Tea & Memories Sessions
About Tea & Memories:
The Abbeyfield Society, a charity which operates over 450 retirement houses across the UK, has signed up to use the Living Memories Online platform. It is also partnering with Living Memories CIC to create virtual and live Tea & Memories reminiscence groups around the UK in the communities in which Abbeyfield operates. In these sessions, users get together to watch a specially curated selection of archive videos, documenting social history from 20th Century. Reminiscence resources are provided in order to trigger memories and conversations amongst the group, which can be guided by care givers or care home users themselves.
The video at the top of the page shows a Tea & Memories session at the Abbeyfield residential care home in Tavistock, Devon. This video illustrates a typical example of one of Living Memories Tea and Memories groups in action. In this case, the group coordinator is aged 84 and very comfortable using our Living Memories Online platform, as well as our DVDs and Reminiscence guides.
Transatlantic Tea & Memories session:
Recent advances in technology have given us the opportunity to forge relationships with people from near and far, as The Abbeyfield Sidmouth Society have done with the Abbeyfield Houses Society of Duncan on Vancouver Island, off Canada's west coast. A dozen residents from both houses joined Cotmaton House, Sidmouth's Manager, Louise Clinch, and Duncan's House Manager, Melinda Hull, for a fantastic transatlantic Tea & Memories session. The residents discussed surviving COVID, the benefits of the houses' gardens, the weather, and they compared >their countries' two Prime Ministers. The Duncan house participants included two British expats. One of them, Robin, talked about his time starring alongside Sean Connery in James Bond movies in the 1960's, while Joan recalled her youth as one of the Tiller Girls.
The image below is taken from the Abbeyfield Voice, the care home's newsletter, and describes in more detail the success of the Tea & Memories sessions they have run in their homes.