midway through the evening. What do I mean by that? Well there were people with additional needs, those with dementia, young children of six and others who were ninety-six. All singing, dancing and enjoying their supper together. It was truly a celebration full of respect and love.
I have a lasting image of the dancing when there was a group dance which included the dancing splitting into two lines with a gap down the middle. One couple danced through the middle moving to the top and then back to the bottom end of the line. The beauty of the moment was that the couple dancing through the middle of the lines was a person being pushed in a wheelchair. It was as though they were the star of the show. Pure dead brilliant!
Earlier in the week at a training afternoon we considered how we ensured we gave people power within our sessions. Well, there was the living demonstration of how to do it.
There were so many people we needed to say thank you to that included: Jean and the team in the kitchen who served an amazing Haggis supper. To Kenny and the band for the way in which they provided such an inclusive evening of dancing, to Paul and John who organised the raffle so well. We haven’t got a figure for how much we raised but it will be somewhere around £500.
What we cannot measure the effect upon all our well-being, otherwise called the feel-good factor. One thing for sure is that the energy in the room was wonderful with everyone supporting everyone else to have a great time.
There is so much said about equality and diversity and how a person is worthy of their place. Well, the Forget Me Notes Ceilidh was an example of how to do both, and speaking for myself: bring on the next time.
Have a great week.