Our team at Abbey Community Centre currently have eleven regular free activity sessions available over Zoom for our members to join in with, ranging from cooking to recycled crafts to Creative Writing. This year we maintained our partnerships with our tutors and adult education providers such as Mary Ward Centre, who lead our Gentle Dance and Choir sessions. We even took the opportunity to introduce activities to our programme that we’d never had the chance or space to run previously, such as Tai Chi and a monthly Book Club. Activities have an average of ten people join in per session, with a record of 19 people attending a class. We’ve kept up occasional one-off events too. You can see our latest timetable here.
Access to technology and the internet is obviously a huge challenge and initially many potential participants were reluctant or unable to get onto Zoom. However, as it became clear we were in it for the long haul, we redoubled our efforts to support our members through our Tech Buddies programme. Tech Buddies volunteers supported members over the phone to get online, set up email accounts or Whatsapp and access Zoom.
Some activities can even be dialled into just over the phone, no internet needed. For Creative Writing and Afternoon Tea we have 2-3 people dial in on their landlines or mobiles, since they don’t necessarily need to see people’s faces to take part. As facilitators we would usually take a moment to welcome them and tell them who else is ‘in the room’, knowing that they can’t see the screen but would still like to catch up with their friends at the centre. We have also set up a monthly telephone quiz for members of the Kilburn Good Neighbours scheme.
In recent weeks we’ve been reinstating some of our in-person sessions, especially those which can be run outside or in well-ventilated spaces – Men’s Fitness, Table Tennis, Gardening and Colouring Calm are now available at the centre, with one Colouring Calm session being accessible both on Zoom and in person simultaneously.
For this Colouring Calm class, a maximum of six attendees can book to take part in person while the Zoom screen is in the room too. The centre’s group arrives fifteen minutes early, giving enough time for tutor Simone to welcome everyone and serve up the tea. Currently everyone is observing social distancing guidelines and wearing masks. Simone then welcomes everyone on the Zoom and turns the screen towards the centre group. Simone calls the name of each participant; they wave and greet each other before enjoying music, meditation and colouring together.
The group have expressed how much they benefit from this relaxation time – some of them get inspired by the background music and sing along! They love seeing each other and the first in-person session was very emotional as many had not spent time together for months.
Simone asks for them to show their colouring pages at the end of the session. They praise and motivate each other.
‘I love to see all the colourings separately from both groups and I would just like to say I really enjoyed the session today as usual, it’s lovely to see all the room group and the zoom group. I think it works well, of course we do have an amazing tutor, thank you Simone.’
‘I think the Zoom group and the room group work really well together. It feels like we are all in the same room. The atmosphere is warm and supportive thanks to Simone’s friendliness and to members who are very caring and enthusiastic. One does feel very relaxed at the end of each session. I think we should keep the combination as more people are able to attend via zoom or at the centre.’
Our focus currently is keeping members as safe as possible while the virus is still in circulation, so we’ve been reopening these activities slowly and putting social distancing measures in place. People must book to attend in person activities so we can cap numbers at a safe level.
Abbey was once described as a ‘living room for the whole neighbourhood’, so of course we miss the days of free mixing and mingling in the centre foyer, kitchen and garden room and hope they can return. But the pandemic has shown us just how much we can do for those who even in normal circumstances find it hard to leave their homes, and we will be keeping up some of this digital provision regardless of what the future holds re. Covid-19. Now we’re a virtual community centre too.