Minutes of Healthy Living & Wellbeing Group AGM
19th JANUARY 2022
Apologies: Alison Prestt, Fran Edwards, Serena Edwards, Michelle Whiffen & Richard Moore.
Present: Elaine Cawthraw, Eddy Stephenson, Mary Hampson, Jenny Charlton. Finella Whitehorn, Roos Allsop, Carlie Karakusevic, Lis Durham, Ann Meyrick & Mike Smith
Minutes: The minutes of the previous AGM held on January 12th 2021 were accepted as a true record. Proposed by Roos Allsop and seconded by Carlie Karakusevic. There were no matters arising from these other than those already on the agenda for this meeting.
Financial Report for year ending 30th November 2021:
To follow
Appointment of Honorary Auditor: Mr M Pester was approved by all present as auditor of HLG accounts. However, should he feel unable to continue, there are other possible auditors within the village who would be willing to step in.
Bishopsteignton Healthy Living Group. Chairman’s Report for 2021 AGM
It’s been a ‘long’ two years since we last met at an AGM. Soon after our last one in 2020 the Pandemic became a reality in the UK resulting in a cessation of much of the HLG activity. HLG activities throughout have been recorded in the Meeting Minutes which are available on the village website. This report will therefore attempt to highlight only specific areas.
Bishopsteignton Emergency Resilience Team (BERT) took the lead role in identifying potentially vulnerable villagers, at the outset of Covid 19, and looking after their needs, some of our HLG volunteers participated in those activities.
Most organisations in our village closed for the duration with one or two maintaining a skeleton operation.
Bishopsteignton Care Watch.
As the world at large started to come to terms with a new style of life, BERT began to wind down its activities. The pandemic continued but could no longer be defined as an Emergency. Carewatch, under the management of Lis Durham, expanded actions to address the areas where BERT had stepped back working alongside the folk already being helped. Jacqueline Pester, who had taken Carewatch forward had handed over to Lis in October 2020. Lis has taken Carewatch to a new high level in every respect. New volunteers have taken on various roles, including Befriending, following successful training. All volunteers interacting with folk are now DBS cleared. I will take this opportunity to record my sincere appreciation, and that of many others in the village, for the superb job that Lis has made of her role.
Defibrillators.
There are now six operational AEDs (Automatic External Defibrillators) within our village envelope. With one exception all are registered with “The Circuit” which has replaced the S.W Ambulance records. 999 calls that may require an AED are answered by operatives with full access to “The Circuit”. For a village of our size this is an excellent situation however there are areas not sufficiently covered, provision for these is being addressed as promptly as possible.
At the same time as acquiring new AEDs we are having to replace older equipment that has either deteriorated or time expired. HLG is extremely grateful to everyone who has contributed to provide funding for this essential maintenance.
Each upgrade or installation of a cabinet requires professional help. I would like to pay a very special tribute to Russell Edwards who has been an incredible support in this work. Giving a substantial amount of his time, all free of charge!
Our Parish Clerk has also been a great support in assisting us in the purchase of equipment at preferential rates.
Memory Cafe
After the necessary close down due to the Pandemic the Memory Cafe has restarted with its usual enthusiasm.
Trim Trail
Not a lot of activity although there are embryo plans for some village walks to be revived in the Spring.
The Table Tennis at The Lawns received good use during Lockdown.
Dementia Friendly Village
Progress on this has been seriously affected by the effects of the pandemic. I know Finella wants to get things moving as soon as practicable.
Finance
Although Jenny has moved away from our village she has remained as our Treasurer, from a distance, maintaining her usual high standard of service. Money turnover has been higher thanks to some generous donations and expenditure on among other things, defibrillators.
I mentioned Memory Cafe a few lines back. This massive asset to our village has been led from the outset by Mary Hampson. Sadly for us Mary is in the throes of moving to Wales to be closer to her family. We will miss her not only for Memory Cafe but as an excellent HLG secretary. With heartfelt thanks from me and many others we wish her and Howard many happy years with Kate and the children.
Before closing this report I am going to take a few moments to review some of our history. It seems like decades that a small group met at the Community Centre as “The Surgery Group”. Tasked to locate a suitable venue for a Doctors’ Surgery as the present site was to be closed. That exercise took almost five years of looking at various options, overcoming objections until we eventually reached a result that we are all gratefully aware of.
At that point The Surgery Group morphed into The Healthy Living Group later to become a Registered (CIO) Charity
There are various initiatives that Bishopsteignton Healthy Living Group can hold itself responsible for, a few samples to revive the memories are below. Someone read about a Health-Watch scheme that had started in Ilfracombe. Details were obtained and our Carewatch was born. Alongside Memory Cafe, Singing for Memory was introduced with fascinating results. The pandemic regrettably caused a halt to that one. I know many of the Memory Cafe attendees were/are grateful for the regular phone calls during the lock downs.
