The In Jolly Good Company Almanac 2024

We are now five years old and we celebrated by becoming a registered Charity (CIO) this year. A big thank you goes to Rita Chada who helped us to navigate this. For all the good work and fun that happens every day at our Jolly Days, there are a wonderful team of people beavering away in the background to make it all possible and I am very grateful to each one of them.

Thanks go to all the artists, musicians, yoga and dance teachers and actors who brought their skills, talent and knowledge to make this year’s Jolly Days the unique and special experiences they were. They bring such joy to our guests.

Without the support of the National Lottery, our main funder, we would not still be up and running. This year we benefitted from additional support from Dorset Council, Dorset Community Foundation, Coral Samuel and Talbot Village Trust as well as We Out Here Festival, Tesco, Waitrose, Dorset Tea, Lush, Fluffets, All Hallows Farmhouse and other local businesses – who all see the importance of the support we are providing in our communities. We notice that our voluntary donations from guests are down, as they are hit by the rising cost of living and so we are organising more of our own fundraising activities to bridge the gap.

Grab a cuppa, relax and enjoy this glimpse into some of the things we got up to in 2024.

January

Anni and a team of dedicated gardening volunteers, known as the ‘winter work party’, spent the winter months tending to our Step Outside allotment so that it would be ready for when our guests joined us in the spring. This involved mulching, clearing the paths, weeding and so much more. Thanks go to Tim, Brenda, Brian, and Fiona for their hard work preparing the beds.

Who doesn't love an Insta Panto? Our Jolly guests definitely did! Liz Reeve and I were both long-term members of the Dorset-based touring Theatre Company Word And Action and we treated our groups to a taste of ‘Instant Theatre’. We invited guests to create their own plays and helped to act them out. Hilarious plots emerged – from a very drunk Dick Whittington stealing alcohol from Lidl and Waitrose one Christmas Eve to an unhappy stepmother who ended up escaping on a broom and marrying a king! With Instant Theatre the audience’s imaginations can run wild and there are no constraints. People also feel comfortable as all participation is voluntary. I’ve noticed that people with memory issues particularly enjoy the Instant Theatre format as there are no wrong answers or ideas and everything is acceptable. Audience members got stuck into acting their parts from a snoring husband to the very impressive King Phillip played by Shirley who spent her career on the stage singing, dancing, and acting and has lost none of her skill, wit, and charm in her 90’s. What a pleasure and a privilege it is for us to work with such people and enable them to explore their creativity through theatre.

The Friendly Food Club prepared delicious, nutritious lunches for our lovely ‘dinner lady’ Kate Sheridan to deliver. The Community kitchen at the Allendale Centre in Wimborne very generously allowed us to use their premises for free so that George could prepare the meals. A big thank you to Liz Guilmant-Cush from The Friendly Food Club for organising everything and being so great to work with. Huge thanks go to our lovely Kate who drove through floods, rain and cold to get the lunches out and through it all remained resolutely cheerful. She stopped and had a little chat with every recipient and received some wonderful feedback, they were all so appreciative and say they can’t really believe that the meals are free! Some of them spend long periods without seeing anyone and they really look forward to Kate’s cheery visits. The Jolly Friendly Lunch Delivery Service is as needed as ever and is in its 3rd year. A big thank you goes to Coral Samuel Charitable Trust and We Out Here Festival for funding the lunches. Additional funds came from our fundraising tea last year.

Feedback from a lunch recipient:
“I enjoy talking to you about poems and having someone knock on my door and seeing your smile. I think the meals are excellent and the Christmas one was more than excellent, it’s the first time in my life that I’ve had something for nothing.”

– Margaret (99 years young)

February

What a spookily delightful time we had at our Wimborne St Giles Jolly Day when we were treated to a very special visit from Gill, Paul and Aoife from Big Bold Drama, an award-winning theatre and community arts company based in Bristol. They performed their play 'The Midnight Mission' for us. The story was set in a spooky old house in Switzerland, every midnight, doors slammed, books fell off shelves and pictures slipped off the wall. Agents Kahlo and Dali of the Company of International Artists were summoned to put a team together to crack the case. And the best bit was everyone in the audience got to be agents too!

