Monday 22nd January 2024

There is one thing that you can say about being a part of The Forget Me Notes Project you never have an ordinary week. We have had really good Music Memory sessions at Eagle Lodge, Quarries and Ashbrook. Our session at Ashbrook saw sixteen people attending which was great and the most we have ever had to this group. The sessions lead by Kenny and John at St Brides and the session led by Alan and Alice at Seagrove were also positive sessions.

We also had the most amazing session at Saughton Park in the glasshouse. The children from Broomhouse Primary school joined us and we enjoyed their Scottish highland dancing and the songs we sang together. We had the biggest turn out we have ever had. The enthusiasm that the children bring to the session is truly infectious. The singing of Ya Cannae Shuv Yer Grannie Off A Bus was just brilliant.

We have a had two new projects this week that have confirmed they would like to work with The Forget Me Notes Project and we will also be speaking to two other providers this coming week about future work.

We submitted two funding applications this week which is not bad going and we have one to send this week. If you are a member of the Co-op then you could be of help to us. We have been nominated for a grant and all we have to do is get members of the Co-op to nominate us as their preferred charity. The more people who nominate us the more money we will get, so if you are able to vote for us, we would be very grateful.

Monday 15th January 2024

It was an interesting week last week, a sort of first week back after the festivities and a challenging week for me. I had to attend a hospital appointment I am fine but needed a procedure completing. What was interesting was that throughout the procedure the consultant and nurses were using music as a way of ensuring that the situation was not as stressful as it might have been. Another example of how when music is used well in everyday situations it can be used as a therapeutic intervention.

Along with the usual music memory sessions we held our monthly trustee meeting. It was an interesting meeting, particularly the discussion around social prescribing and how we place ourselves in the best position for medical staff to prescribe The Forget Me Notes project as a form of support and treatment. We have always taken the view that everyone is welcome and that is still the case and I hope it always will be, however it is important that we enable professionals the chance to see our services as credible treatment spaces. We decided that we should begin to talk about professional referrals and self-referrals in order that we place ourselves in the best place to receive future participants.

I declared at Zoom Choir this week that Jam was not my favourite food, so when it came to indoor choir one of our members brought me some cherry jam that she made herself. I had to try it but not in a traditional way with toast, I got some vanilla ice-cream and used it as a topping. It was beautiful, the sharp taste of the jam alongside the ice cream. While music is therapeutic so is creating community and exchanging conversations around ordinary everyday things (like jam). Isolation is an awful thing it can make people seriously ill and so whatever we can do to make people feel a part of something that is what we must do. I have mentioned before that we have a saying “Once a Forget me Note always a Forget me Note”. The saying is all about belonging and whether you are a volunteer, a carer, a person with a lived experience of dementia, a member of staff or a supporter: if you want to you can belong.

They tell me that today is blue Monday - it is supposed to be the bluest day of the year. If this is how you feel maybe you could look up Forget me Notes if you live in Edinburgh, if not then there might be a choir for you in the place where you live. Singing together can be such a wonderful chance to build friendships and experience a sense of belonging. One of our members used to say, “I am more than myself when I sing in the choir”. Well for me that feels like being a part of something, it feels like community.

See you next week.

Monday 8th January 2024

At the beginning of a New Year, I was asked by someone “What do you hope for Forget Me Notes this year?” It is of course a very relevant question and one that deserves reflection. The broad response is that we must respond to the needs of those people living with dementia and their carers. The specific answer means looking at the issues surrounding what that means.

The 23rd January will see us delivering training to more music facilitators to enhance our Music Memory program. They are most definitely needed because we are getting new work regularly. Today will see two new facilitators working together at Seagrove and John and Kenny will be back at St Brides. The St Brides session is so interesting because it happens during a foodbank and reaches so many people from different cultures representing different needs. At the Christmas session we found out about Christmas in the Ukraine and in Poland, we also listened to songs sung in Chinese. This mosaic of community is a privilege to be a part of and I am certainly hoping that we can build on opportunities like these.

We have already set our vision for the Volunteer Project and that is to make our monitoring and evaluation more robust. This will enable us to hear the voices of those that use the service and respond to those things that people request of us. It will highlight what we do well and give us the opportunity to look at those areas that need improving.

