I hope you and your families are and have been well over the last few months with the Corona restrictions. It has certainly been a time of change.
For our VWPLUS participants and their family it has perhaps been more so, as members of this group often have other health issues making them more vulnerable to falling ill with Covid-19. Fortunately they are all well although it has not been easy for them to change their usual routines and adjust to social distancing and isolation.
I am pleased to be able to report that we have been able to retain all but one of our VWPLUS participants over this period. In order to keep them actively involved, a lot of work had to go on behind the scenes. One of the first things we put in place was to provide them with a list of phone numbers of their VWPLUS friends and to encourage them to call one another. Through weekly contact with every one of them, we made a record of the calls they made and developed a "Phone Chart" showing contact between different members of the group (see attached example).
In the meantime, we worked hard to get all of them online with Zoom. This has been quite a challenge for them and for their parents but, with perseverance, we managed and have now successfully held VWPLUS Zoom sessions over the past 4 weeks. Singing is still a big part of our sessions and, by providing videos of the choreography, we are still able to perform, albeit virtually.
A new addition to our weekly rehearsal is "Storytelling". Maggie is writing a story called "Lucy bakes a cake" and each week we follow a new chapter. Every chapter contains "blanks" for the participants to complete as well as instructions for other homework relating to the story, such as drawing the cake, and dancing around the kitchen. The participants send in their artwork and videos and it is shown to the group via Dropbox.
It has been absolutely wonderful to see their involvement and the expression of their imagination. All the VWPLUS-ers look forward to Wednesdays and their parents have been very positive about the content and quality of our Zoom sessions. Of course, we have no idea when we may be able to recommence rehearsals at the community hall, or when we will be able to perform in front of an audience but we are hopeful that restrictions will ease further over the coming months as risk of contamination in WA continues to remain low.
In the meantime, we would like to thank you for your involvement with VWPLUS and hope that you will continue to support us now and when we return to our usual venue in Shenton Park.