What better way to celebrate Imbolc than with flowers? We had a lovely time at our Wimborne Jollies cutting out flower pictures from seed catalogues and decorating peat-free flowerpots with them. We then filled the pots with primroses and snowdrops. This meant we could enjoy them at home and then plant them in our own gardens after enjoying them indoors. Other guests decided to draw flowers instead – what wonderful artists we have amongst us. Afterwards, we had a music ‘guess the lyrics and sing the song’ quiz followed by a relaxing yoga session with Suzanne. We even found time for a cuppa and biscuits!

Tree surgeon Brian Hennessy kindly donated wood chippings and Anni and Brian beavered away making excellent paths with it in preparation for our guests arriving next month. When the rain arrived they had to down tools. Even still, they did a marvellous job between them.

There were lots of happy faces at our Blandford Jolly Day as we were treated to a wonderful singing session with Paula Fleming. It’s so good to see everyone enjoying themselves and joining in.

March

Anni created the most beautiful piece of artwork telling the story of St. Patrick which she shared with us at our Wimborne St Giles Jolly Day. Although St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, he wasn't Irish but was brought to the Emerald Isle when he was kidnapped and enslaved at 16 years old. However, he did eventually escape and returned and advanced Christianity throughout the island using the shamrock as part of his first teachings.

Our lovely guests at our Shaftesbury Jolly Day and visitors to Gillingham Mindful group all enjoyed getting crafty making seasonal Easter decorations. Thanks to Kate Plowman, a Bruton based artist, who visited us at Jolly Shaftesbury for helping us to get creative. Bridget was our very own Easter bunny (sadly without the costume!) and handed out chocolate eggs to our guests. I only had three!

We had a very interesting visit from Colin and Rob from the Ancient Technology Centre in Cranborne at our Wimborne St Giles Jolly Day. They showed us some amazing drinking horns and replica tools that would have been used by our ancestors and animal hides which were used to keep warm and dry. They even showed us a mail shirt made to protect people in battle! What a fabulous afternoon.

Our Step Outside Garden Group opened for the first time this year at Kingston Lacy. We were joined by a few hardy guests who mucked in and helped with planting and weeding. We all enjoyed a cuppa and biscuits and a good old catch up. It was good to be back!

April

Our Step Outside Garden Group were featured on the cover of Living Well Community Magazine's Spring issue. There was also a feature about our allotment inside. The cover photo of Kate and Fiona was taken by talented Wimborne photographer Brent Jones.

We were delighted to welcome so many people to our first Jolly Moors Group. We celebrated our launch with homemade scones, cream, jam and delicious homemade cakes all washed down with a cup of tea. Everyone enjoyed the activities and joined in with gusto. We started with a good old sing-song led by Kate Sheridan followed by a gentle, rejuvenating seated chair yoga session with the wonderful Suzanne Greenwood. Launching this new session means we can reach even more people across Dorset. Our mission is to help people both with and without memory loss. Through Jolly Days, people make new friends, keep mentally and physically active and try new things. Thank you to the Talbot Village Trust for their support. They are a grant-giving charity that funds worthy causes across east Dorset. Trustee Sir Christopher Lees said: “As our population ages, we need to think about how we promote and support activities that stimulate our minds and bodies. It’s been a pleasure to support In Jolly Good Company, who do fantastic work across our county and work with a great range of stakeholders to provide an important service.”

The sun was out at our Step Outside Garden Group and we made the most of the good weather. Sarah and Rosie sowed Beetroot, helped by Claire. We welcomed a new guest, Julie, who busied herself transplanting mangetout, peas and sowed carrots and radishes with our lovely new volunteer Diane. We also planted our second early Charlotte potatoes. Bryan, one of our volunteers, constantly filled watering cans for everyone as well as topping up the broad beans plants and transplanting the onions. Viv excavated the ever growing mint with the help of Claire. We all enjoyed scrummy Kipling cakes when we eventually sat down for a well-deserved cuppa and a natter. All in all a splendid afternoon's work with lots of chat and laughter.

What a creative and talented bunch they are at Jolly Wimborne St Giles. Carol brought her lovely crochet to show us and donated her green blanket to help keep any guests warm who are feeling the chilly winds of early Spring!

