We are pleased that this summer ‘intergenerational arts’ is getting lots of attention – it is the theme of both the Age of Creativity and Get Creative Festivals.
Our contribution to both the festival is linked by our Cocktails In Care Homes theme: London Transport
As part of the festival, all of our parties throughout the month of May will be receiving a ‘London Transport’ theme box. Chiming with the festival’s aims to encourage participation in creative activities, inside the theme box are games and activities around the theme of ‘London Transport for guests to enjoy during the parties.
Ways in which volunteers, residents and staff can get involved with the London Transport Theme include:
-Dressing up: Come as a favorite tube station / tube line!
e.g. Angel Wings for Angel Station, Crown hat for Kings Cross, All pink for Hammersmith and City Line? The possibilities are endless!
-Storytelling: Share transport memories and mishaps! We are asking guests at the parties !Have you ever worked on the rails? What’s your favorite bus route and why? Do you have any funny TFL memories or mishaps?” and then collecting these stories through writing and drawing on postcards during parties. We have created prompt cards for this activity that are built into the décor and will also help aid conversation.
-Send a creative postcard to another care home during the party!
The theme box travels to 16 parties throughout the month – so we’ve asked guests to write a message and say hello to residents and volunteers at another party
If you’d like to share your creations / stories / photos via social media – please use the hashtags: #cocktailsincarehomes and # aocfestival. Note: if these are taken at a Cocktails In Care Homes party please do not include faces (apart from your own!) in pictures as we do not have photo permissions for all care home resident participants – pictures of hands, décor, costumes, postcards and drawings are all great.
We’ve already had some great interactions one of our new volunteers Emily went to her first party in Finsbury Park and had a lovely, whole party-long chat with a resident as they bonded over a joint love for ballet. The theme got them chatting about central London stations and west-end theatres where they ended up bonding over a shared love for Ballet. The resident had met one of the volunteer’s ballet heroes in real life years ago.
Another party guest reported how conversations about favourite journeys led into “where we had used to go out and thinking that we were able to sneak in late, without our parents knowing but they always did!”
It wasn’t all just buses and trains though – our own Phoebe Grudzinskas remembered “I used to get the Thames Clipper to work when I was 18 from Greenwich to London Bridge. Even though I had to get up earlier to take the boat, it was so beautiful and calming to see London from the river rather than get on the tube at rush hour.”
Get Creative
Right at the beginning of the month we held a Get Creative event for the Get Creative festival and linked this to our London Transport theme. Our team at Magic Me are committed to helping the environment so we didn’t want cycling to be missed out from the transport story. For our Get Creative event we invited people of all ages to help make decorations to go onto a bike and bike trailer that then delivered one of our theme boxes to a Cocktails In Care Homes Party in Angel. The bike trailer was decorated with a collage of brightly coloured images with ‘flags’ in the form of cocktails, bottles and cocktail accessories and bunting to decorate the cross bar of the bike. Our cyclist Archie then pedalled off through the rush hour to deliver the theme box to our party in Angel. We’d love to make more theme box deliveries by bike so if you have a bike and a trailer do get in touch (sarahwatson@magicme.co.uk) – you can see where the parties are located on this map.
More about Age of Creativity:
AOC is a network of more than 1000 professionals who all believe that creativity and culture supports older people to experience better health, well being and quality of life. The Age of Creativity Festival celebrates the extraordinary range of Age Friendly creative and cultural work taking place across England and reaches out into our community to help more people get involved. The theme for the 2019 Age of Creativity Festival is ‘Intergenerational Work’ (which of course chimes well what we do here at Magic Me!) recognizing the “immeasurable value of bringing together communities and generations.”
The festival exists to celebrate older people as audiences, participants, volunteers and artists. The festival aims to showcase an eclectic mix of tastes, styles, art-forms and interests that are Age Friendly, and provide the consideration and support that enables older people to produce, create and enjoy creativity up and down the country. You can read more about Age of Creativity here.
More about Get Creative
Get Creative Festival shines a light on all the great cultural activity that takes place on a regular basis in local communities and encourages people to try their hand at something new and creative. This huge annual celebration of creativity aims to give everyone the chance to get actively involved in a creative event in their local area. You can find out more about it here