Irish in Britain’s Cuimhne Champions team gathered in Holborn, London for a special launch of two new Cuimhne publications and our new film “My Story”.
Kindly hosted by Metro Bank, we were delighted to be joined by friends of Irish in Britain from across London, volunteers and community champions. We also welcomed Mohamed Maslax, from Community Language Support Services at St Mellitis Church and supporters of our Cuimhne work Kate Moralee and Marek Habrda, representatives from the City Bridge Trust, and Geraldine Lawlor, from the Sisters of Mercy Union.
The gathering was an opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new ones over healthy strawberries, grapes and melon, and our guests were able to browse our new books, explore our memory box with treasures from the past including old coins, life buoy soap, perfume, old photographs and a ration book and discuss ideas for memory boxes.
Our CEO Brian Dalton welcomed everyone and spoke of the importance to Irish in Britain of our Cuimhne strategy to support communities to become truly dementia friendly and inclusive.
Dr Mary Tilki and Zibiah spoke about Cuimhne and the thinking behind our publications, warmly thanking all those who have contributed ideas, skills, music, images and time to our new books and film resources and those who will help us to take our Cuimnhne work forward.
We then held our very first public screening of our film “My Story”, collecting feedback and suggestions from everyone on the film and books ahead of our first proper print run and launch of our film online. We gathered in lots of helpful suggestions as well as comments such as “very informative presentation and film – excellent to use up and down the country to develop the project”, ”loved to hear all the stories”, ”we really loved the film”, ”I liked the way the books were presented and how they were introduced at the beginning as well as the way they were put together, the whole story”.
After listening to “Moon River”, one of the songs Cuimhne Champion Richard Lucas has selected in his “Your life through songs”, Richard, joined by Ann Lucas and Mary Pegler, from Irish Community Services in Greenwich Bexley and Lewisham, spoke to us about ideas behind this special book. Richard’s book is also a great resource to inspire people recall and share stories about their lives through music.
We are very pleased to have been able to give both Richard’s book and the My Story book ISBN numbers, meaning that copies of each will enter the British Library’s book collection and we will also be depositing copies in nominated public libraries.
Community groups interested in trying out our books, are welcome to contact champions@irishinbritain.org to find out about our free workshops,