Ten Tips on How to Start Your Own Club For Widowed People
If you’re widowed you’ve probably discovered that there’s very little help available beyond counselling or anti-depressant medication and that picking up a social life as a newly ‘single’ person is quite challenging! And you can be sure that with thirty five deaths or more a week in any urbanisation, many of them resulting in widowhood for the surviving partner, there are a lot more people feeling the same way.
Eighteen months after my husband died and having written and published my book ‘Dancing Through the Void’ I decided to send a letter to my local newspaper inviting similarly widowed people to join me at a local garden centre restaurant for Sunday breakfast. A journalist picked up the story, followed up with a half page article and from then on my telephone rang constantly. We kicked off with sixteen people, grew to thirty over a period of months and very soon discovered that we could laugh again, support each other in a very positive way and start rebuilding a social life with a totally new group of male and female friends. Most of that first group of people continue to meet and socialise regularly and since then there have been seven more groups and a total of one hundred and twenty people who’ve found salvation in the structure of two meetings a week and a wide variety of shared social events.
It’s not everyone who would want to evolve a club of this size (and for that I’m preparing a ‘Start-up Pack’) but if you feel ready to start getting to know more people in a similar situation, you might like to act as the catalyst for the initial kick-off of a small club.
Below is a list of ten tips on how to get started. Good luck and please let us know how you’re doing.
Club Facilitating
If the idea of setting up a club calls to you, you’ve probably done something similar before or have good organisational skills and will do a great job. However, a word of caution! Your club will attract some very emotionally vulnerable people and you’ll need to be strong enough to keep them and the group on a positive path towards the future rather than dwelling on the past. People do need to talk out their grief but the regular club meetings really aren’t the place to do it. If one person becomes emotional it will bring everyone else down and all will return home dejected.
If possible, find at least one other dependable co-facilitator to share the responsibility and the regular attendance at meetings because it is quite a commitment.
Weekly Meetings
Weekends and particularly Sundays are the worst days of the week for widowed people so we’ve always had a Sunday morning breakfast meeting in the restaurant of a local garden centre. This can conflict with church-going but many manage to find a compromise. Also, public transport is sometimes limited on a Sunday so this is another thing to bear in mind when choosing a venue. An additional mid-week meeting may not be as well supported initially as people often have commitments but as time goes on more will alter their arrangements to enable them to come along.
Venue
Consider a suitable venue to meet and speak to the proprietor/manager to ask whether a group of people would be welcome, how many could be accommodated and on which days and times of the week.
Ideally the venue needs to be in a public place, accessible and with an uplifting environment. Many widowed people spend long, lonely hours at home behind closed doors, and welcome the opportunity to be out and about amongst others.
You may well invite people to your home as you get to know them but it’s best to meet on neutral territory to begin with.
Objectives
Before letting people know about your plans, think carefully about what you would like to achieve and how you want to go about it. Is it for widows and widowers (only about 25% of our members are men), for newly widowed people (there are good reasons for confining it to those between six months and three years of widowhood), and the maximum number. It’s perhaps best to limit the group to about ten people initially and see how you go from there. Also consider how much involvement you want to have because very soon you can find yourself making phone calls, writing & posting letters, paying for postage, having to renew your printer cartridges etc. which can become costly. The secret is to offer little but give a little more than expected.
Publicity
A letter or some copy to your local paper or parish magazine, an e-mail message to local friends who may ‘know of someone widowed’, or a small poster to your own local organisations such as the Women’s Institute (WI), Age Concern, charity shops, University of the Third Age (U3A), local shop etc. will help to get you going. Give a telephone contact number but for security reasons, keep your address private. Don’t be tempted to spend money on advertising as it’s seldom cost effective.
Receiving Enquiries
Again it’s a good idea to think through how you’ll handle enquiries. Have all the details of the venue, meeting times, days etc. written out and keep it near the telephone so you don’t forget to give any important piece of information. Keep a notebook of names, telephone numbers etc. of callers and notes of any information that may be important such as an anticipated delay in attending a meeting because of a holiday, ill health etc. It will give you a clearer picture of how many people to expect and also signal when the time has arrived to start drawing up a ‘reserve’ list. Being pleasant and showing empathy is fine but avoid getting drawn into lengthy discussions about personal experiences because they can be draining, time consuming and counter productive.
Managing Your club
Quite newly widowed people are often in a state of shock, feel confused and have memory lapses. Some will have been carers for years and so have had little previous social life whilst others may find their previously active social life has all but dried up. Either way, coming together with a group of strangers, the only evident thing in common being widowhood, does takes courage. It will also take time for people to start relaxing, getting to know and trust each other and find the energy and enthusiasm to actually suggest and organise events. Meanwhile, as club facilitator, you may need to suggest and organise a few low key activities. A pub quiz night, a meal out, a short walk possibly with dogs, a coach trip or the cinema are fairly easy to arrange and require little effort. Some people will have more disposable income than others so it’s best to go for low cost options to begin with.
Group Dynamics
With each new club started I’ve been amazed at the speed with which people have begun to communicate and keeping meetings lively has never been a problem. However, over the past three years I’ve noticed that as people move out of the grief of bereavement their personalities either emerge or begin to change and suddenly it seems you have a quite different group of people to the one you started with. It’s good that they begin to find and know themselves as individuals, if only to test their reactions in new situations, but this can unsettle the dynamics of a group. It’s also possible that within your club, two people might find new happiness together and that also has a disturbing effect on what is essentially a club for single, widowed people.
Most important of all, don’t forget that you will be changing as much as your fellow club members and if the time comes when you feel your want to take your life in another direction, be firm, hand it to members to appoint a new facilitator and move on in the knowledge that you’ve helped transform the lives of a lot of people.
Collecting Monies For Events
This needs to be kept as simple as possible and the most efficient way is to insist on payment by cheque for activities, or in the case of something like a coach trip, to have the cheques made out to the service provider. If you do take cash, make sure you give a receipt to cover yourself as people can be very forgetful.
Records
If you decide to keep details of your members such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, interests etc. you need to be aware that if those records are kept on a computer you may have to register under the Data Protection Act. See www.ico.gov.uk for information.
Useful contacts
Sunday Scene
For anyone widowed, or others wishing to offer support and encouragement to a widowed person e.g. a family member, friend or professional worker.
www.sundayscene.co.ukWay Foundation
Finding a way forward for the widowed and young ... When you're widowed and young, most people have no idea what you're going through. ... |
Winston’s WishHelp for bereaved children and their families. |
Charity that offers support to young people who have experienced bereavement.
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National Association of Widows UK
A self-help organization, run by widows, for widows, that offers comfort, friendship and a listening ear to widows and unmarried women who have lost a partner. |
Age Concern England
| Age Concern is the largest charity working with and for older people. www.ageconcern.org.uk Other Age Concern websites for Scotland, Northern Ireland and other parts of the country. |
U3A -The University of the Third Age
The Third Age Trust is the national representative body for the Universities of Third Age (U3As) in the UK. U3As are self-help. Many local branches. |