Virtually Young@Heart during lockdown

Can you believe that the last time we all gathered together at St John’s Parish Centre was over 20 weeks ago on Wednesday 11 March?

But as you know we carried on regardless with our Virtual Young@Heart Cafes on Facebook Live from 17 April through to 10 July, a total of 10 performances including an extended Virtual Tea Party.

The Virtual Tea Party replaced the annual Party in the Park and was given an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme with 4 performers; Georgi Barratt as Alice, Amanda Reilly as the Queen of Hearts, Neil Richardson as the Mad Hatter and rock n roll duo The Wilsons as Tweedledum and Tweedledee!

Georgi, Mandy, Neil and The Wilsons had already entertained us individually between April and July (in Georgi and Neil’s case more than once) along with Tasha Wolfe (Sheila Mason’s grand-daughter) who made her Disney-enhanced debut on 19 June.

Everyone who tuned in live could interact with our singers using the chat function on Facebook Live, which really helped to bring the event into everyone’s living rooms or care homes.

However, if you missed any of the live shows they are all available on our Facebook Page for you to watch at your leisure. And we all enjoyed the videos of Chantal’s Mum and Brenda singing along to Georgi, which you’ll also find on the Facebook video page.

The 2020/21 Young@Heart Cafe season will begin in September (around the same time as the football season!) and we intend to keep the Virtual Young@Heart Cafes going until it is safe for us all to return to the Parish Centre.

As we did with the Virtual Mad Hatters Tea Party we want to keep the live performances interesting and engaging so if you have any ideas for themes (Hallowe’en and Christmas are already nailed on!) please feel free to share with us by posting your ideas on Facebook, or emailing sing@young-at-heart-cafe.org