Memory Walk 2015

I am in my third year of organising the local Memory Walk with Jo Wilde for the Alzheimer’s Society. Previously Jo and I have organised this by ourselves but we had such a lot of interest last year so we designed a committee to help us and this year it is going swimmingly.

Being with the committee group has been great to generate and discuss new ideas and this year our event will be better than ever. Not only do we have two walks but we also have various stalls inc: raffle, cake stalls, guess the name of the monkey (I think it should be called Dave), guess how many sweets in the jar, face painting and some craft stalls.

It takes a lot of advertising to get an event off the ground and I had great fun talking on the radio promoting our event.

I would like to pay a special thanks to TMS Media for writing our press releases,  and the Lowestoft Journal and the Beach Radio for their support. Would also like to thank local businesses that have donated fab raffle prizes and their names will be in the post walk article in the newspaper.

Thanks to the fab committee for all their hard work: Jo Wilde, Linda Harmer, Liana Moyse, Estelle Tasker, Carla Neve, Phil Mummery, Lucy Rayner, Helen Thwaites and Enid Thwaites.

If you would like to know more about our event please click on this link:

https://www.facebook.com/Lowestoft-Memory-Walk-27th-Sept-2015-1468057330150195/timeline/

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Let’s help OAPSchat beat loneliness

Who Or What Is OAPSchat?

Hi, my name is Janice and I am the founder of http://www.oapschat.co.uk. OAPSchat stands for Optimistic and Proactive Seniors Chat. Loneliness is a big scourge on our society worldwide and the website helps combat this awful isolation by coming together and sharing our thoughts and ideas.

OAPSchat was born in April 2013 as a Facebook page. One lunchtime, my family and I were talking about the lack of websites for over fifty fives. So I decided to look into this more thoroughly. There are a few, but they are celebrity based or specific to grandparents etc.

So I decided to launch OAPSchat FB page and post and comment about the silver and golden years. A blog was set up and I started to write weekly columns on health, money, lifestyle issues, relationships, memories and much more. The FB page grew slowly at first, but gradually I was having more and more likes. Bel Mooney from The Daily Mail mentioned me twice in 2013 and more likes followed. To date there are over 1125. It was in November 2013 that I decided I had enough material and confidence to launch the website.

Since that day, I have been writing articles on all kinds of topics. I now have over sixty five wonderful contributors to date and articles on all different subjects are posted on an almost daily basis. Members can comment via Disqus, FB and Twitter. There is also a members Forum where many topics are discussed. To date there are 576 articles and this figure is growing steadily.

Raffles are held monthly, sometimes more often. Firms, shops, businesses, authors and many others donate prizes. A newsletter goes out once a month with my plans for the coming weeks.

I am an Independent Happy List Winner 2014 for founding the website.

You will note that after Optimistic and ProActive Seniors is the word CHAT. Whilst it is great to be able to ‘chat’ via Facebook and The Forum, I really would like to be able to install a Video Chat Link so that members can ‘see’ each other and chat either one to one or in a group. I am going to invite various authors, TV personalities, business people etc to share question and answers sessions.

This is a very exciting prospect, but in order to do this, I need to raise funds. So, I have set up a GoFundMe account and am inviting people to make a contribution. The website is my full time job and I also need funds also to cover my running costs. Any amount you can afford will be spent entirely on the website.

Oapschat is well and truly born now and I hope it will continue to thrive. With your support, I’m confident it will!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/columnist-465/Bel-Mooney-Daily-Mail.html

http://www.oapschat.co.uk/49-news/149-independent-on-sunday-s-happy-list-2014

http://www.gofundme.com/OAPSchat

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