 get in touch with me |||EMAIL_ADDRESS||| because I have a small number of kits which Chris Hammacott has made to offer to carers across the islands, which come in a lovely hand made craft bag for this and future projects.
Our Soundcloud account (Arora An Lanntair) has many playlists for music, poetry, talks, items of interest as well as our own cultural podcasts and Gaelic language lessons. The spoken listings and newsletters can also be found there.
There will be a project celebration during October, news to follow.
September was quite a busy month for the project!
The Woven Communities Collaboration project team went on a Seatrek trip to look at where different grasses grow and how they are harvested. We took a small sample using traditional sickles and tried drying and plaiting with them.
The next day, we tried splitting a piece of root and weaving a coil using the root to stitch it together. Also, during this session, we planned how to pull together past and present knowledge to make the most of this collaboration and the intergenerational opportunities across the community.
The making session and recording of the session will take place in North & South Uist in the second week of November.
The team is currently looking into the prospect of an exhibition relating to this work and the relevant pieces that have been discovered and uncovered and which will be made.
Jon and I have been invited to present our work on this project at a Symposium at St Andrew’s University in January 2017.
The 22nd September saw the team attend Scotland’s Dementia Awards as a nominee for Best dementia friendly community initiative’ in Glasgow. And we won!  Well done and a million thanks to all of you. I really hope that this award will support us as a wide team to support even more people across the Western Isles.
We launched our new website and brand identity this month.
Chris Hammacott and I recorded how-to videos for quilting to go with the kits that Chris has made up for carers to have a go at making a cushion. These will be available during October.
I met with the team from the NHS and Alzheimer Scotland to recommence the ward based Memory Cafes from 4th October. These may have a new name such as Tuesday Ceilidh so watch out for the ward posters.
Jon Macleod was accepted for an exciting Project Research Residency in Senegal for 5 weeks from February 2017. This is sure to bring back some incredible global perspectives on memory, culture, language and community support.
The Western Isles Volunteer Centre has been working with us at An Lanntair to work through the WAVE Western Isles Award for Volunteering Excellence and we have started to work with young volunteers and developing our support system for volunteers.
We held our regular Carers’ High Tea event at An Lanntair in collaboration with Alzheimer Scotland on Thursday 29th September.
Our new South Isles Practitioner posts are being advertised now.
Our trial memory box was tested around the South Isles.
Our amazing ‘In Conversation’ recording between Jack Manchester and John Maher was edited and will be ready during October.
I met with our first potential volunteer for our new volunteer programme at An Lanntair. As a team, we are aiming to follow thew Volunteer Centre Western Isles’ ‘WAVE’ award, which is Western Isles Award for Volunteering Excellence.
We have joined the DEEP Network, which is the Dementia Empowerment and Engagement Project. The idea is that through this network, people living with dementia and their carers can have more of a voice collectively and the support of a national network to amplify that voice. There will be regular meetings and more information about this shortly.
8th – 11th November, the Woven Communities team will be back in North & South Uist to undertake the making and recording part of the project, along with some intergenerational work. This will include some of our collaboration work with Remoage.
17th November, Life Changes Trust are holding an information session in Benbecula to support phase 2 applications for funding across the South Isles. Paula is supporting this.
Weds December 7th Paula has been invited to the Upstream conference, to present our Island Case Study for this Life Changes Trust funded Transport project in Edinburgh.
February 2017 Jon is undertaking a residency in Senegal to research for this project. He will be away for around 5 weeks.
Taking time to pause and reflect was the closing message from Henry Simmons at the Scottish Dementia Awards last week.
We certainly weren’t expecting to come away with the trophy for ‘Best Dementia Friendly Community’ against such stiff competition. Everyone nominated is doing incredible work to reconnect communities and reduce isolation.
Looking around the packed room, I knew that each person had undoubtedly volunteered many hours on top of their official role, as we do. And everyone looked fantastic – intricate hairstyles, ruffles and lace, some in dazzling reds and oranges.
Some of the organisations nominated and winning were huge. Theatres, charities, partnerships much bigger than our own. But then thinking about the incredible range of programming at An Lanntair, courtesy of skilled programming staff alongside local, national and international artists of all media, such a rich resource to share, and which we have naturally emulated across our dementia friendly community, I thought about how much we have achieved in 18 months.
I’m not sure that it can be considered a highlight but a particularly meaningful moment for me was coming back to the office and sharing with everyone that we had lost two of the wonderful people who participated in this journey with us but that our work had returned speech to one gentleman, the return of his voice, and that another lady had enjoyed the violin music she had missed so much. And that it was the last thing they did. I was there at the passing of the gentleman. Walking past by chance, I felt something was different and I held his big, weather beaten hand as the last thready pulses passed.
I wondered how the panel knew about our work to select us as the best, being so remote and working so personally with people. And then I started to recognise faces. People I’ve Skyped with from the Scottish Dementia Working Group, people from NDCAN – Myra Lamont, who said she didn’t completely understand dementia friendly communities until she spent a day museum visiting with us and then made the effort to meet up with us to support carers and start to build a team in Uist last month, people we have presented to at Life Changes Trust gatherings, people cheering us on.
I certainly don’t do any of this for recognition or an award. At times, I’ve cried and lost sleep for the things we can’t do, for the work that remains undone, for the heartbreak and loss that people I’ve come to know so well experience.
But such a wonderful and meaningful award from the people who have watched us grow is something to shout about. I hope that it will support us to more of the wonderful collaboration and partnerships that have shaped this project – academic, charitable, community and volunteer collaboration has been key to this project’s success. This award, ‘Best Dementia Friendly Community’ is an incredible achievement.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to Alzheimer Scotland on a national level for campaigning so hard for people and for this award shaped opportunity to showcase the incredible work cross Scotland, for bringing us together with inspirational people, whose words I share to try to effect local change, such as Archie Latta from the Scottish Dementia Working Group, who has helped me to reduce stigma and support people to ask for help and the tirelessly industrious Agnes Houston who’s Twitter feed is staggeringly full.
Also on a local level, where would I be without my ‘wee pal’ Marion MacInnes, local Branch Manager, supporting us in collaborative and innovative change within the NHS and remote communities in the South Isles and for carers?
Heartfelt thanks also belong to Life Changes Trust, our incredible funders who nurture and support in ways which enable us to flexibly respond to the needs of the community and experiment to find the best ways of collaborating and working to achieve the most meaningful support. Their unswerving belief in us has been a powerful driving force.
An Lanntair is much more than an arts organisation, it is in the heart memory of the community, it’s a family. This project is successful on so many levels, and I couldn’t be more proud of every person who gives a part of him or herself to make it possible. I was going to photograph every person who earned this award with us and make a photo collage to show just how many people deserve it but I don’t think I have enough life left to do that, so let me just say this award is ours. ‘Nothing about us without us.’ Agnes Houston often says. All of us.
Best DFC in Scotland!
Thank you so much to our wider team, collaborators, funders and everyone involved. We couldn’t have done it without you and I really hope this raises our profile to make more of a difference.
In Inverness now, asleep….
On World Alzheimer Day, Jon & Paula had a moving and inspiring day sharing the project with 300 people at Life Changes Trust’s first Community & Dementia Conference in Perth.
From the insightful opening and wonderful hosting by Agnes Houston, through the words of carers and people living with dementia, through the inspiring sharing of ideas of fellow awardees and through our own sessions, where Maggie’s film enthralled along with John’s wonderful talk on oral tradition and hand memory and Paula’s sharing of the fantastic island voices we are privileged to hear