A year ago this September we set up Llanrhian Community Social Group in our local rural community in Wales to give people of all abilities and ages in our community a safe and welcoming place to come together once a week to socialise, engage in sports activities, play board games, enjoy a cup of tea and biscuits together and also to access our local Shelter Cymru representative and PATCH food parcels, if needed.

We are a dementia friendly group and welcome to everyone, be it people who live in the community or visitors who enjoy our local area on their holidays. To get started we applied for a community grant which we were awarded and which enabled us to buy all the start up equipment and provided some money towards the rental of the hall we use. We also had a £100 donation from Llanrhian PCC which went a long way towards the purchase of our pool table! People can now enjoy a game of table tennis, pool, darts, indoor carpet bowls, volleyball, softball as well as various board and card games. Every other month we've recently started to have a shared meal together after our session. As we are only a small local community group and not a registered charity we are not eligible for a lot of grants and so we thought that for our 1 year birthday anniversary this month we would ask people for donations to enable us to keep our community group running! 

We suggest a voluntary contribution of £2.00 per session to people who attend our sessions but it's important to us to enable and encourage people to join in regardless of their financial background! That's why we need some funds towards the rental of the hall to tide us over the times when there isn't enough money in the kitty from group contributions. Also, we will need some money for the up-keep and repairs to our equipment and any future purchases that might arise over time. That's why we thought of justgiving!

Our group was awarded a highly commended certificate at the Pembrokeshire Volunteering Awards in June this year and quite a few of our core members have had dementia training with the local Alzheimer's Society to become dementia friendly and aware. Many of the people who come to our group sessions live with various health conditions such as Alzheimer's, heart conditions, impaired mobility, depression, anxiety, diabetes and sight or hearing problems.

For all of us who are part of Llanrhian Community Social Group it has become an important constant in our lives and we hope that with your kind and generous help we will add many more birthdays to this, our first one!

Thank you :)

PS: If you live anywhere near us and would like to join us for a session we meet every Thursday between 5pm and 6.30pm at Llanrhian Church Hall, Pembrokeshire. All ages and abilities are welcome; children under the age of 16 need to be accompanied by a responsible adult. See you there!