Craoibhín Ballina was set up in 2007/2008 as the Over 55 Club, it was the idea of Ms. Breda Murray the Local Development Manager in Moy Valley Resources.
This unique service was originally made available in the Ballina and surrounding areas for people aged 55 and over. It had many social activities on-going daily in the club. The opening hours for the club were Monday to Friday from 9am till 5pm. This was very important to the members, as they relied on this for meeting up and for their socialising. Since the age population have increased as the census show, and the carer services have being so severely hit over the last number of years there is more emphasis on the likes of the drop-in centres.
The first employee to work in the club was a lady called Josie Munnelly. She contacted the local parish hall and put notices in the parish bulletin every week and the local priest would give out the details at the end of the daily morning mass and we acquired a lot of members that way as the club was only a minutes’ walk away from the Cathedral. There was also a notice in the local weekly paper Western People under the Ballina notes.
At the beginning it was like a drop-in centre after mass and the members would have tea/coffee and a biscuit/toast. Two of the early members were Sean Devaney RIP and Tom Kettrick RIP. Both of whom loved a game of cards called “25”. So, after their tea they would have a game and then the member numbers were increasing and Josie knew Tom taught and played cards in the local Moy Club, and asked Tom if he would like to teach the game again as there was a lot of interest from members.
Josie was a great craft enthusiast, and she started a craft class. It was advertised and it went well and a lot of the ladies that came to this craft class also joined a crochet class later in the year. This crochet class was an enormous success and still is today with the crochet/knitting class held in the club weekly.
As the club started to go from strength to strength the activities increased. There was local fundraising organised to help cover some costs i.e., flag days, bag packing, church gate collections.
We aim to make the club more attractive to a wider community base of people by hosting in conjunction with local providers events such as cooking demonstrations, flower arranging, art classes, exercise classes, fun table quizzes and movie afternoons.
The fundamental aim of the service is to promote social inclusion and reduce social isolation which is prevalent among older people.
