On Thursday 30 September 2010 participants from Bristol Rovers and Swindon Town's Extra Time Programme held an event to celebrate Older People's Day in the UK which was attended by the Minister for Pensions, Steve Webb. The event brought together older people with Alzheimers, their carers and those who are still very active.
The day began with an introduction from the Community Manager of Bristol Rovers, Peter Aitken, giving the participants of Swindon Town and Bristol Rovers a brief outline of the day. From the outset there was a lot of friendly banter and rivalry between the two camps.
After the introductions the participants moved rooms where they took part in a 20 minute armchair aerobics session conducted by a coach from Bristol Rovers. It seemed that it wasn’t just the aerobics that got some of the male participant’s heart rates racing, as the banter between the participants and coaches intensified.
Following this, the Extra Time participants managed to catch their breath by grabbing a cup of tea. It was at this point that we managed to speak to some of them about their involvement in the Extra Time Programme.
Pat, who had been involved in the Bristol Rovers project for over a year, commented: "The Extra Time project has made a huge difference. I don’t get out much and I have made a lot of friends here".
This was reiterated by fellow participant Eunice: "It has brought us all together. My husband is the only man in the group who doesn’t have Alzheimer’s and its good for us all to mix together whether we have it or not, it makes us understand it better".
Up to this point the two groups had mixed well with each other, and it was now time to ignite some rivalry in the camp with a skittles competition. Peter decided to give it a Ryder Cup theme as Bristol was not too far away from Newport where the real event was taking place. Bristol had home advantage and was given the Blue colours of Europe and Swindon were the Red of the USA. The home advantage must have paid off as Bristol Rovers were victorious.
With the hard fought skittles competition over it was time for some of the participants to get some lunch before the five-a-side football match against the coaching staff of Bristol Rovers and Swindon Town began. This gave us another chance to catch up with the participants and find out their thoughts on the day and the Programme.
Brenda, a Bristol Rovers participant, was asked how the Extra Time project had made a difference to her emotional wellbeing and she said: "It fills up your lonely life. It’s great to meet nice people and do all different activities; it’s not always the same thing."
Paul, from the Swindon Town project, added "Without the Extra Time project I wouldn’t be with the same people and I wouldn’t be doing activities like horse riding, canoeing and archery. I hadn’t even tried them before!".
Lunch was rounded off with the male Swindon participants (members of the Wessex Male Choir) entertaining everyone with a few songs including the hit 'You make me feel so young'.
Just as lunch was coming to an end the Minister for Pensions, Steve Webb, arrived just as the five-a-side match between the Swindon Town participants and the staff from Bristol Rovers commenced. Without hesitation the Minister pulled on an Extra Time T-shirt and took charge of refereeing the match. It was an exciting match but it was a case of experience over youth as the Swindon Town participants team beat the team of coaches 4-1.
Having spent half an hour refereeing the five-a-side football match the Minister moved inside to get involved in the afternoon's armchair aerobics!
Just before the Swindon Town participants departed Derek from the project was asked what had been the best part of his day, to which he replied: "The football, especially as we won!".
The event was a success and was enjoyed by all those that attended. A short film about the event can be viewed at the FFTV section of the website.