May

This month we welcomed our newest member of the Jolly Crew, Maxine Gonzalez Bridger. She is doing a great job supporting our groups and being our Jolly Ambassador, making sure people know about the services we offer.

We had a fabulous afternoon in the sun at our Step Outside allotment. We invited our directors and volunteers to come together, chat and enjoy a cream tea served with our very own Jolly Jam made with fruit from our allotment, by the talented Maxine Timms. There was a bit of a debate about what comes first - the clotted cream or the jam. Duncan decided to be very diplomatic and created one of each! I wonder which one tasted better? We are so grateful for all our wonderful directors and volunteers, we couldn’t do it without them.

What an interesting and informative afternoon we had at our Jolly Wimborne group with tree expert Paul Beatson who joined us and showed us a large variety of tree leaves and shared interesting facts about them, including their Latin names.

We were very happy to welcome back Susan Old to our Shaftesbury Jolly Day this month. She got us all rocking and rolling as well as singing along with her. What a joy to see people up on their feet and dancing too! Marion, one of our lovely guests, loves nothing better than a good old sing-song and Susan got her up and singing with her much to everyone's delight, including Marion's.

I was up bright and early in the morning to talk to Steve Harris on his Breakfast show on Radio Solent. In Jolly Good Company are lucky to have been one of 22 recipients of the Health and Wellbeing Fund in Dorset and BCP. This NHS funding is for projects providing early intervention to help people to stay well and live better at home. The fund is administered by Dorset Community Foundation in partnership with NHS Dorset and Community Action Network, which is providing training and support for organisations like ours.

June

A jolly big thank you to Dorset Tea who supported us as part of their Communi–Tea project. Their donation enabled us to buy some much-needed new equipment for our allotment gardening group. Even better than this, they donated lots of delicious ‘Dorset Tea’ for our Jolly days. We had a glorious afternoon with the Dorset Tea Team, thankfully there was a gap in the weather and the sun came out. The afternoon was made perfect by the addition of delicious scones, jam, cream, and meringues, expertly made, and personally delivered by Lisa Osman from All Hallows Farmhouse in Wimborne St Giles.

This month the amazing Julie Foulkes (63 years young and the fittest person I know) completed The National Three Peaks Challenge with her friends. They called themselves The Peaky Climbers -– what a brilliant name! Julie very kindly donated her sponsor money to In Jolly Good Company. The National Three Peaks Challenge is an event in which participants attempt to climb the highest mountains of England, Scotland and Wales within 24 hours. Walkers climb each peak in turn, and are driven from the foot of one mountain to the next. What an incredible achievement!

Our Jolly Wimborne guests were thoroughly entertained by the war time re-enactment performance by Wimborne Community Theatre in the Museum Garden. Sue and Mary, volunteers from the Museum Reminiscence Team had been taking interesting artefacts from the Museum to different Care Homes and Day Centres to help spark people’s memories and they treated our guests to an interesting and wonderfully engaging trip down memory lane where everyone got to handle and smell lots of familiar items from pre and post WWII. We had a fantastic time reminiscing and sharing stories, passing around the collection of household products, kitchen equipment and toys.

We do love Kate's quizzes at our Jolly Days, not only do they get the grey matter going they also spark such jollity and camaraderie and everyone can take part, regardless of ability.

July

Our Blandford Jolly guests were joined by Dora Singa Singa and Thi Phuong Yen Nguyen, who are both studying for an MSc in International Hospitality and Tourism Management at Bournemouth University. They are writing their dissertation on leisure activities for active ageing and were interested in learning more about the facilities and activities available at Jolly Good Company. They chatted to our Jolly staff members to find out how our groups support active ageing and joined in with our movement session with Sandi Macy Hart.

What a turn out we had for our Jolly Fundraising Tea at Wimborne St Giles Village Hall! We enjoyed delicious homemade cakes and tea (donated by Dorset Tea) and there were various stalls including Anni’s plants, The Knitting Angels crafts and cookware from Lisa of All Hallows Farmhouse who also donated a prize for a raffle she organised. The weather was bright and sunny and we were delighted to have raised £1097. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make it happen and helped on the day and to those who came along and supported us.

