If you live in a village with no public transport, once you no longer drive you become increasingly stuck. Every outing must be carefully planned, and even if there’s a village hall it can be hard to meet up with neighbours and friends to socialise. Our Thursday Club tries to address this.
By many standards the village of Warmington in East Northamptonshire isn’t particularly isolated. It’s reasonably close to Peterborough and Oundle and, according to the timetable, there’s a regular daily bus service. But in fact, the buses were re-routed a few years ago, so none come into the village now. Instead, the bus stop is half a mile away from the centre of the village on the busy A605 road – a distance too far for most of the elderly residents to walk.
We’d heard that many people were finding life pretty lonely and really missed being able to catch a bus to go shopping or to meet friends. So, we wondered if a social club, held regularly in the village hall, would help.
Thoughts and ideas
Each week there’s a coffee morning in the village church, so we dropped in one day to chat with everyone and hear what they thought. They were all keen and gave us some good ideas about what they’d like to do. They wanted to meet in the afternoon and they thought playing board games and doing crafts and puzzles would be fun – with refreshments too, of course!
Additionally, they liked the idea of occasionally having a speaker to give a short talk. Luckily, the village hall has excellent audio-visual equipment which made that idea considerably easier to incorporate in our plans.
First funds
Armed with this feedback we approached the National Lottery Community Fund and, in 2024, were delighted to be awarded some money to run our social club once a month. The village hall was available on Thursday afternoons, so we booked that and decided to call our club the Thursday Club. (No-one can say we lack imagination!)
Games
Buying the board games was fun. A large-scale Scrabble set from the RNIB was our first purchase, closely followed by a compendium of games, dominoes, playing cards and Trivial Pursuit. We also bought large print wordsearch and puzzle books, as well as colouring books, crayons and felt tip pens. And since the club began we’ve bought extra sets of dominoes, another Scrabble set and a board game called Sequence, which someone originally brought from home, for their friends to try. (It’s now a regular feature of meetings and the group is very competitive!)
Crafts
We realised the crafts we offered would have to be quick and easy to do, because with so many other activities during the afternoon it would be difficult for us to give anyone much assistance. Printed, step-by-step instructions have been helpful here, and our Inspiration Cards play their part as well.
From the start
The club was a success from the start, and with 38 registered members and an average attendance of 28 men and women at every meeting. More than 80% of members are over 75 years of age, and almost half live alone, so these get-togethers are really important to them.
As well as people playing board games, there’s a group of ladies who come along to knit and natter. Others enjoy doing word puzzles and there are a few who attend just to meet up with friends and chat.
More meetings
After the first six months we asked people for feedback and were delighted by their enthusiasm. Everyone said that attending the social club had made them happier and they also asked if the club could meet more often.
Now, thanks to the McCarthy Stone Foundation we have funds which allow the Thursday Club to meet twice a month until December 2025. The group asked for more speakers to be invited and we’ve done our best to oblige. So far there have been talks on birds in the Nene Valley, Richard III, Sir Peter Scott and a Family History Help Desk, as well as a taster session of chair-based exercise.
Final thoughts
No-one knew how well the Thursday Club would work, but it has quickly become a fixed part of the village calendar and we’ve had some wonderfully positive comments from the people who attend. One resident summed it up well: “As you get older you understand just how necessary it is to be with other people. I really value the Thursday Club because it allows me socialise.”