In need of company – a new hobby or study subject, more exercise with others? The U3A offers opportunities for you to join with like-minded members to help and lead your chosen interest, leisure and sporting activities. Melbourn and District U3A continues for its members with video conferencing, by email and telephone. Many of its interest, study and recreational groups, including the monthly speaker meeting, are now operating online and we are increasingly returning to meeting face to face in local halls and private homes. Our monthly Newsletters and Bulletins are distributed online or by post to all members. New members are welcome; sign up for a reduced fee until 31 July 2022. Check our website www.melbu3a.org or contact us by email: secretary@melbu3a.org or phone: 01223 871480.
Moorlands Court After what has seemed like a very long winter, we are at last benefitting from some warmer weather and the lighter evenings are so welcome. Isn’t it funny how a little bit of sunshine and feeling the sun on our faces makes everything seem so much better? Every February we produce our annual satisfaction scores. Our tenants, community & day centre clients and service providers are asked to complete a questionnaire. These annual surveys enable us to monitor and improve the quality of our services, and the data collected allows our governing body, the CQC (Care Quality Commission), to rate us by inspecting and regulating our services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety. I am delighted to say we received the most amazing feedback and scored exceptionally well, with “excellent” in almost all the categories from quality of care to the cleanliness of the scheme. It is always humbling to read some of the lovely comments when these forms are returned and reviewed, it gives the team a huge boost and really does go a long way to make them feel appreciated. Entertainment With the Covid restrictions finally lifted, we have more or less returned to normal and have had the pleasure of welcoming back some performers. It is always such a nice atmosphere in the communal area on those afternoons; hearing our tenants and day centre clients singing along to the various entertainers is wonderful. Music really does unite people, and especially those who suffer with dementia. It literally opens up their world again.
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In March the very talented Mickey Fordola returned to Moorlands Court to entertain us with his swing show. It was a huge success and our tenants and day centre clients loved it. They all enjoyed a glass of sherry and swayed along to the tunes.
In April, a Moorlands Court favourite, Lillian Lace, returned with her music hall inspired show which was, as always, a huge success. Her show is guaranteed to get the audience singing along and is great as the audience love hearing all those old favourites like “My old man’s a dustman” and “Knees up Mother Brown”. It was the perfect way to start the long Easter weekend. The hilarious ‘Somethin Else’ are due back at Moorlands Court in May and we are really looking forward to seeing them perform for us again. They will be performing a Jubilee celebration show and we have a box full of Union Jack flags and lots of bunting to decorate the performance area. I look forward to sharing the photos with you all in the next Melbourn Magazine. This year’s Easter raffle was a big success and raised funds which boost our amenities fund. This enables us to hold various functions and bring entertainers into Moorlands Court. One of the activities we have arranged through this fund was transport for some of our more independent tenants to travel to the local garden centre for shopping, coffee and a slice of cake. It was lovely to see them have the freedom to go out for the afternoon without having to rely on family members to take them. This is, for some, the first time they have been out for such a long time and I know they were all very excited. Having Royston Community Transport provide the bus was just brilliant and they offered our travellers a great service. They were all very positive about it when they returned and I’m hoping to be able to arrange another trip very soon. April turned out to be a very busy month, with a cream tea afternoon and a flower arranging session.
