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The Ruth Winston Centre's familiar building in Green Lanes has been closed to members since March, but RWC continues to provide for its members. Like, it seems, almost all organisations, it has moved online and is using Zoom to run its classes - exercise, arts and crafts, dance, music, games and much more. Below, Centre manager Elizabeth Thoree updates readers on how this Palmers Green institution and its members have been copying with the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are the community centre for over 50s and have been serving the local community of Palmers Green and Enfield for 60 years. When things are normal, we provide a safe friendly environment within our lovely building for friends, new and old, to get together and catch up on a regular basis.

Like so many other organisations, we were devastated to have to temporarily close our doors to our members at the end of March last year, due to the terrible coronavirus pandemic, but in true Ruth Winston style our staff, trustees and volunteers have pulled together to provide support for our members and the local community.

Probably the most important thing that we did when lockdown started was to set up a “Telephone Friends” group of volunteers, who regularly called the most vulnerable members on a weekly basis, just for a chat and to provide any shopping provisions that they may have needed. Our online exercise classes using Zoom didn't take off immediately, as not all our members were computer confident, but our staff and volunteers were only too willing to assist and explain to those needing help, and now the classes are really popular.

When the Centre was open we used to produce a quarterly newsletter to update and entertain the members. When lockdown restrictions came in we switched to a weekly newsletter, which involved a lot of hard work from our two editors. It proved a good way to keep members engaged and in touch. Members sent in jokes, puzzles and also articles either about interesting facts or about themselves and what they'd been doing to keep themselves busy during lockdown. There were some wonderful stories.

The feedback from members was definitely inspiring. They told us about thousands of jigsaw puzzles being completed, about how they kept in contact with friends and family, and about how deep cleaning was usually put off to another day. As we were lucky enough to be blessed with some wonderful weather over the summer months, our members were able to get out and keep active by walking and spending lots of time in their gardens. Many tried their hand at growing vegetables.

As we have been unable to reopen our doors, despite making the Centre Covid-safe, we now have eight zoom classes running, which are proving very popular and receiving a five-star rating from our members. New classes and activities are being added to the list all of the time. We are also holding other Zoom facilitated initiatives, such as group catch up/social get together meetings and cooking demonstrations.

We have been taken by surprise by the high demand for our exercise classes, but then we do have some excellent tutors and our fees are modest. We are currently offering pilates, chair exercises, yoga, chair yoga, French,keep fit, zumba and art. Why not give one of the classes a go and try something new? You will be very welcome to have a one-off free trial. We are opening our zoom classes to non-members of the centre so please give us a call.