The In Jolly Good Company Almanac 2021

We’ve had another wonderful year and thought we’d take a look back as last year’s almanac was so popular. Although we started with another lockdown, by April we were able to meet again in small groups outside. What a joy when we were eventually able to meet in bigger groups and enjoy our Jolly Days indoors again. We hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane.

January

As we moved into another lockdown we got busy with our Jolly Postal Service again. The very talented Jo Kear hand-painted beautiful snowdrop cards for us to send out as a wonderful reminder that spring was just around the corner. Everyone was matched with their own Jolly Pen Pal and it’s lovely to know that because of it friendships were forged between people of all ages.

The fabulous Friendly Food Club donated 14 delicious, hand-made cottage pies to us to distribute to people in our village to provide a bit of a 'lockdown-lift'. And it certainly did the trick! Thank you FFC… you're amazing.

We were delighted to be featured in the Allendale magazine.

February

All around Wimborne St Giles you could hear the click-clack of busy needles. The Jolly Good Yarn project was launched! Beautiful handcrafted items started to pop up around the village. Rachael (whose brainchild this was), Carol, myself and Stan the dog braved the cold weather to start decorating the tree opposite the Almshouses. Wonderful creations started to arrive by the day.

The tool store at our ‘Step Outside’ allotment at Kingston Lacy blew down in a storm so we had to get it fixed fast. Thanks to the mighty Andy and Molly Rampton, it was soon sorted out. If only all problems were so easily fixed! It was such a joy to see our dwarf irises thriving, a wonderful little sign of hope.

Bluebell Press created a wonderful sunny sunshine print that we sent out with our Jolly Postal Service.

‘The Friendly Food Club’ provided us with lunches for local delivery once a week starting this month and continued through until May. We were helped by funding from Knowlton Parish Benefit Fund.

March

Andy and I had a very productive time getting our Wimborne St Giles School raised beds into shape. The leeks came out and the garlic went in.

We celebrated Mother’s Day by hanging beautiful hearts, made by my daughter Molly, around our village. The last of the hearts found its perfect home on the gate of the Commonwealth War graveyard.

I had some lovely socially-distanced chats with people in the village during lockdown. I was especially impressed with the sweetpeas Margaret grew for us on her windowsill which were eventually transferred to our raised beds.

We launched Jolly TV! Dorset Council had a project to digitally connect some of our most vulnerable residents during lockdown and they invited us to create some content that viewers would find interesting and engaging. I asked my son James to help and he agreed to use his many skills to film and edit for us.

April

We celebrated the eggstraordinary talent of Angela Yonwin who made us some adorable knitted eggs. Each one had its own unique personality and a surprise chocolate egg inside. I dropped off a nest of gorgeous knitted Easter chicks, made by Angela, to the Wimborne Food Bank to distribute to families who were using their much-needed service.

The lovely Lisa from All Hallows Cookery School grew sweet pea seedlings for us to plant on our ‘Step Outside’ allotment.

Episode 4 of Jolly TV was out. We filmed at Knowlton Church and Henge where we chatted with Michael Wootton and found out some incredibly fascinating facts about this wonderful site.

We had our first ‘Step Outside’ gardening group of the year on Friday 23rd April. In preparation Jill, Sue and Andy helped us construct wigwams for the sweet peas.

Stepping Into Nature gifted us copies of 'Spring', a book from their ‘Seasons of Stories’ project. The books were created to help people take notice and connect with nature and the changing seasons. We were very happy to pass them on to their lucky recipients.

May

Although it was often chilly at our Step Outside gardening group we worked hard, digging out the raised beds, weeding and planting runner beans saved from last years crop. We kept ourselves warm with fun activities such as hula hooping. It was so lovely to be back gardening together.

We are all over the media this month! First, we were on Radio Wimborne with Kelly Webb who chatted to author Graham Rabone, about the charity bike ride he was embarking on to raise funds for In Jolly Good Company. Later in the month, we featured in the Stour and Avon magazine where we had a full-page colour article.

Magic Little Grants awarded us £500 towards the creation of our short films for Jolly TV.

Our cycle hero Graham cycled from Wimborne St Giles to the Midlands in a day, a distance of approximately 130 miles! He raised almost £2,000, including Gift Aid. Wow! This much-needed money helped us to get our Jolly Days up and running again after such a challenging year.

