The History of the Welderlies Project

The first funded Wellbeing You fun health event was the Health and Wellbeing Day event held at Bridge Place Community funded by Healthwatch South West Partnership Grassroots Grant.

It was a partnership that brought five organisations together to offer health MOT to residents at the Bridge Place sheltered accommodation. They include Healthwatch Croydon, Croydon Council, Age UK Croydon, Croydon University Hospital Respiratory Unit and of course Wellbeing You.

The highlights were talks by members of the Croydon Clinical Commissioning Group and South West London NHS who had table discussions with residents. They talked about latest developments in health and care for older people; what the NHS could do to help the elderly take more responsibility for their health ad wellbeing; learned more about what other organisations working in health. Attendees also were also thethe first time that most of the residents were meeting team members of that nature especially from the CCG and they expressed their appreciation for the opportunity.

Of course, they were provided with a nutritious buffet and had the opportunity of playing board games We agreed that the event was quite suitable to enable them to remain as well elders.

I took the expression ‘well elders’ home with me. decided to make it funkier and transform it to ‘Welderlies’ as title for future fun health activities and our brand name was born. So in terms of ‘who’ the ‘Welderlies’ are our volunteers, the over 65s, their families and carers who attend our events.

It was used for the first time when we applied to Croydon Community Grant for an award to organise ‘Welderlies Afternoon High Tea’ on 26th July 2017.at the Addiscombe Catholic Church Hall on Bingham Road. . Councillor Mike Selva, Deputy Mayor of Croydon gave an interesting interactive brief on his duties. Later he presented a Marks & Spencer hamper donated by Travel Sphere to the winner of the ‘best hat competition’ Norma.

Since then Welderlies events have become seasonal and the following have been held

  1.  Welderlies Shades of Autumn- 24th October 2017
  2. Welderlies Pancake Warmers- 13th February 2018
  3. Welderlies Peace Festival and Wedding Celebration-19th May 2018
  4. Welderlies Staying well Winter Campaign- 6th December 2018
  5. Welderlies Pancake Warmers -5th March 2019
  6. Welderlies & FSE Consultation- 30th May 201
  7. Welderlies Pancake Warmers- 25th February 2020

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