A celebration of First Taste

On Saturday 4^th February the original founders along with Trustees, Tutors, supporters and their Patron celebrated the achievements of First Taste – a small local charity who championed the importance of cognitive stimulation and physical activity for older people in care settings. First Taste grew from the personal experiences of its founders Shirley Davison and Iris Wagstaffe who were both struck by the lack of high quality activity for their relatives in care. This personal passion forged the development of a small group of Trustees with big ambitions to change the way older people lived. They worked strategically trying to improve training for care staff, provided programmes of activity to demonstrate impact and developed local partnerships with activities like intergenerational projects bringing together local schoolchildren and care homes. Their Patron, Baroness Estelle Morris of Yardley, commissioned a small book to capture their ground-breaking work and spoke at the celebration of the importance and impact of their work. Several years ago First Taste passed on the baton of its work to Age UK Derby and Derbyshire allowing its trustees to retire (although they all seemed to remain very busy!). Iris Wagstaffe sadly died in August 2022 and Darley Dale are this year celebrating her enormous contribution to the life of her community.

I was privileged to speak at the celebration and meet the many people who had contributed to First Taste in the decades it worked for the benefit of older people. Their passion and commitment I know is shared by our charity and we look forward to supporting the ambitions of First Taste  within AUKDD into the future.