Our three choirs are just a joy! On Thursday 4th January we were in Saughton Park where we had 35 people singing in the glasshouse which included people who came for the first time. Once again John graced us with a New Year’s joke, we were able to share together with stories of Christmas and the time we have spent in the last two weeks. Today will be Zoom Choir the first since New Year and it will be good to meet up with those who live in other parts of the UK.

All these services show that we are building community, using music, and challenging isolation: the aims of Forget Me Notes as a whole. Well, I suppose that remains the answer to my friend’s question, that we continue to use music to meet our aims in a way that is relevant to those who we meet.

Have a good week and see you next time.

Monday 1st January 2024

Happy New Year!

This will be a short post because we haven’t really been doing any face to face work this week. We will however start the year on Thursday at Saughton Park with a good old Scottish sing-a-long. Watching a bit of telly last night I saw the programme Get the Tunes On with Michelle McManus. It was good people reminiscing about their favourites at New Year. Runrig singing Loch Lomond, Lulu singing Shout, Paulo Nutini singing anything.

We had a few days away this week and John and I sat down to look at a Showcase we are planning for late March early April. We have decided that rather than wait for funders to fund us we will actively show them what we do and it’s impact by holding a cabaret evening. We aim to invite funders and let them see for themselves, hear the stories told by those living with dementia and their carers. Getting your message across on paper is not as easy as letting people see for themselves. The main issue will be getting them to come along but we have ways and means.

All this is for later, today we celebrate that we have the opportunity to make things happen. So to you and yours have a Guid New Year! ( as we say in Scotland)

Monday 25th December 2023

And so, this is Christmas and what have you done?

What a good question for Forget Me Notes. This is a time when we look back over the last year and think about all the amazing things that have taken place during the last year.

Zoom Choir remains an important part of the project. Something that was established during covid has become an important part of what we do. It has also helped us with what can be achieved when using Zoom and how we can keep in contact with people.

We have started new Music Memory sessions and found five wonderful sessional facilitators who now are such an important part of Forget Me Notes. We are delivering 27 sessions a month, which represents more and more people being given access to music from a therapeutic point of view.

We started a partnership with Open Door called Music for Health and well-being and we continue our partnership with Capital Theatre with Together In Song.

Our two face to face choirs continue to be meaningful and well attended. At Saughton Park on Thursday fifty people, including children from Broomhouse Primary school gathered to sing together. It was great hearing children sing, the older adults sing and then all singing together it was marvellous.

Our volunteer project with 23 volunteers continues to reach out to support those who cannot come to the community-based services we offer. It is good to realise that people can be supported at whatever the level of dementia.

We also welcomed a new administrator and look forward to the benefits this will bring in the New Year.

As Mariah Carey sings “All I want for Christmas is you”. Lets make this season about the people we love and value. While we may not be able to afford those presents that everyone may want, we can afford a hug and then tell people that we love them. Just think about how this may affect someone’s health the whole year round, not just for Christmas.

Have a good time and see you in the New Year!

Monday 18th December 2023

This week we held our first team meeting with four employees. We have another five freelance music facilitators but direct employees we now have four. It felt as though we were beginning to build a new team. Having a new person will always change the dynamics as they bring their experience and personality to their role. It is great to have Libby as our new administrator and it is good to see her skills already impacting upon the services we run. Having a face-to-face meeting was good, for while working without a base saves on costs it is not always easy being seen as a part of a team. I am looking forward in the New Year to build an effective team across all aspects of the project and this week was a good start.

Another opportunity for me this week was to attend the Cross-Party Music Group at the Parliament. They always have a live performer and in this session we had two. One playing accordion and the other guitar. They were both outstanding in their particular genre ( I think that’s the word I am looking for) and it gave a good foundation to consider the impact that music has upon us all. Imagine my disappointment when Education was spoken about and how the cuts that are imminent will mean music playing a lesser part in our children’s curriculum. I have never been known for sitting quiet when things are troubling me. I process things out loud which I know for some people can be irritating. We are all different, so I spoke out and asked my question. I referred to studies that show that those who are exposed to Music are likely to achieve more than those who are deprived of this opportunity. I know from my own experience of school life just how much music did for me. I struggled through school and found English to be a nightmare, however having the chance to excel in music gave me a sense of worth and the ability to survive when teachers really had no understanding of the issues I faced. It was good to hear that my first question was not considered as poor because the chairperson said “Thank you for a good question and something I must keep in mind”. I could settle down, listen to the meeting and realised what it must be like for a new MSP or MP to speak in such surroundings.

