
This year is very exciting for us – we are all set to light the Weekday Wow Factor fuse in Angus! Although we have always taken our Daytime Discos on the road, it’s usually as one-off visits to other projects and venues – Isle of Lewis and Edinburgh Dementia Arts Festivals; Inverness Dementia Festival; across the central belt and across Scotland. Now we have funding to bring our project in a sustained and regular basis to venues across Angus.
How it started
I started Daytime Discos eight years ago, in a nightclub in Glasgow’s west end, after noticing that my Occupational Therapy clients with Dementia responded so well to disco music and dancing. Living with dementia or not, everyone became animated, responsive, smiley and engaged. And there is the guiding principle that if you get an event or activity right for people with Dementia, you get it right for everyone. Latest research indicates that loneliness can be as damaging to health as smoking 20 cigarettes a day, and 42 percent of long-term health conditions (dementia, heart disease, cancer, depression and anxiety, arthritis, diabetes etc) can be prevented or limited by lifestyle changes such as staying active, staying connected, managing stress.
Alongside the fact that quality and interesting social and leisure opportunities for older people are, expensive and difficult to access, establishing the charity Weekday Wow Factor, to help build supportive communities of older people, was the obvious thing to do.
Prevention
We aim to prevent the long-term health conditions and limit their effects on day-to-day life by keeping people as confident, healthy and independent in their own homes as long as possible. We encourage at-your-own-pace movement and human connections – relaxed spaces, regular socialising and liberal amounts of fun and therapeutic movement – and we go beyond the traditional static and subdued activities labelled ‘old people’s pastimes’.
Daytime Discos
Our Daytime Discos are now a weekly or monthly feature in hundreds of people’s lives. With our open, inclusive and respectful community standards, newcomers find it easy to find their place, relax, sing and have a dance at their own pace. There is a vibrant community of older people, meeting regularly, supporting and caring for each other, having a laugh with their peers and promoting positivity around ageing and older people – something which is missing in media and online.
Minibus Adventures
Our Minibus Adventure daytrips always include an activity and a walk, and always to a destination that comes from the Wowers. One Wower is a lifelong Burns enthusiast, so we headed down to the Burns Museum in Alloway, where he chatted more than we had ever heard before, telling us about the poet, reciting his works and telling jokes all the way home. And that is a pattern we see regularly – we visit places that people remember from childhood or places they once visited regularly and memories flood back, stimulating conversation, connection and genuine fun and enjoyment.
Dementia Arts
After our visit to Lewis Dementia Arts Festival, where we built links with like-minded people and projects on the Western Isles, (not to mention non-stop laughter and singing), we decided to take the Weekday Wow Factor to Skye. Our members reckoned it was their favourite trip even better than a once in a lifetime cruise, as the company was supportive, the banter fantastic and the scenery beautiful. We will definitely use longer trips like this again to consolidate our community, strengthen the caring friendship bonds and give our members opportunities that otherwise would be beyond them – financially, physically, emotionally and in self-confidence.
Future
We are becoming well-known with invitations to speak at health and well-being related events, to carers’ bodies, to students and to engage in research with University of Glasgow. And we always make a point of taking our members along to these events – the discussions we have around older people, ageing and dementia must include real lived experiences. We welcome partnerships in Angus and beyond, as we are ready to scale our tried and tested Weekday Wow Factor model across Scotland.
To get in touch with Weekday Wow Factor call 07938947096 or email here.