South Liverpool Linking Lives 

Mossley Hill Over-60's

The Linking Lives over-60s activity group at Mossley Hill Church has been running for 6 years and our main aim is to bring together people who are isolated or lonely for friendship and company. We meet weekly throughout the year and many members have now developed friendships outside of this time and keep in touch. The majority of the group have some degree of mobility difficulty and so we provide minibus transport to the church and home again, most people would be unable to attend without this and this is the service for which we have very kindly been funded.

The Over-60s's meet every week for an hour and a half, we start with drinks, biscuits and cakes (always brought by group members, so we no longer need to buy biscuits)! We currently have two volunteers who run the group. We have a range of activities; quizzes, group story writing, arts and crafts, occasional speakers, bingo, music and some outings including a Christmas meal out, plus others. Initially we used to begin the activity early on in the afternoon but then realised that people were really enjoying the time to chat and catch up, so now the activity is usually the second half of the time. We very much encourage ideas for new activities from the group.

We usually have about 12-15 attendees, about 9-10 use the minibus transport which Westhill have helped to fund. We hire the vehicle from a local transport service, the drivers are volunteers and have got to know the service users very well and have a really good relationship with them all. The premises are provided free by the church and are fully accessible so we are able to welcome people who are wheelchair users. We try to be as inclusive as possible and a number of our attendees are living with dementia. No referral, booking or payment is required and people are welcome to just come along any week.

We were formerly, since 2018, part of a befriending service locally but that has had to close as no funding was available this year, so our main way of making people aware of the group, on social media, has ended but we are currently looking into new ways of promoting the group. Most of our current group have learned of us through word of mouth.

Anyone who is interested in knowing more can get in touch with us by email by clicking this link.