June

The weather was glorious and we had a jolly time at our allotment. Not only did we work hard gardening but we also played hard, and stopped for tea lots too. I loved the faces we made for the scarecrows that guard our raised beds at Wimborne St Giles.

Eight week old Merlin the Border Terrier brought some magic to our Shaftesbury Jolly Day at Fontmell Tea Rooms. We enjoyed their lovely tea, coffee and delicious cakes and we had a jolly good catch-up, followed by a quiz.

What fun to have Clara and Colin, aka ‘Bit of a Tonic’, entertain us with their rendition of Teddy Bears' Picnic. It was very special to listen to, and sing along to, live music again.

Jill from ‘The Friendly Food Club’ gave us a cooking demo at our very first Wimborne St Giles Jolly Day of 2021. What a treat to meet in person again. We enjoyed chicken and hummus salad for lunch, followed by delicious Eton Mess.

July

The sun shone and made our gardening group days even more special. There were lots of jolly activities to get involved with from tai chi, broad bean picking to weeding and watering. We started to reap the rewards of our labour this month. Fiona picked the first of the broad beans which were particularly impressive!

Our little scarecrow family guarding our raised beds at Wimborne St Giles First School were very happy to receive their faces made by the ‘Step Outside’ team.

Our Jolly Days at Wimborne St Giles included lots of jollities. The fabulous ‘Friendly Food Club’ cooked delicious lunches for us, there was art with the amazing Jo Kear and music with the lovely Kate Sheridan, and always there was tea and delicious homemade cakes.

There was singing with Kate at our Blandford Jolly Day. She really is a marvel.

We all watched episode 5 of Jolly TV where Molly showed us how to make a collage. Then we all had a go at making our own collages, great fun!

We had a ‘wear your silliest sun hat’ day at our gardening group.

We enjoyed the wonderful plants and the smell of the lavender as we took a Jolly Stroll around Woodhouse Gardens at our Jolly Day in Blandford.

August

Harvesting began in earnest at the allotment. There were potatoes, green beans, courgettes and black currants… yum!

Who doesn’t love a cream tea? It’s the epitome of summer. We treated ourselves to one at our Blandford Jolly Day.

We had an excellent and jolly useful First Aid Course for our staff and volunteers. The course was expertly run by Alison Hawthorn of ‘On Hand First Aid’, our training included how and when to use the defibrillator, CPR and other practical techniques to help us keep safe.

We realised singing was so popular at Blandford Jolly days that we decided to make it our main activity going forwards. Min and Sue, our wonderful volunteers, served us tea and yummy coffee and walnut cake.

We made hapa zome prints at our Step Outside Gardening Group and Jill took them home and used them to create beautiful greetings cards. We also had a couple of sing-song sessions at the allotment one afternoon with visits from the two Kates (Sheridan and Hosstinger Robson) who are both brilliant at getting us all singing at the tops of our voices.

Everyone at our Blandford Jolly Day was delighted to see Paula again after so long and she led us in our afternoon singing session. It was also very special to see friends Anne and Barbara reunited after nearly 18 months. Friendship and connection are so important.

In episode 6 of Jolly TV artist, Maddie Rock, inspired us to have a go with pen and ink. Last year Maddie walked the South West Coast Path and raised much-needed funds for In Jolly Good Company.

Carol, our resident knitter, lovingly handcrafted a selection of characterful items which were sold in aid of In Jolly Good Company and Wimborne St Giles’ church roof fund at the Wimborne St Giles Church Grand Book Sale.

September

Fiona and Carol did a brilliant job of sanding down our picnic table at our ‘Step Outside’ Allotment. Elaine bought her mum Celia along one afternoon to help with sanding and oiling our bench. It’s all looking rather good now.

We were in the news again! This time we were featured in ‘Roundabout East Dorset Villages’ magazine. The magazine is delivered to hundreds of homes and their generous gesture helped us to get the message to people not online, who wouldn't normally have known about us.

We had a wonderful session with Dorset potter Susan Miller at Wimborne St Giles. It was a lovely sunny day so we were able to work outside.

Lisa Osman, one of our wonderful advocates, very generously donated a percentage of her takings from her candle sales to us.

I spent a cosy afternoon at home getting the Jolly TV craft kits ready to be sent out. We worked in collaboration with Dorset Council to provide a group of people with the materials they needed to craft along with Episodes 5 and 6 of Jolly TV. Each kit contained everything required to get arty, and each set came in its own beautiful, reusable cloth bag, made by Molly.

