Christmas can be a very lonely time for many people, especially the elderly who may have lost partners or are unable to travel to visit their family.
YMCA Gym wanted to change this and so every year our YMCA Gym team swap their usual gym attire for their best Christmas jumpers, stuff their faces with a roast turkey dinner and gather all their aged 60+ class customers to join in the festive cheer. This year was no different!
Our team booked The Salutation Inn for their annual Christmas social and the event was a huge success. Over 35 of our older YMCA Gym members and class participants who regularly attend in our community classes – Zumba Gold, Healthy Hearts and Gentle Exercise, attended to enjoy a full Christmas Lunch, giving and receiving of gifts and some friendly companionship. At YMCA North Tyneside, we believe it is important to build genuine and lasting friendships and events such as these have created a safe environment for all of our older members to meet new people, develop great support networks and have some fun.
It was very encouraging to hear the story about one of our members who attended the Christmas Dinner event last year alone, but this year he brought along a friend that he had made from one our community classes during the past year.
We are very proud to have a YMCA Gym Team who are committed to going beyond their roles to bring a community of individuals together and by doing so are truly living out our organisation’s vision to ‘Connect a Community’ over the Christmas Season.