There have now been courses of what was billed as Gentle Exercise attended by, usually, about a dozen folk on a Friday morning. Having participated in one session I queried the word “Gentle” at times but people kept coming back for more. Thanks to Elaine’s incredible fund-raising skills there was no cost to
HLG.
The previously mentioned Table Tennis at The Lawns was a joint venture between HLG and the Parish Council.
A few years ago we had a visit from “Norms” who had been diagnosed with Alzheimers in his forties, he originated the “Purple Angel”. For our village the plan for a Dementia Friendly Society emerged.
It has been my privilege to chair this group for the last nine or ten years, as I have said before we exist for the enhancement of life in Bishopsteignton, no hidden agendas, just pure friendship, endeavour and goodwill from and to the people of Bishopsteignton.
Thank you for your massive support throughout the difficult days and the good times.
As an old slogan used to say “We are getting there”
Eddy
E.J.Stephenson
Chairman – Bishopsteignton Healthy Living Group
Registered Charity (CIO) No. 1175894
Secretary’s report: Memory cafe (Mary Hampson)
2021 began very much like 2020. As there was lock down for the first 4 months of the year we had to rely on maintaining contact with our clients by phone calls. It was only once restrictions were lifted in July that we could make any attempt to renew “normal” service. We began very tentatively with a couple of coffee mornings at Cockhaven but these were restricted in number and, to enable some kind of social distancing, attendance was by invitation each time. However, it was apparent that our clients were very eager for Memory Cafe to resume as many of them had suffered from the long period of enforced social isolation. We decided we would not re-open until September as it was obvious that Cockhaven was going to be very busy over the summer and it didn’t seem sensible to expose vulnerable people to contact with large numbers.
Following the guidance on re-opening given by Devon Memory Cafe Consortium and with careful risk assessment, we have successfully held our sessions each month since September. We have had to adjust our activities to make sure there were no risks from the sharing of equipment and this became even more important with the emergence of the Omicron variant. Throughout it has been a balancing act between the health and safety of clients and their need for some kind of normal social interaction. We even managed to have our Christmas session with an adapted raffle to limit any risk from the handling of tickets, money and prizes. As always the Cockhaven Arms provided us with an excellent Christmas lunch and took every care to meet with the demands imposed by our risk assessment of the situation. Our grateful thanks go to Emma and her staff for achieving this.
One good aspect of the past year is that we have again been awarded a Quality Assurance certificate. Some of this was simply revisiting the application we made last time in 2018 but this time round there were extra sections dealing with the risks of Covid as it affected Memory Cafes. So quite a lot of form filling but worth it in the end. This certificate will last for a further 2 years.
Bishopsteignton Memory Cafe has now been running for 8 years in its present format and despite the difficulties of the past 2 years it is thriving. It has been apparent to all of us that are involved with it that it does meet a growing need in the village not just from people with dementia but from many people who are suffering from loneliness and isolation. The events of the past two years have shown that there is a desperate need for social interaction and the consequences of any enforced lack of this can be devastating.
I have now stepped down from my role as Co-ordinator because of my impending move to Wales. However, I have no worries about the future of the Memory Cafe. Under the leadership of the new Co-ordinator, Richard Moore, and his deputy Nikki Grant I am sure it will go from strength to strength. As always this is mainly due to the amazing team of volunteers who support the leaders and give willingly of their time and skills. Thanks to them all for their continuing hard work.
Carewatch: The report on Care Watch was not available for the AGM but a full report will be given at the next HLG meeting. However, Lis was able to inform the meeting that a volunteer, Sylvia Lockhart, had come forward as a possible deputy for Care Watch and had met with Lis & Elaine to discuss this. There is also now an increased number of volunteers offering their services as drivers and befrienders.
Trustees: The two trustees who had completed their period in post, Alison Prestt & Roos Allsop, had stood down but have been re-elected as trustees unopposed.
Secretary of HLG: Ann Meyrick will now take over from Mary Hampson as Secretary of HLG. She has also offered to over Mary’s position as trustee. This was agreed unanimously by the meeting.
Constitution: The alteration to the constitution proposed by the Chair concerning what should happen in the eventuality of HLG ceasing to exist was approved by the meeting and will now be taken forward to the Parish Council.
AOB:
- The restarting of Singing for Memory has been postponed until 1st March 2022 when it is hoped it will be possible to sing without the wearing of face masks.
- Elaine pointed out that funding is available to train people to be digital befrienders. However, when this has been offered before there was little uptake.
The meeting closed at 8.00 pm
Next HLG meeting Wednesday 9th March at 7.30 pm. This may be face to face or by Zoom depending on the situation.
Next year’s AGM 18th January 2023