The No.1 Befriending Agency hosts Group Befriending online via Zoom three times a week giving the chance to meet up and enjoy a range of activities.  People are brought together for quizzes, live music, debates, crafts, conversations and much more.

Our first online event of the week was kicked off in style with a Scottish Quiz and wonderful memories were shared of places, pets, food and dancing.  The team’s knowledge of all things Scottish bagged them an impressive score of 9 out of 10! Every question provided the opportunity to hear stories of growing up and living in Scotland.  

We found out that the unicorn is Scotland's national animal, which led us to talk about pets we had growing up.  We heard about two beloved Budgies, Bobby who “just wouldn’t shut up” and Joey who sat on the dog’s back for a hurl around the living room.  There were more tales of hurling as folks remembered the joys of Scottish Country Dancing and a different type of dancing at the Coatbridge Palais.

Scottish food was also on the menu, and our mouths were watering hearing about home made steak pie with sausages and puff pastry.   We thought it would be lovely to wash that down with some Cremola Foam!  That got us thinking about Christmas dinner and traditions, including walking down the street on the dark nights looking in the windows at the trees with their home made decorations and twinkling lights.

We ended our session with a chat about Christmas crafts and we hope you will be able to join us for some of the Christmas events planned over the coming weeks.  

Castlemilk Community Centre was the venue for Tuesday’s Craft and Wellbeing Event.  The craft activity was in keeping with the music theme.  We had CDs that were decorated using pens, paints, glitter and stickers to make colourful coasters for the mugs of tea and coffee. 

We had a chat about the first CD that we ever bought while listening to The No.1 Befriending Agency Playlist.  We have a wide range of taste from traditional Scottish music to Queen and Cliff Richard so we added some more music to the Playlist.  

The Playlist brought back memories of jiving to Crocodile Rock in the Pavilion in Ayr, whizzing round the ice rink and the Rollerama, and toe tapping to the accordions at the Ceilidh.  

We have all really enjoyed going to concerts and the theatre to see musicals and pantomimes with the Sound of Music being a firm favourite.  It turns out some of us have met famous musicians over the years including Showaddwaddy, the Bay City Rollers, Sydney Devine and Mud.

The event was brilliantly run by Annabel, who is on student placement at the moment.  Annabel said:

"It was lovely meeting the service users in person, along with the volunteers that were involved in the event. It was so nice to see that music makes such an impact in everyone's lives. We all had different memories from music and were able to discuss these whilst painting old CD's and having a little dance. I really enjoyed the event and look forward to being part of more events just like this."

For more information or to join an event please contact The No.1 Befriending Agency on 0141 465 6998 or email info@befriend.org.uk

If you are interested in writing a Blog please get in touch with your volunteer coordinator or contact info@befriend.org.uk.