I've only missed a handful of mornings at the weekly Keep Moving Group. It's part of my week and has been for the last 3 years.
It all started in October 2022 with exercises led by a physio from a Community Interest Company called Spot Wellbeing. They started several other groups in East Suffolk and some, like our group, carried on after the six weeks thanks to another 12 weeks of funding from another CIC, we then took over to fund and operate the group ourselves. That second CIC lost all their funding and were disbanded early this year and now Spot Wellbeing have lost their funding to start new groups in other villages. Now they are only funded for people who are referred to them by their doctor and...............
- They must have multi-morbidities / complex health and wellbeing needs.
- They must be over 50 years of age.
Or:
- High user of primary care services
So much for prevention - which is what our group and all the other groups were started for, with exercises to help balance and movement and to help stop older people ending up in hospital from falling.
It's sad that people in other villages won't get a chance to start their own groups.
Every now and again our numbers drop down to 7 or 8 and then I put a note about the group on all the local village Facebook pages and luckily that seems to work as we find some new people to join us. We do everything ourselves, with two or three ladies able to lead us working through a list of exercises, getting chairs and tables out, making coffee, sorting the meditation on a phone and one lady brings her CD player for some music. It only costs us £1.50 a week as we only need to cover hall hire and coffee/biscuits.
This is our favourite 10 minute meditation
Back tomorrow
I think most doctors, scientists and researchers agree now that keeping moving is key to a longer, healthier life. Just one small walk each day has a big effect. Wonderful that your group keeps going and that you manage to find new members through Facebook. What a shame our national health service doesn't take preventative medicine more seriously, it would definitely reduce the amount of people that end up in hospital for all manner of things.
ReplyDeleteThat's great you have managed to keep the group going. My husband and I attend a weekly group doing Tai Chi and exercise, we also have a short wind down part to the session with breathing and meditation. It is run by a wonderful trainer and we pay £5 per session most of which goes on ball hire. We have been going for 14 years and it is money well spent as our balance is very good. We also walk a couple of miles every day. It is sad there is not more funding available for these sort of preventative, well being exercise classes/groups. Regards Sue H
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