Our Jolly Wimborne guests thoroughly enjoyed listening to Peter playing his violin this month, while Micheal read out some of Peter's poetry he'd written. We really do have some very talented guests at our Jolly Days.

We had a jolly good time hosting a salad-making and tasting workshop with The Friendly Food Club at our Step Outside Garden Group. I am proud to say we used the produce that we had grown with our own green fingers! This month we also welcomed Sarah to our allotment who played beautiful recorder music. We rewarded her with homegrown flowers and veg. Sandra sowed beans and fennel, Bev knitted squares for blankets to keep our Jolly guests warm on chilly days and Walter reinforced our bench and regaled us with wonderful South African bush/ safari stories of wild walks. Fiona harvested vegetables and picked flowers. Meanwhile, our wonderful volunteers Diane, Sally and Jackie weeded, picked blackcurrants and harvested and cleared the peas and beans ready for more growing. We do so much more than gardening at our Step Outside days and always have such a fun and productive time together.

August

The Friendly Food Club prepare such delicious lunches for us at our Wimborne St Giles Jolly Days. This summery dessert of homemade Swiss roll with strawberry and vanilla ice cream filling topped with cream and strawberries went down an absolute treat with our guests.

We enjoyed watercolour painting with Joh Kennedy Wall at our Wimborne Jolly Day. I am always very pleasantly surprised to discover what a talented bunch of guests we have. It was the perfect way to relax on a hot day and many masterpieces were created! Another of our wonderfully talented guests at our Wimborne Jolly Days, Sue, brought in her watercolour montage of Wimborne Minster to show us and accompanied it with her own poem called 'Wimborne Celebrations'. We love seeing all our guest’s creations and encourage them to bring them in to share with us all.

This month we harvested the nasturtium seeds we had grown at our Step Outside Garden Group. Did you know they are known as the English ‘caper’? Kate Hostinger Robson and Anni Sax both took some home and prepped and brined them. Apparently they taste peppery like nasturtiums. I’m jolly impressed - they look delicious. Kate also sang to us and played the ukelele, she has such a beautiful voice.

I'm always impressed by the creativity of our Jolly guests. This cute little pufferfish was crocheted by Carol, one half of the Knitting Angels. Carol attends our Wimborne St Giles Jolly Days and often raises money for us along with Phyliss (the other half of The Knitting Angels) selling their wonderful knits.

September

Our Step Outside Garden Group was treated to a visit from Sarah Pugh who played the oboe and various recorders to entertain us whilst we harvested, tomatoes, runner beans, garlic, beetroot and courgettes to name a few. It was a delight to have music while we worked.

We are blessed to have such wonderful artists join our groups and entertain us. Colin and Clara, AKA 'Bit of a Tonic', are just that. We had a jolly good sing-along with them when they joined us at our Wimborne Jolly Day. The ever popular Paula Fleming joined our Blandford guests for a good old drumming and singing session and our West Moors guests enjoyed singing and dancing with Susan Old who has such a fabulous way of interacting with people and making them feel special.

The sun shone and some of our Wimborne St Giles guests decided to make the most of it and take a short jolly stroll around Wimborne St Giles, led by Sarah. Together we visited the old post house, and the school and enjoyed a rest by the river where the ladies played Pooh Sticks from the bridge and others looked out for signs of local wildlife. Brian and Eileen reminisced about their days at the village school. Brian told us that when he attended it was a farm school with lots of farm animals. How different things are now!

The Three Swans is one of the loveliest pubs I've ever visited and it happens to be in Frome – another jolly lovely place. My daughter Molly is part of the wonderful team at the pub and she organised two jumble sales in the upstairs function room to raise money for In Jolly Good Company and a local charity called WHY that offers cancer counselling.

October

This month I was delighted to be interviewed by Melanie Cohen from Bluebird Care for their podcast. They have a series of ten episodes coming out in 2025 aimed at carers and what support is available in the community. I felt very at home in the studio and Melanie is a great interviewer. The whole thing was efficiently organised by Somer Design at Foundary Co Working space and Studios in Poole.

