Time to Shine celebrated the charity’s first year of partner projects that tackle loneliness among older people in Leeds at our Market Stall event on Friday 6 May at West Yorkshire Playhouse. We’re proud of all our delivery partners who made the event such a resounding success.
 
We had around 200 people in attendance throughout the day including many older people who said they’d just popped in for a few minutes but decided to stay much longer.

Time to Shine held the year-one event to celebrate and showcase the work of its delivery partners to address loneliness and social isolation across Leeds. Delivery partners each had market stalls to promote their activities and achievements in the first year of the project.

The free event was open to the public and of particular interest to older people in Leeds or professionals who could refer into the projects. It was particularly striking just how positive the event was, with much laughter and and friendly interaction between workers and volunteers on the various projects and the good people of Yorkshire. There was lots of delicious food, activities and entertainment – such as music, dance and poetry – to highlight the fun elements of Time to Shine and that it’s never too late to try something new. 

Most of our delivery partners were at the event including Rural Action Yorkshire, Yorkshire MESMAC, Age UK Leeds, Feel Good Factor, Touchstone, Cross Gates and District Good Neighbours’ Scheme, Leeds Community Foundation, Health for All, Leeds Irish Health and Homes, Yorkshire Dance, Richmond Hill Elderly Action (RHEA) and CIRCLE.

We received lots of positive feedback from the event with lots of people finding out about these great projects. We also gathered lots of positive press coverage and media attention including a lovely write up of the event by Lindsay Pantry for Yorkshire Evening Post and appearing ‘On the Aire’ for Made in Leeds TV.

Paula Solloway was the official photographer on the day and took some wonderful photographs that really capture the event. Lots of other people took photos including Hanna and Jim from Time to Shine and notably street photographer Andy (Curious Anderson on Instagram).
 
Selections of these photos are up on the Time to Shine Facebook page for you to have a look at. If you want to share your photos please email them to us or tweet them @TTSLeeds with the hashtag #TTSLeeds.

Thanks again to everyone who came along and to all our delivery partners for making it such a wonderful day.

Some highlights from the day:

Health for All’s Red Lychee Project started off the programme with Chinese folk singing

Health for All’s BME Networks Project demonstrated sari tying, samosa folding, and crochet 

Peter Spafford displayed and read out “Poem Portraits,” bespoke poems alongside photographs by Lizzie Coombes

LIHH’s Cara Project brought along some delicious homemade soda bread

Sage asked for people’s statements about overcoming homophobia and transphobia

Leeds Community Foundation asked for ideas about themes for future Small Funds projects 

Bill Rollinson, Chair of our Core Partnership, said a few heartfelt words with the central message that “Loneliness can happen to any of us.” 

We had a loneliness tree so people could give us their solutions for the problem of loneliness

And cake. Did we mention there was cake?!