We held our third planning workshop in August – part of four workshops across the UK. We met online over Zoom video calling as this meant we could bring together people from Belfast as well as Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.
Our online questionnaire asks whether people would prefer to meet online or in-person and while this has been live for a while now, we are still finding that many prefer online or hybrid meetings. This is why we also followed an online format for this planning workshop.
As with our previous two workshops, we asked what kind of activities people have enjoyed in the past and what kind of activities they might like to attend. We also discussed whether our community event should include an online aspect so that people who don’t live near the venue could also attend. The majority felt that it is important to hold in-person activities as these provide an opportunity to socialise. We also discussed if it was possible to hold a separate online event for those not living in Belfast.
We discussed how to hold activities and many felt that a talk would be a good way for us to share our work. The importance of opportunities to ask questions as well as share experiences was emphasised. It was suggested that we should try to do something innovative to get people interested. Having short activities that people could join and leave in a flexible way was again a popular approach.
We discussed venues as we have not been to Belfast before. It was suggested that we find a neutral venue that is accessible to as many as possible. Joining other activities or events was recommended to help get the word out. We have tried to take the suggestions on board and contacted Positive Ageing Month team to explore opportunities for collaboration.
Following the planning workshop, we now have a date set for our community event which will be held at the Girdwood Community Hub on Friday 11th of November. If you would like to sign up or hear more, please let us know. Please get in touch if you’re interested in taking part!