Senior Citizens' Night

The Club held its annual Senior Citizens' night in the Focus Centre last Friday. As usual, guests from the various sheltered housing schemes and residential homes in the town were brought to the Focus by Gala Wheels. The guests were all given supper before being entertained by John Irvine, a musician from Selkirk who is a founder member of Harmony. The general opinion of the guests was that the evening had been a great success and joined in with John's repertoire of sing along tunes. Some were even dancing in the aisles!

Harmony is a charity which was launched in 2002 to provide regular free concerts to residents in care homes, hospital wards, day centres and sheltered housing across the region. There are 24 volunteers and they give up to 800 performances each year. Sadly, Harmony are now struggling for money to pay their costs as lottery funding to the project is ending.  

Violet Baillie is Chair of Harmony and she said 'Our mission has always been to bring music to the oldest and frailest members of our community and, through this, reawaken their enthusiasm for life. A passive group sitting round a sterile room is transformed into lively participants sharing a common activity, sometimes dancing and clapping, at other times smiling as they wander down memory lane'. 

John and colleague Brian Martin are setting up a new venture, Harmony Stage, to help with fundraising by running musical events in the Borders. For more information, see Harmony's website or Gala Wheels on the Borders Disability Forum site