Pictured are Our Day Out participants, image taken by Anita Staff.

Calling all older individuals! Arts charity, Creative Arts East, run free creative workshops and have a range of activities available at our sessions in Watton. These workshops are held at The Methodist Centre in Watton High Street, every first and third Thursday of the month. All people aged 50+, including carers, those living with dementia, long term health conditions and mobility issues, are invited to join the fun and meet some new friends!

The award-winning ‘Our Day Out’ project has been running in other locations across Norfolk for the last few years and is all about engaging older people in a fun, accessible, participatory music & movement workshops. The sessions give participants the chance to meet new people, get out and about, and try a new type of creative activity, which are all led by a professional artist. Past activities have included song writing, drumming, contemporary dance, belly dancing, Caribbean dancing, and most recently we had a go at some creative writing!

The project has worked with two external evaluators, Dr Hannah Zeilig and Dr Paul M Camic. Their research into attendees ongoing participation in the programme confirmed a statistically significant improvement in participants’ wellbeing. These results are based on the Canterbury Wellbeing Scale measure and supported through Dr Zeilig’s qualitative evaluation over a three-year period.

94% of participants had made new social connections and felt their loneliness had decreased as a result of taking part in the sessions, and 78% of participants showed an increase in wellbeing after sustained participation with the programme.

One participant who attends our group at Wells-next-the-Sea said, “My life seemed to be closing in until I found Our Day Out. I now have much more to look forward to, and it has made my life brighter.”

Another participant said about the sessions: “This is better than medicine!”

Someone else from our Hunstanton group also said they like having a “feeling of belonging”.

For more information about the Our Day Out programme and to book a place, please contact Creative Arts East on 01953 713390 or email lauren@creativeartseast.co.uk.