Luncheon Club serves up more than food

THE newly-formed Glenarm Community Focus recently initiated The Thursday Club, a luncheon club for older people in the Glenarm area.
Enjoying the Glenarm Community Focus Fortnightly Lunch Club. INLT 08-318-PREnjoying the Glenarm Community Focus Fortnightly Lunch Club. INLT 08-318-PR
Enjoying the Glenarm Community Focus Fortnightly Lunch Club. INLT 08-318-PR

The aim of Glenarm Community Focus is to enhance the lives of the local community by improving services, addressing health and unemployment issues. The group aims to offer those who are most disadvantaged in this isolated, rural community the chance to avail of an increased variety, quality and wealth of services.

The luncheon club, which is held in Seaview Primary School, caters for around 30 people. A delicious three-course meal is often followed by an information talk on health, home safety or the environment. The club allows local people to come together to socialise and to provide a welcoming place where people can come together to make friends, network and receive information on staying safe and healthy.

The group also hopes to run a series of activity taster sessions to let people try something new and a little bit different.

The luncheon club was initially funded for a six-week period through Networks Involving Communities in Health Improvement (NICHI) which is a North Antrim Community Network project working throughout the council areas of Larne, Ballymena, Ballymoney and Moyle. The NICHI Project is funded by the

Public Health Agency Northern Area to work with local communities helpingthem address local health and wellbeing needs. The NICHI Health Alliance enables around 150 groups in the North Antrim Community Network Area to access networking, training, health information and sharing new ideas and good practice.

Veronica McKinley from the NICHI Project gave a very interesting presentation on the nutritional value of sugar to the luncheon club recently.

The presentation focused on raising awareness of the dangers associated with increasing amounts of sugar in the diet and concluded with a sugar quiz showing the number of cubes of sugar in biscuits, confectionary and drinks.

The luncheon club runs on the first and third Thursday of each month from 1.30pm to 3pm in Seaview Primary School. Anyone interested in attending please contact Maureen Morrow on 07765 146013