Over 60’s Group -or is it? A guest blog by David Lawson

On a grey Monday evening, 4th June, over 40 people gathered in the shul hall to hear and talk about the possibility of establishing an “Over 60’s” group in MHS. This could be on a model similar in some ways to the well-known University of the 3rd Age or on the lines of “SAGE”, the group in Bushey shul which regularly gets 120 people attending every week and for which there is now a waiting list!

Stuart Bloom from Bushey came specially to tell us about SAGE and how people had applied to join Bushey shul specifically because of SAGE!

As a taster or example of the sort of thing that the group could arrange, I gave a 30 minute talk about the book that I have written and has just been published about Ostrava and its Jewish Community. My research was inspired by the sefer torah that Kingston shul has, which came originally from Ostrava. Rabbi David, who was the Rabbi in Kingston and remembers the sefer and asked me to talk as he was quite excited about my research, and I hope it was an interesting and informative talk. But there was not too much time to spend on questions as tea was ready and then we discussed the whole idea of the Group.

There was a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea although no-one liked the ‘Over 60’s’ title. The Group should be open to everyone who is interested and has the time to attend, so no jokes or cartoons about “old” people! There were lots of ideas about what activities the group should cover, how often it should meet and even what it should be called. I am delighted to say that there were even several volunteers to form a steering committee to get things moving although the general consensus was that the group would probably not be open for business before Yom Tov. But the steering committee will be busy planning.

So watch this space!