Grab your knitting needles and support Dementia Action Week at the museum
Wimborne’s award-winning Museum of East Dorset is supporting Dementia Action Week (19th – 25th May) with a special Forget-Me-Not campaign.
The museum would love crocheters and knitters to grab their needles and knit some special woollen Forget-Me-Not flowers. These flowers represent a moment each year when everyone comes together to honour and remember people affected by dementia.
The patterns are free and available from the Museum of East Dorset reception desk as well as free blue and yellow wool.
Museum of East Dorset director Francesca Hollow said: “We’d love people of all ages to get involved and knit these lovely wool Forget-Me-Not flowers. It’s a great intergenerational activity for grandparents and grandkids or for school groups.”
She added; “We’d like completed flowers returned by 23rd April in time for our volunteers to create a display for museum visitors to enjoy – we hope to receive hundreds!”
The Forget-me-Nots will be displayed in the Museum of East Dorset to support the campaign and highlight the many dementia-friendly programmes the museum offers to the wider community.
These include an innovative Reminiscence outreach project where museum artefacts and objects from bygone eras are used to help bring memories to life for elderly people and especially those living with dementia. Members of the museum’s award-winning team of experienced volunteers visit day centres, care homes and senior clubs across East Dorset to run these remarkable sessions.
Working in partnership with Wimborne Library, the museum also holds monthly ‘Times Gone By’ Reminiscence sessions at the museum site. There’s ‘Jolly Days’ too, run at the museum by Dorset-based, not-for-profit organisation ‘In Jolly Good Company’. These lively days focus on improving mental and physical health with a range of music, craft and gardening activities for elderly people to get involved in.
To help keep hands and minds busy, there’s special Craft and Chat sessions the third Monday of the month. These friendly sessions are open to anyone and invite people to bring along their own project, meet new people, be inspired to try a different craft, and above all, have a good old natter!
The Museum of East Dorset provides dementia-friendly crockery for visitors to its garden café as well as accessory aids including fidget toys to help calm dementia sufferers.
The museum is open Monday to Saturday 10am until 4pm and is situated on Wimborne High Street opposite the Minster Green.
For more information of dementia-friendly activities at Museum of East Dorset please visit www.museumofeastdorset.co.uk