Festival 2022
The To Absent Friends festival will take place across Scotland from 1-7 November 2022.
It is an excuse to remember, to tell stories, to celebrate and to reminisce about who have died.
Check out some of the events taking place below, and please get in touch if you'd like us to add your event to the listing below.
Memories
Organised by Dumfries Get Together
Thursday, 20 October 2022. Gardenwise, Castle Douglas Road, Dumfries
RSVP on Meetup.
Come along to Gardenwise and enjoy an afternoon tea courtesy of the To Absent Friends annual festival of storytelling and remembrance for Scotland. This is an opportunity to remember, reminisce, tell stories and celebrate the lives of those who have died.
All of us have been touched by death and grief at some point in our lives but in our culture it can be difficult to talk about it. This afternoon is an opportunity for Dumfries Get Together to come together to remember and share special memories, funny stories and photographs about their loved ones or just to be in the company of others and listen in a relaxed and friendly environment.
When we celebrated this event before, those who attended were at first sceptical and worried that it would be a morbid event. However, everyone who attended had lots of fun and laughter (and a few sombre moments) and made some new friends. We have decided to celebrate this year’s event with an afternoon tea at Gardenwise, Castle Douglas Road. Please come along and enjoy a chat with some storytelling, sharing of memories and reminiscing while having fun.
Photo credit: Dumfries Get Together
Crossing Over
Organised by Truacanta Perthshire
November 2nd 3.30 – 5.00 pm
Mill St Café, Mill Street, Perth
This year, Truacanta Perthshire warmly invite you our third ‘To Absent Friends’, a national festival of storytelling and remembrance. Our theme this year is ‘Follow the Light’
We will gather at the Mill St Café for hot drinks and procession with memorial lanterns to Tay Street, where the Queen’s Bridge will be lit orange to commemorate those loved and lost. You will be able to write a message on your lantern and walk with others to reminisce and share stories about people who are no longer here to walk with us on our journeys. This is to remind us that there is still light in our darkest of days.
Photo credit: Emma Oram
Remembrance Ceilidh
Organised by Creativity in Care
Wednesday November 2nd from 1:30pm
The Ceilidh Place Clubhouse Venue (opposite the hotel/cafe, Ullapool)
This event includes music by Martin Gilligan and afternoon tea.
People and pets who have died remain a part of our lives – their stories are our stories. Over the past few months people in Ullapool have been creating remembrance journals and sharing stories. The festival ‘To Absent Friends’ gives people across Scotland an excuse to remember, to celebrate and to reminisce.
Participants, along with Creativity In Care and An Talla Solais will be invited to make a remembrance collage of things that remind us of people and pets we have loved.
If you would like to submit a photograph, an image, recipe, poem, place names, map, or song lyrics that remind you of someone you have loved, for the collage, please send to karrie@creativityincare.org or mhairi@antallasolais.org and share your story.
If you want to bring something for us to scan and print for the collage, we can do that in Ullapool on Wednesday 26th October from 1:30pm-5:30pm at the Unit 3, behind Highland Stoneware (look for Balloons).
You are also most welcome to bring a photograph or item on the Remembrance Ceilidh Day (November 2nd) to help share your story.
This year they have been working with An Tallas Solais and families in Ullapool towards this event. The collage will be displayed at An Talla Solais during November 2022.
Image credit: Karrie Marshall
To Absent Friends
Organised by the Chaplain/Spirituality & Wellbeing Practitioner, NHSGGC Gartnavel General, The Beatson WoSCC & Centre for Integrative Care
Friday Oct 21St 12.00- 15.00 Gartnavel General Hospital (Main Entrance)
From Nov 1-7 The Sanctuary ‘To Absent Friends’ Exhibition (Gartnavel General Hospital)
From Nov 1-7 The Sanctuary ‘To Absent Friends’ Exhibition (The Beatson, WoSCC)
At Gartnavel General Hospital and at The Beatson the ‘Absent Friends’ festival is becoming tradition at both ‘Beild’s’ (This is the Scottish word for Sanctuary). Shared in public or read in private, poetry can put its arms around us all, and this year we host an exhibition with poetry from partners Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care who pioneered the festival reminding us of the power of poetry as both metaphor and instrument for our best selves. There will be a range of ways to record memories of loved ones and friends there too.
In addition, NHS GGC is hosting two special online Death Cafés to get conversations flowing as well as another opportunity for staff to attend our hugely popular "Having Conversations That Matter" session, which helps each of us explore what matters most to us when it comes to end of our lives.
Photo credit: Mackenzie Newnham
Making a remembrance piece in ceramics for those who have been bereaved
Organised by Borders Pottery
Borders Pottery CIC will be hosting a pottery making event for their community, allowing those who have been recently bereaved to come together to create a personal memory of their loved one with clay. It will be an opportunity to come together with those in a similar situation and to enjoy the company of others in a supportive and nurturing environment. The event will take place during October/ November 2022 in Borders Pottery CIC pottery studio and cafe in St Abbs in the Scottish Borders. It will be available to local residents of the rural East Berwickshire community. The participants will have the opportunity to enjoy tea, coffee and home baking whilst making a ceramic item, that will be decorated and fired and available for them to collect a fortnight after the event.
Photo Credit: Katie Forsyth
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