In March 2020 Lockdown and Covid meant that the daytime fun Sing&Smile sessions from the Goldies Cymru Charity had to be cancelled.
As “Goldies,” as it is more fondly known, could not go into Church and Community halls and Libraries, they introduced sessions online featuring two popular leaders, Rachel Parry and Cheryl Davies.
Over recent months the sessions have grown and now reach out to hundreds of older isolated people in their own homes. GoldiesLive has led the way on sofa singing!
The Tuesday sessions taken by Rachel follow popular ‘themes’ and in the weeks ahead will focus upon carers across Wales, Father’s Day, World Music Day and National Writing Day. The sessions will include inserted videos featuring a number of Goldies Cymru session leaders including Ray Mound and Rob Cadman from Essex and Carol Pegler and Sue Thomas in Wales.
A recent online addition has been the introduction of a monthly GoldiesLive session in Welsh led by Sian Francis. It features popular Welsh folk songs and is already attracting a large enthusiastic audience.
A brilliant new addition to GoldiesLive has also been the introduction of gentle chair exercises led by Steph Bosanko. Steph is a qualified Yoga teacher and says that her ‘main qualification’ is that she grew up in a residential care home, run by her Father, and that she started working there as a care worker at 14 and then went on to work in nursing homes for many years.
Ahead – on June 10 Cheryl Davies will celebrate her work with Bridgend Carers featuring their song requests and an inserted video of them singing.
During Men’s Health Week on June 15 there will be an Essex special featuring two of our Essex session leaders, Rob Cadman and Ray Mound, singing songs by lesser known male artists from the 60s.
Sarita Sood will be back in July with her amazing Bollywood dance moves and another session that everyone will be looking out for will take place on July 6 when Rachel will feature songs that require a feather boa to sing!
“Everyone is welcome to join the weekly sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Sian on the first Monday of the month. They are broadcast on both YouTube and Facebook and can of course be re-viewed at any time from the website,” says Goldies charity founder Grenville Jones.
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