An annual festival to celebrate ageing is going online this weekend (Sat October 24th). For the last five years, the Ageing Well Torbay Festival has been held at venues across the Bay, and last year attracted around 1750 people to the Riviera Centre in Torquay. There had been plans to return to the same place on Saturday, October 24th, with a huge range of entertainment … Continue reading Only a few days to go – Ageing Well Festival @Home 2020

By David Gledhill, Marketing & Communications Lead Nearly a year ago, our volunteer Ageing Well Torbay Festival organisers started work on the annual celebration of ageing. When they first met in November, they were still reeling from a fabulously successful festival held a month earlier at the Riviera Centre in Torquay. A day packed full of events – entertainments, crafts, dance, informative talks, lots of … Continue reading Virtual festivities

Children at Barton Hill Academy are preparing to make sweet, sweet music after taking delivery of a Yamaha organ Ageing Well Torbay was looking for a new home for the organ after transferring the contents of the Lounge in the Fleet Walk shopping centre in Torquay to a soon to be opened new community facility in Temperance Street. Hele, Watcombe and Barton, Community Builder Dan … Continue reading Yamaha organ donated to children of Barton Hill Academy

A PIONEERING helpline set up to deal with the coronavirus crisis is to continue with funding from the National Lottery. The Torbay Community Coronavirus Helpline launched a week before the country went into lockdown and at its peak was dealing with more than 350 calls a day from people needing or offering help. In an unprecedented move, staff from Torbay Community Development Trust, Age UK … Continue reading Pioneering helpline set to continue thanks to lottery funding

By David Gledhill, Marketing & Communications Lead In just a few weeks time, Ageing Well Torbay is going to try something we have never tried before – a virtual celebration of ageing. When we came up with the idea it seemed easy enough – what could possibly go wrong? But as the big day approaches the team is becoming increasingly nervous. We were determined not … Continue reading The show must go on – Ageing Well Festival @Home 2020

By David Gledhill, Marketing & Communications Lead IT is hard to think of the pandemic providing opportunities, but that is exactly what happened for key organisations across the Bay. If nothing else, the lockdown gave people the opportunity to step back and to observe the effects of life slowing down – on individuals, on organisations, on companies and on the environment. It also offered organisations … Continue reading Community, council and charities all working together

By David Gledhill, Marketing & Communications Lead The coronavirus crisis continues to challenge us all and organisations, businesses, schools and individuals, struggle to keep up with the latest advice. Just when you thought it was safe to meet in larger numbers, the virus spiked and we have been sent back to the drawing board when it comes to organising social get togethers. Picking a country … Continue reading Making sense of the rule of six

By Matt Saunders, Marketing & Communications Assistant Since late March, we here at Torbay Community Development Trust have been doing what we can to help the community during the ongoing pandemic. We established the Torbay Community Helpline, as a means of providing swift assistance for those stuck self-isolating at home, who were in urgent need of food, shopping, prescription medication, social contact, advice and guidance…all … Continue reading Torbay Community Helpline seeking new volunteers

By David Gledhill, Marketing & Communications Lead IN this busy life, it is rare to get the chance to reflect on the effects of our actions and take the opportunity to blow our own trumpets. However, this is one of those occasions and having just read through some of the responses we received to our survey about what people thought about our hastily set up … Continue reading Reflecting on Torbay Community Helpline, and your responses