North Tyneside’s Festival for over 50s is organised by local older people’s groups in partnership with North Tyneside Council. October 2008 was our thirteenth festival with 122 events, activities and offers for older people all through the month.

This year we celebrated in Sixties Style -“with a little help from our friends”. 

Who came to the Age Takes Centre Stage festival?
We counted close to 6,000 attendances at the events and activities during the Festival month of October 2008.

Almost 1400 people completed feedback cards telling us what they thought of the event they attended and what they would like to see in future festivals. The feedback was very enthusiastic about all the events: “fun” “fabulous” and “friendly” were frequent comments, as well as “well-organised”, “something for everyone” and “do it again”.

Many participants tell us how proud they are to have such a wonderful festival in North Tyneside—that it is something very special that people in other areas are not fortunate to have. The rest of this report gives you a flavour of Age Takes Centre Stage 2008.

Events and Activities
The Festival Launch set the theme for the whole month this year, with a 1960s flavour to the costumes, music and food. The Sixties Room and Timeline, created by volunteers working with Living History North East, set off a whole new chain of stories and memories about that period. The Sage Silver Samba Band played, and children from Shiremoor Primary School sang 60s songs, there were classic cars and vintage bicycles and fire engine along with an assortment of displays and activities. The Shiremoor Centre was overflowing right through the day with people over 50 enjoying themselves and laughing.

The theme continued through the month with three ‘Songs and Stories from the 60s’ events around the borough, with entertainment from Tom & Marge and reminscences. 

And a range of active opportunities picked up the theme as well with ‘Games from the Sixties’ and other challenges.

Through October there was a wide variety of physical activities. The Archery and surfing were very popular, and many people asked for “more adventure”. Badminton, croquet and ten pin bowling also attracted new participants, and there were opportunities for people to try bowling, tennis and boxing on a Nintendo Wii.

And of course there was dancing as well! We had ballroom demonstrations, introduction to salsa, line dancing at the Country and Western afternoon and sequence dancing at the Halloween Tea Dance and Wallsend Pensioners Social Afternoon.

The Age Takes Centre Stage Awards Ceremony, hosted by DFDS, celebrated the achievements and contribution of people over 50. After a short delay caused by very high tides, Captain Oleson and Alex Watson presented awards and told the moving stories of how local over 50s make our community a better place. 

The DFDS mini cruise with coach outing to Delft was fully booked and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone who went.

This year six Heyday Outings with Chris Cooper Travel took people all over the north on popular days out. We also arranged two local tours of North Tyneside to see the ‘Best of the Borough’ with commentary from the Council’s Tourism Officer..

The Tyne Tour ferry journey up to Newcastle was so popular we could have filled it twice over. The Sage Silver Samba Band serenaded us as the Millennium Bridge swung open for our boat. This was arranged jointly with the Older People’s Festival in South Tyneside.

There were 120 for lunch at Howdon Community Centre’s Pie & Pea Lunch, and free bingo to follow.

Coffee mornings brought people together at all the branch Libraries – 500 cups of tea were served and many with delicious home made cakes and displays. Behind the Scenes tours of Central Library and one-to-one introductions to computers were fully booked.

Over 80 people joined in the Songs of Praise at Willington Quay. And more sang along with Holly Wood when she entertained and delighted packed audiences at Killingworth Community Consortium and North Shields Live at Home Scheme.

The Victorian Day Out at Stephenson Museum provided a trip to the 1860s for over 500 grandparents and grandchildren during half term, with costumes and crafts, songs from the Willington Songsters, stories from Sylvia the Fishwife and steam train rides as well.

Walks at Royal Quays and in Northumberland attracted new walkers. And guided tours are always popular—this year including the Blue Reef Centre, Rising Sun Country Park, Tynemouth visitor attractions and Wallsend’s local history.

Talks were well-attended with great reviews of the presentations on healthy eating, Travels in Peru and local shipwrecks. And there were a opportunities to learn new skills as well, from family history and papercrafts, to camcorder editing and shopping online. Many of these booked up very quickly and could have been run several times over.


And finally
More photographs of this and previous festivals are on show on our web site www.agetakescentrestage.org.uk where you can keep up to date with our current plans.

Our thanks go to North Tyneside Council for giving the festival financial support and to Age Concern North Tyneside for providing the Secretariat for the Planning Group. 

This year the Awards were sponsored by Age Concern North Tyneside and hosted by DFDS Seaways. The Prize Draw was sponsored by Chris Cooper Travel and Heyday. The Elected Mayor’s Wellbeing Fund supported the Launch & Songs & Stories from the Sixties events, The Pensions Service also supported the Launch, as did North Tyneside Primary Care Trust as well as enhancing 17 events through the month. More raffle prizes were donated by Nexus, Go North East, Stagecoach and Beamish Museum.

We are already looking forward to the next Age Takes Centre Stage festival in October 2009. We welcome ideas and offers for the festival—
please contact the secretary on (0191) 280 8498 or by 
email to info@agetakescentrestage.org.uk.


The Age Takes Centre Stage Planning Group 

30th January 2009