A new initiative which aims to unite our village’s elderly residents and pre-school children, so they can enjoy fun activities together, is continuing this week at Ruddington Methodist Church.
It’s called ‘Building Bridges’ and was inspired by a Channel 4 TV documentary called ‘The Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’ first screened in 2017 which showed the benefits of older people and toddlers working together.
Youth & Family Worker at The Methodist Church, Andy Proffitt, told RUDDINGTON.info: “As a church we were aware that we were mainly working with these two age groups but in isolation. We have a Sunday morning congregation of around 25-30 almost all of whom are retired – and then a group for 20-25 toddlers plus their carers on a Thursday morning. ‘Building Bridges’ was conceived as a way of bringing everyone together.”
The debut session was held there last month and was well attended by around a dozen adults of retirement age and twenty children – each of whom also needed to be accompanied by a parent or carer. “We started the session with a variety of ice breaker activities including some crafts, games and colouring which allowed the children and the adults time to sit, chat and get to know each other around the activity” explained Andy. “The hope is initially that the group will work as a bridge between the two age groups which belong to the church and allow those from the Sunday morning congregation to interact with the younger generations who are also meeting for worship in the same building but at a different time and in a different style. We also hope that we may see some positive effects, such as improved wellbeing for those taking part, that were recorded in the documentary.”
Of course, many village grandparents and their grandchildren can interact like this anyway, but not in every case: “Many families live some distance from each other and aren’t able to get together as regularly. Also, some of the older people don’t have children or grandchildren.”
Andy noted that the young and old folk who didn’t know each another seemed to get along very well right from the start, with both age groups chatting together during the joint activities: “In the singing time the children were very helpful in taking round the shakers and instruments for the older people to join in. They did 45 minutes of crafts and activities followed by 25 minutes of singing time and a Bible story. Then we all went into the hall for cake and drinks.”
Andy is keen to point out that, although it’s a Christian gathering, it should also suit people of all faiths – or indeed of no faith at all: “The themes we use for each month are taken from the Bible and we base our activities, singing and stories on them. Those who come along are from a variety of backgrounds. The composition of the regular Thursday morning ‘First Steps’ groups is made up of atheists, practicing Christians, those who used to go to church at some point and those who are just exploring the faith but not sure what they think yet. So I would say that anyone from any background should be able to feel comfortable in the group.”
The next ‘Building Bridges’ gathering is this Thursday morning (25th April) starting at 9.15am for the activities, with the singing beginning at 10.00am in Ruddington Methodist Church. Then there’s another one already planned for Thursday May 23rd. “We’ll see how it goes” concluded Andy. “This has been a bit of an experiment but, if the next two sessions go as well as the first one did, then people may ask for it to continue after that.”
Anyone wanting more information about ‘Building Bridges’ is most welcome to contact our Methodist Church. You can email either Andy, or Ruddington’s Minister the Reverend Simon Rose, on ruddingtonmethodistchurch@gmail.com.
