CAN Connect Service

The CAN Connect service is led by Community Action Norfolk and is in partnership with Future projects. We are part of a range of services across Norfolk aimed at reducing loneliness and isolation. The service can help individuals over the age of 18 to connect with people and activities in their community as well as providing a range of support to help them achieve their goals. The service can also provide support for the community itself. Helping organizations and people make the places we live, stronger, friendlier, and more resilient. We can help individuals to identify and achieve their goals, provide support with advice and coaching, help find the right support if specialist help is needed and find and support individuals to get involved with activities within their community. We achieve this by assigning a client to a life connector or for a longer-term solution we would then match them to a volunteer to work on a 1-1 basis offering support with information from websites for local groups and clubs, plus telephone befriending and/or regular visit calls to offer the support on a long-term basis. It is estimated that there between 35,000 and 40,000 lonely people in Norfolk. Loneliness is defined as ‘an individual’s personal, subjective sense of lacking desired affection, closeness and social interaction with others.’ And why is it a bad thing? Well it’s bad for your health – research has suggested feeling lonely, living alone and poor social connections are as bad for your health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It’s worse than obesity. And lonely people are more likely to suffer from dementia, heart disease and depression. For further information or to apply to be a volunteer for the service, you can contact 01326 698216 or, visit the website:

www.canconnect.org.uk/

Members of the Probus Club of Thetford were pleased to meet up again at the Church on the Way for their first meeting since lockdown started in March 2020. We enjoyed exchanging news and hope that this will be the first of a return to our regular meetings. It was with delight that our past Vice Chairman Gerald Bass, handed the chain of office over to our new Chairman, David Childerhouse. The new Vice Chairman is Bill De Bass. We observed a minute’s silence, followed by a tribute from Gerald Bass, for our former chairman, Tony Dobbin, who passed away recently. He will be much missed for the cheerful and good-natured support he has given to the Club and its members over many years. We also remembered Colin Armes, Jack Kramer and John Bullock who have also passed away since our last meeting. One of our members, Chas Fox, gave us a very entertaining talk about aspects of his service in Germany with the RAF, liaising with the local population. The exchange of alcoholic products from our respective countries can on occasion be an important tool in establishing and maintaining amicable and productive international relations!

Gerald Bass and David Childerhouse

The Club was founded nearly 50 years ago as a social organisation for retired professional and business people, providing opportunities to get to know a wide range of people from many different backgrounds. We hold meetings on the first Tuesday of each month at the Church on the Way in Churchill Road where we have a guest speaker, and we go out to lunch at different venues on the third Tuesday of each month. We are happy to welcome new members, and anyone who is interested can get in touch with our Secretary, John MacPherson - john.bet@btinternet.com

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