Festival 2024
The To Absent Friends festival took place across Scotland from 1-7 November 2024.
It was an opportunity to remember, to tell stories, to celebrate and to reminisce about people we love who have died. To Absent Friends, a People’s Festival of Storytelling and Remembrance is an opportunity to revive lost traditions and create new ones.
Below is a list of the events that took place.
Remembrance and Reflection
Organised by Rowan Alba CARDS Community
Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh
This activity is for Rowan Alba’s CARDS Community.
Rowan Alba’s Remembrance and Reflection event takes place in Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens.
Our CARDS Community supports isolated individuals who have a problematic relationship with alcohol and may have no other support networks.
Members of our community, volunteers and staff gather in this relaxing and inspiring natural space to reflect on how they are feeling and remember people who are no longer with us. Members use poetry and art to express feelings of mortality. We create a safe non judgemental space to allow people to talk openly about illness, being frightened or anxious and different stages of grief. We spend time walking in the gardens as well as hearing poetry and philosophical readings and looking at art works to help aid discussion. Spending time chatting with others, especially about people we all knew, helps process grief.
Mexican Day of the Dead
Organised by No One Dies Alone, Wigtownshire (A listening ear project) in collaboration with Guid Grief
7th November 2024
A Listening Ear, 2 Monument View, Leswalt, Stranraer, DG9 0JJ
This event is for the Guid Grief community.
Guid Grief launched in November 2023 with a Mexican Day of the Dead which attracted 40 adults with 5 accompanying children from right across the region as far as Dumfries! Mexican food was provided as were Mexican skull cookies and butterflies. There was face painting and the film Coco for the children. A candle lighting ceremony, a remembrance tree, mindful colouring and music were also provided as well as refreshments and cakes. The hall was decorated for the occasion which ran for two hours and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
By working together with NODA, Wigtownshire we hope to open this event to more volunteers and participants and make it an annual event to celebrate absent friends, share stories and normalise death. Our community lacks bereavement support and due to its rural location, the community can struggle with isolation. By bringing our community together at such events we hope to build strong compassionate ties and encourage community members to support each other openly at times of grief.
Photo credit: Brian Wegman via Unsplash
To Absent Friends Workshop
Organised by the Margaret Kerr Unit, Borders General Hospital (NHS Borders)
7th November 2024
Margaret Kerr Unit, Borders General Hospital
This event is open to visitors to the Margaret Kerr Unit.
Hospital staff will be holding a workshop event in our palliative care unit on the 7th November for ‘To Absent Friends’. There will be information stalls with resources about support and remembrance.
Rainbow Glasgaroos x To Absent Friends festival: celebrating the memories of departed friends and ancestors
Organised by Rainbow Glasgaroos
Thursday 7th November, 6:30-9:30pm
Glasgow
This event is open to Glasgaroos members and community by invitation.
The Rainbow Glasgaroos is an LGBTQI+ basketball group that encourages physical exercise and mental wellbeing for its 100+ members, by creating a safe and free-of-charge space for weekly basketball sessions, at the City of Glasgow College. We fight social isolation and promote feelings of belonging by being inclusive of all genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, abilities and fitness levels. We also develop LGBTQI+ community building by organizing social events, and inviting other local LGBTQI+ associations to our activities.
In our continuous effort to strengthen our LGBTQI+ community where our members can develop an affirming support network of friends and grow emotional resilience, the Rainbow Glasgaroos are participating in the “To Absent Friends” festival, a people’s festival of storytelling and remembrance that takes place from 1-7 November 2024.
We invite our LGBTQI+ community to join us for an evening of heartfelt commemoration of the everlasting bonds between us and departed loved ones. There will be a movie, delicious food and a lot of joy. This will be a reunion celebration where we will re-claim the space for absent friends and ancestors by sharing our fondest memories in beautiful communal tributes. This will be our way to find solace and honor our deceased loved ones, sentient beings once in our lives and always in our memories.
This event is open to Glasgaroos members and to our queer community, by invitation. It will take place in Glasgow, on Thursday 7th November 2024, 6:30-9:30pm.
Come and be part of our heart-warming reunion as an act of revolutionary love that celebrates the memories of close and distant deceased friends.
This event is supported by a To Absent Friends small grant.
For any questions, please email us at glasgaroos@protonmail.com.
https://leapsports.org/glasgaroos
Photo credit: Rainbow Glasgaroos
Forget Me Not Coffee Afternoon
Organised by Abbotsford Nursing Home
7 November
Abbotsford Nursing Home, 98 Eglinton Road, Ardrossan, North Ayrshire KA22 8NN
This event is for the Abbotsford Nursing Home community.
With thanks and the support of Absent Friends, we are able to organise a Forget Me Not Coffee Afternoon. The coffee afternoon will take place on the 7th November at 2.30pm. Residents, staff and relatives past and present will be invited along, giving them the opportunity to reminisce about residents who are no longer with us.
In the dining room we will have a memory tree where anyone can come along and hang a special memory on the tree. There will be lots of photographs over the years of the fun times we have had in Abbotsford.
Image credit: Abbotsford Nursing Home
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