The rest of my week has been spent in delivering Music Memories and looking for funding opportunities. It was good to get into the chore of our work and realise that while discussions may take place in the corridors of power, the real corridors of power lie in the Care Homes, Day Centres, Bandstands and wherever else people are being supported to express themselves.

My daughter was wearing a T-shirt with the words “Be your best self”. My initial reaction was to think how good is that, I like that. I reflected further on the word best and who decides? We all share different thoughts and evaluations of what is best, it’s why I always smile when I hear people say, “We have to get this right”. I haven’t yet discovered what doing things right really means. We take the situation we are in, and we do our best with what we have at that time. The beauty is that for those who love us it is always good enough. My ambition is to enable those living with dementia to be a version of themselves that brings them and those who love them a living identity of the spirit they have always shown.

Don’t b Flat,

Don’t b Sharp,

B natural

Monday 11th December 2023

Our week began on Monday with St Bride’s, St Cuthbert’s and Morningside. We are now really into Christmas activities and the singing of Christmas songs! Exploring Christmas memories and traditions is interesting, with different people with different memories. Christmas impacts people in various ways both positive and negative. Each memory needs to be respected and handled with care. We must never take for granted the trust people place in us as they share their stories.

Tuesday brought Eagle Lodge, Seagrove, Quarries, and The Hive. The Hive is a part of the support that is given to those people who find themselves in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. It is run by SAMH and offers support to people from a social model of support. We had never sung there before and didn’t know what to expect. It was certainly different but clear that those who were a part of the session took something from it. We also shared in our volunteer Christmas gathering and I was glad that I was able to be a part of it. We have wonderful volunteers who are doing so much beautiful support to those they work with. One volunteer enables a person to play piano duets, and another holds an accordion while the person she supports is enabled to play. These different ways of using music are amazing and ones that we at the Forget Me Notes project are very proud of.

We had wonderful news about funding for our Volunteer Project as we secured £15,000 from RS Macdonald for two years’ funding of the project. I expect you can imagine that news was met with great celebration, along with the realisation that people were putting their trust in us to deliver a positive project and we are committed to doing just that. If you are a member of the Co-op, then you can support Forget Me Notes. We have been nominated for a community award which means that if you nominate Forget Me Notes then any time you buy a Co-op product, we will receive a penny for every pound you spend. The award period lasts for a whole year so we can secure a substantial amount of money if you are able to support us.

Thursday and Friday saw us at Open Door, Saughton Park, Strachan House and Ocean Terminal. Ocean Terminal is a shopping centre here in Edinburgh, and around the centre there are several hubs that are in place to encourage reminiscence. Singing in the centre was about promoting The Forget Me Notes Project and the Living Memory Association, which was a privilege. Working together to provide experiences for those living with dementia is part of what we are about, both here to enable others, so working in partnership is amazing and we hope that we will have more chances to continue working together.

Have a great week!

Alan

Monday 4th December 2023

This week I have had the privilege of doing two review of services that we deliver to other providers. Reviewing the work of other people is a privilege that needs to be done with respect, understanding the context in which a service is being delivered. The comments shared with me by providers was so easy to listen to because they were so happy with the service that they have been given. It is testimony to the quality of the other facilitators who work with us. Why am I so pleased? Well, it is because for so long those living with dementia have been short-changed by the services given to them. The services generally to older people are so underfunded and the services to those with dementia are even more challenging. To be a part of turning services for people living with dementia into a quality that is deserved is my life’s work.

We delivered the first Christmas session this year when we did Together in Song at the Festival Theatre. It was a great afternoon. I know by the end of December I will be happy to put away the Christmas songs for another year but before I do, I am going to enjoy the celebration. This coming week we will be doing our usual Music Memory sessions along with Saughton Park. We will be at the Hive in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and in Ocean Terminal at the Wee Hub, a memory centre in one of the indoor shopping centres in Edinburgh. It is a fun time, it is a time to sing and celebrate but we mustn’t ever forget that dementia is a whole year-round illness and it brings with it tensions and challenges each and every day. Being able to offer people a measure of relief and positivity through music is an honour.

The aims of The Forget Me Notes project to build community, challenge isolation and provide enhanced opportunities for communication are so relevant at Christmas. We have so many opportunities over the next month to carry that message as we build community, encourage participation, listen to stories, and be inspired.

Hope you have a great week.