George proved to be an expert whittler when he carved beautiful little mushrooms at our Step Outside Gardening Group.

October

Vicky and Rosemarie, from the wellbeing team at Blandford Group Practice, donated the profits from their 'dress down Fridays' to In Jolly Good Company.

We had a visit from the very talented photographer Brent Jones who captured special moments at our ‘Step Outside’ Gardening Group. Brent very generously shoots all the images for our website for free.

KP used his Jolly Craft Kit and created a wonderful collage inspired by episode 5 of Jolly TV. He was justly proud of his work and kindly gave us permission to share his work.

We enjoyed a jolly special visit from Millie the horse and her owners in their carriages. Hilary, now known as the horse whisperer, had a lovely time making a new friend.

We had a jolly time making packets for our seeds, harvested from the allotment, and filling them at our Wimborne St Giles Jolly Day.

We built a bench! Big thanks went to George (who is living with dementia), an expert in woodwork, who skillfully guided us through what we needed to do, step-by-step.

‘Stepping Into Nature’ visited us at our Shaftesbury and Wimborne St Giles Jolly Days. They aim to help people be happier and healthier by connecting with nature. As part of their ‘Your Season of Stories’ project Ilse Black showed us how to make stunning leaf paintings at our Shaftesbury group and helped us make stunning animal masks at Wimborne St Giles.

The latest episode of Jolly TV saw us visiting Avon Heath Country Park where I was treated to a very interesting and informative guided tour from Carol, one of the Park Rangers.

My husband Andy, a gardener, visited our Step Outside allotment and gave us the benefit of his advice and gardening knowledge. We now know how to put the plots to bed for the winter. We made the decision to stop work for the cold winter months, but are looking forward to welcoming everyone back in the Spring from March 2022 onwards.

Our Jolly Quiz was a resounding success. We were full to capacity and we raised a fabulous £1,200 thanks to James, Wendy, Carol and Tony, the brilliant organisers. We had a raffle with generously donated prizes and our patron, Lord Shaftesbury, gave us the wine we enjoyed.

November

Julia Foulkes lent us her incredible carved pumpkin for our Halloween Jolly Day. What a talent she has! We enjoyed bangers and mash from ‘The Friendly Food Club’, a Guy Fawkes quiz and a ghost story with terrifying sound effects from Mary and Carol. Plus pottery painting with Susan.

In Jolly Good Company took a visit to the Mindful Cafe in Gillingham where we had a go at leaf painting together. It was a very relaxing and absorbing experience for all concerned.

It was wonderful to have Caroline Pugh join us with her cello and sing songs that we could all join in with. We were treated to even more music from ‘Bit of a Tonic, who soon had our toes tapping!

We headed to the allotment for the last time and worked hard to prepare our Step Outside Kingston Lacy beds for the winter.

Dan Baker, an amazing musician, played for us in Blandford. He brought along his special fiddle with its built-in speaker, originally from 1910. It was a wonderful afternoon.

Episode 8 of Jolly TV went live featuring John Radford in the starring role. He shared some of his incredible knowledge with us.

December

We were definitely getting into the Christmas spirit at our various Christmas parties.

Stan our Christmas ‘reindeer’ tucked into a pheasant lunch along with the rest of us (with a delicious nut roast for the veggies) at Wimborne St Giles. Stan did an excellent job greeting everyone at the door as they arrived for our jolly Christmas party.

The children of Leehurst Swan School in Salisbury created the most special Christmas cards for us to give to all our Jolly visitors. Each one had a beautiful drawing on the front and a thoughtful, heartwarming message on the reverse. The recipients were delighted to receive them and it was lovely to see them sharing their special messages with others.

Brian surprised us all when he arrived at our Blandford group dressed as Father Christmas. He’s one of our Blandford guests and he really put us all in a festive mood. His daughter told me he’d been looking forward to his Father Christmas appearance for days.

Peter and Noel joined us at our Shaftesbury party where we had a wonderfully festive time singing carols and Christmas songs. We were treated to the most delicious chocolate and lemon cakes made and beautifully decorated by Sandi, who lives in Wimborne St Giles and Virginia, a visitor to our Shaftesbury group, bought us yummy, homemade mince pies.

We can’t wait to see you all in 2022. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year everyone.