Hats off to Sandi Macy Hart (otherwise known as the ‘feather lady’) who brought no end of fun and cheer to our Jolly Days with her wonderful bag of props, music and dance throughout the year. She always kept us moving during her fun and innovative sessions, whether our guests were seated or up and on their feet.

It poured with rain in the morning and wasn’t looking too promising for our last Step Outside Gardening Group together this year, but luckily the weather was on our side and we were blessed with glorious autumn sunshine in the afternoon. We were joined by special guest, Gary Jarman from Pageant Film Productions, who was filming us for our new Jolly film. He’s visited several of our Jolly Days interviewing guests and staff in order for the film to capture everything that makes the Jollies so wonderful.

We all enjoyed a creative afternoon with Joh Kennedy Wall who joined us for a relaxing decoupage art session at our Wimborne St Giles Jolly Day. We made the prettiest pots from glass jars which we decorated with brightly coloured paper and ribbons.

November

This month we launched our Jolly Christmas Raffle! Thank you to all the very generous organisations and people who donated such special prizes and made this possible including 2 weekend tickets to End of the Road Festival 2025, a 2 night stay in one of the beautiful Pepperpot Lodges in the estate grounds of St Giles House, lunch for two at The Smokehouse restaurant at Compton Abbas Airfield and a Cider Tour (during the spring blossoms) at Dorset Star Cider. Other prizes include a 2 litre bottle of Champagne from Compton Airfield, a £150 John Lewis Gift Voucher from Pipefix and a botanical book from Folde Bookshop in Shaftesbury.

on the 5th of November we celebrated and thanked our wonderful Jolly Volunteers rather than Guy Fawkes! We started the morning with 'Safe Guarding in a Nutshell' training with Bekki Stalker from Community Action Network. We are delighted that Bekki will also be helping our Jolly trustees and staff with future training. We then enjoyed a delicious lunch of homemade soup, scones and hunks of fresh bread, followed by a yummy sticky toffee pudding. In the afternoon we had such fun getting creative with a winter crafts workshop, using lovely candles kindly donated to us by Lush. We greatly value and appreciate each and every one of our volunteers – we really could not do what we do without them.

Our Jolly Quiz night was held in Sixpenny Handley Village Hall this year and was a resounding success. A big thank you goes to James Shepherd for all his hard work in making this happen, to Tony and Carol for devising the quiz questions and to Wendy for slaving over a hot stove to make the delicious chilli (meat and veggie) our quizzers enjoyed. DP Marquees kindly supplied the lighting and Forkingout Ltd loaned us bowls and some large cooking pots.

Ecologist Paul Beatson, an avid bird watcher enthusiast, gave a brilliant talk to our Jolly Wimborne Group about native birds and their song and mating calls supported by his glamorous assistant (and wife) Kate. Guests were encouraged to use the books given to look up the various birds discussed and ask questions. Paul and his family spent time during lockdown walking and discovering how many species were in a short radius of their home in Wimborne – they documented over 100!

December

Our Christmas Concert with the Jubilate Choir was a great success and our patron Lord Shaftesbury drew our Jolly Raffle which raised a whopping £3256! These much-needed funds will go towards keeping up the winter lunch deliveries and keeping the Jolly Days going in the year ahead.

Despite the weather, we had a lovely turnout at the coffee morning very kindly hosted by Lisa Osman at Snow’s Barn to raise money for In Jolly Good Company. We indulged ourselves with Lisa’s delicious coffee, cake, and cheese scones – yum. The raffle prize of a beautiful Mason Cash mixing bowl was won by Margaret Humphries, one of our Wimborne St Giles jolly guests. In total Lisa raised £135 to help our Jolly endeavours over this winter.

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a visit from the incredible songstress Susan Old, she really is a bundle of joy and our guests love her. Susan gave everyone chocolate stars and invited us all to make a special wish from the heart and then sang 'Wishing on a Star'. It was magical.

The Shaftesbury Abbey Primary School choir joined us at our Shaftesbury Jolly Day and gave us an amazing Christmas performance of songs including the nativity story. The children narrated the story in between carols. It was a truly wonderful performance. Afterwards, the children chatted with our jolly guests who were thrilled by their visit and fabulous performance.