Help Rochester Cathedral become dementia friendly

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Rochester Cathedral

Rochester Cathedral is looking for your help!

Go to the Cathedral on Saturday 2 September  from 2pm; enjoy tea and cakes and have a look around, then join them for Evensong at 3.15pm and tell them how they can make it Dementia Friendly.

Chris Bostock, Anna Chaplain at the Cathedral, is eager to gather the views of people in Medway so they can work towards ensuring everything they do is welcoming and inclusive of people with dementia.

Please let Chris know if you can join them. Email: annachaplain84@gmail.com or call 07563059756.

To find them: The postcode for the Cathedral Office is ME1 1SX – there is no postcode for the Cathedral itself. The west doors face Boley Hill and for more information, visit their website.

Our Dementia Diary

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dementia diary

Christina Lee reviews one woman’s powerful story of sharing a life with a partner living with dementia. 

Since getting involved with the Rochester Literature Festival and talking to families of people with dementia at the Memory Café, I decided to read up on dementia to learn more about it and took out Rachael Dixey’s Our Dementia Diary from the library.

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Double Dutch – Battle of Medway Family Crafts

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Dutch Raid Battle Medway

Join us at Rochester Children’s Library to “celebrate” the Dutch Raid on the English navy!

Sew your own tulip funny face, make your own sea-themed windmill or deck out your very own wooden boat. And once you decide on your banner colours, you can decorate your shield, sword and visor!

It’s all free and there’s no need to book but children must be accompanied by an adult.

Saturday, June 17 from 10.30am – 1pm.

With many thanks to the City of Rochester Society for their grant support again this year, which enables the event to take place.

The Dickens Festival

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Dickens 2016

Join us at Rochester Children’s Library during the Dickens Festival for Poetrees inspired by the great man’s works. Or choose your Dickens Name and write your very own great work, starring the character you would have been!

It’s all free and there’s no need to book, but children must be accompanied by an adult.

Saturday, June 10 from 10.30am-1pm.

With many thanks to the City of Rochester Society for their grant support again this year, which enables the event to take place.

Legoland encourages a book not tech at bedtime

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Jenni Falconer presents Joseph Parkes (10) with a giant copy of the bedtime story he wrote to launch LEGOLAND® Windsor resorts new Castle Hotel. UK

Earlier this year, the LEGOLAND® Windsor Resort launched a bedtime story writing competition following research revealing that more than half of parents (55%) ban tech before bedtime in favour of traditional bedtime stories, with a ‘tech black out’ sweeping the nation at 4.41pm.

And the winner was ten year old Joseph Parkes from Wiltshire, who beat hundreds of entries in the nationwide competition to have his bedtime story published as a real-life book and placed in every room of the new LEGOLAND® Castle Hotel, opening on 1 July 2017.

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P.I.Y. – Publish It Yourself: Publicity, Marketing and Author Brand

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Bookstore

Following an exceptionally informative workshop with her last year, the wonderful Truda Thurai very kindly sent us a link to an excellent interview as a follow up. The equally wonderful Christina gathered a few pearls of wisdom from it to help self publishing authors along the way.

Since the dawn of the Internet, Kindle, and e-books, self-publishing has become easier than ever. There are of course many ups and downs with self-publishing. You get more control, more royalties, and you know exactly what is happening with your book. But you also have to take more responsibilities and risks, and do a lot more work yourself.

For emerging writers who are seeking self-publication, the journey to publication can feel like swimming in the middle of the ocean with no idea how to get to the shores. In this interview, Joel Friedlander from thebookdesigner.com talks to Dana Kaye about self-publishing and how authors can get more publicity for their books.

Joel is a book designer who runs a website on publishing and has been giving brilliant advice to authors on how to get their work published. Dana is writer and book critic with years of experience in the industry and recently published Your Book, Your Brand, a practical guide on building author brand in self-publishing. 

I’ve finished my book – what do I do now?

Congratulations! You have finished your book and have decided to go for self-publishing. But how?

The End

“I think that the first step is to have a content strategy to know what your message is going to be, what you’re going to say, and then making sure your online house is in order, that you have the correct social media platforms, that you have a website that is not just an author website, but one that jives with your brand.”

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Rochester’s Dementia Memory Cafe

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As you know, we’re greatly involved with both the Kent and Medway Dementia Action Alliances, which has informed our Memory Box project in adapting to different groups of people telling us their stories.

Dementia Memory Cafes are a growing resource across the country for people living with dementia and their carers, to come together for support and to combat social isolation.

We dropped into the Rochester cafe last week on what would have been Sir Terry Pratchett’s 69th birthday, taking along a few Quantum Weather Butterflies and some random reminiscence items, thus combining The Turtle Moves with The Memory Box.

The Rochester cafe is organised by Alzheimer’s volunteer John Portman and takes place on the last Friday in the month at St.Peter’s Church in The Delce from 1.30-3.30pm. There’s plenty of free, on street parking and a warm welcome awaits you.

The Turtle Moves (Again)

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tm web

Following a successful event last year, we’re celebrating Sir Terry Pratchett and Discworld’s Glorious Revolution with The Turtle Moves (Again) on Saturday, May 20.

Make a mini golem or troll, decorate your own Maskerade Mask or Quantum Weather Butterfly or choose a variety of egg related treasure to create a lasting tribute to the Night Watch. If you’ve time, you can take home one of each!

We’re also delighted that Alternate Shadows Theatre Company will once more be joining us, bringing Sir Terry’s wonderful characters to life.

And the wonderful Cafe @172 will again be serving up Discworld Delicacies such as Sausagesinnabun, along with a boiled egg or two!

The craft workshop is free but children must be accompanied by an adult. No booking required.

11am – 3pm in Room 11, Rochester Community Hub & Library.

With many thanks to the City of Rochester Society for their grant support again this year, which enables the event to take place.

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What is Creative Care?

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The wonderful Christina takes a closer look at the reasons why the Cultural Arm of the Kent DAA created and delivered the Creative Care Expo. 

Creative Care and Dementia

The Cultural Arm of the Kent Dementia Action Alliance hosted a very successful Creative Care Expo in Maidstone in early February, which showcased the fantastic projects happening across the county to engage older people, and those with dementia or Alzheimer’s, through creative arts.

A quick walk around the exhibition centre found stalls displaying sculptures, painted tiles, decorated boxes, and a person singing on a guitar. Rochester Literature Festival led two taster Reminiscence sessions in the spirit of the Memory Box project, which were very well-received and enjoyed by everyone who attended.

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