Friday 2nd June saw the return of textile artist, Sue Clay, to the Holmfirth Project Group.

Members were invited to try their hand at ‘carding’ wool, where 2 colours are blended by brushing them with wire-bristled brushes.  Sue talked about our artist (Hundertwasser)’s interest in ‘windows’ as subject matter, and that he firmly believed no windows should have straight lines!! Several members then joined Sue to continue working on our shared felted pieces, creating woollen ‘windows’ to add to the pieces we did (shown below) in our previous session.

Sue will now take all our bits and pieces home to put together, and will return on 16th June to allow us to arrange and finalise our hangings. Our intention is then to display these at Sue’s Gallery as part of Holmfirth Art Week (1st week in July). Further details to follow.

Holmfirth Friend to Friend welcomed the Year 3 class from Upperthong J&I School this month. See the Holmfirth page of our website (scroll down the “Pages” menu below) for photos and details of their visit.

The ‘Feeling Good Theatre Company‘, a group linked to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, visited our Holmfirth group at the end of April to perform a series of witty, informative and thought-provoking sketches on the theme of distraction crime.

This is where criminals deflect our natural suspicions about unsolicited visits or phone calls through a wide range of tactics. While our first reaction may well be “I’d never fall for that!”, the theatre group really opened our eyes to how devious and convincing this form of trickery can be, and how the con-artists’ strategies often target older people. Between sketches we were given brief explanations of the tactics featured and advice on how to deal with each situation.

The Holmfirth members were glowing in their praise for the performances, and we hope to have the group back again in the future.

Key messages were:

• Always double check someone’s ID. Ring the published phone number of an organisation/company to check on a caller/visitor, rather than trusting one given to you at the time. A genuine caller will not mind waiting while you make checks to satisfy yourself.
• “When it sounds too good to be true, it usually is!”
• “Callers at the door? No appointment, no entry!” (e.g. Someone claiming to be from the gas or water board with a local “emergency” to deal with can wait outside while you call the company’s published number for confirmation).
• “Remember, a lady can be shady!” Don’t assume that a female caller is honest.
• Be very wary of any calls or visitors concerning your bank or bank cards. Again, always look up the published phone number to check, rather than trusting one given. Never give complete details about your bank account or cards over the phone. (The group’s sketch told a very plausible tale of an “urgent” phone call from “a Police officer” about your account having been compromised, and you being asked to ring a given number, wrongly said to be your bank, to confirm certain details with a view to protecting your account… All designed to instill a sense of panic and urgency, so your normal straight thinking is disrupted.)
• “It’s OK to make up a story to avoid buying at the door.”
• “Just say no and away they’ll go!”

More about ‘Feeling Good Theatre Company’ can be found at:

https://www.wyp.org.uk/about/creative-engagement/older-people/feeling-good-theatre-company/

As promised, here is Meltham Meal as featured on Radio Leeds. Olly from the station came to chat with Jenny, Christine and others about why Friend to Friend is such an important part of Meltham life for many older residents. Have a listen…

Due to retirements and illness, our charity is in urgent need of more volunteers to enable our groups in Marsden, Honley and Meltham (our Meltham Men’s Group) to continue. Please spread the word with anyone you know who may be able to help, and get in touch via 687773 or friend@friendtofriend.org.uk. For details of each group please see our website.

On Friday 21st April the Holmfirth Group will welcome the ‘Feeling Good Theatre Group’, arranged by Kirklees and funded by the Police and Crime Commissioner. Their performance addresses the worrying issue of ‘distraction crime’, where one criminal distracts the householder while a second gains access to the house to thieve. There will also be information available on internet and telephone crime with a focus on older people.

If you know of someone who would like to join us for the performance and subsequent Q&A session, please get in touch via 01484 681008 for further details.

Listen to Radio Leeds on Monday (10th April) 9 til 12 to hear the Meltham Meal group who were joined on Friday by reporter Oli, in response to the radio station’s quest for the letter ‘M’. Jenny just couldn’t resist inviting Radio Leeds to come, as the Meltham Meal Members Meet at Millmoor road Meltham!!! …Marvellous!

Great publicity for our charity, and by the look of the photos everyone enjoyed their 5 minutes of fame! Let us know if you catch the broadcast on Monday by adding a comment to our Facebook page or on here.

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Lead volunteers from our charity will be hosting a stall at this event. Come and say hello, and find out more about what we do!

We are delighted to launch a new logo for our charity.

We’d love you to get in touch with your thoughts as to why the designer chose each element of the logo, and what it brings to mind for you.

We are intrigued to see if your ideas and repsonses match ours!

On March 16th we held a Social Evening for our volunteers, helpers and supporters at Meltham Sports and Community Centre. A donation made in memory of a much loved former member of Friend to Friend made the evening possible. The trustees spoke to thank everyone who gives their time, energy and other support to make our charity such a success,and to launch our new logo (details to follow soon). In addition to enjoying a delicious buffet and drinks, we got together into teams to have a go at the trustees’ dastardly difficult quiz! Here are photos of the evening taken by volunteer Phil.

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Special mentions and gifts of huge engraved ‘diamonds’ went to Liz and Cynthia, who have worked together tirelessly for many years to lead the Marsden group, and who have now decided that the time is right to step down and have a well earned rest!

They will certainly be a hard act to follow, but would be delighted to support anyone interested in volunteering in Marsden to enable their group to continue.

The two founders of the charity were also recognised and thanked for their 20 years’ (and more!) service, and both have accepted the trustees’ invitation to become ‘Patrons’ of Friend to Friend.

Shirley (who wasn’t able to be with us for the evening, and is pictured here on the occasion of her retirement from her leadership role) and Sheila received hearty applause from us all and an engraved ‘diamond’ each to thank them for their unfading commitment to Friend to Friend.