Call to Mind

Reminiscence based activities have been popular in our home recently, in particular a board game named Call to Mind.

The rules are simple, spin the arrow on the centre of the board which has four colours: red for past, green for active, blue for present and yellow for creative. Depending on what colour the arrow lands, is the colour card you pick up and each card has a set of questions, e.g. where did you grow up? Where did you go on holidays as a child?

A small group of four played the game: Tony, Margaret, Pam and our Activities Co-Ordinator Chris.

There was a lot of interesting facts about everyone's lives learned: Tony grew up in a mining village in Wales and, throughout the many jobs he had in his life, he was particularly fond of working as a marriage counsellor; Margaret explained how her father was a private gardener and she would help him pull weeds in the garden when she was a little girl; and Pam used to enjoy visiting Great Yarmouth when she was a young woman.

Our Activities Co-Ordinator, Chris Martin, said: "This activity was fantastic as the residents would find that they would have something in common and then that would spark up a whole load of conversations."

"Not only did the reminiscence activity stimulate their minds, it also helped create friendships by sharing information about their lives. It is a wonderful activity and I think we are all looking forward to doing it again!"