Five NWR members from groups in the southeast, Sue and Christine from Dorking, Kim from Bookham, Valerie from Maidstone and Jenny from Horsham, organised a day conference – The Feel Good Factor’ – at Roffey Park, Horsham on Friday 28 March 2025.
Roffey Park Institute
70 members from around the country (from as far away as Middlesbrough, Crewe, Newport and Grantham) attended, and judging from the many compliments we received afterwards, we believe we fulfilled our intentions of offering a day in which we could not only learn something new, but also find moments of mindfulness, calm and laughter.
In the morning we had two contrasting but equally engaging speakers. Firstly, Professor Sophie Scott CBE told us through video clips, brain scans and diagrams, how and why we use laughter. Humans use it to express emotion, joy and playfulness, but we can also use it to mask emotions or as a way of agreeing. Victor Borge described laughter as ‘the shortest distance between two people’. When we laugh involuntarily we are using an evolutionary response deep within our brains and this happens cross-culturally. Surprisingly, gorillas respond to tickling by laughing (Google Robin Williams tickling a gorilla) and who knew rats enjoyed being tickled too?
Children who are born deaf and who never hear laughter, and children born blind, have the same indistinguishable laughter in response to spontaneous laughter or tickling. A final comment from Professor Scott was that if one is hard of hearing, getting hearing aids is the very best means of preventing dementia.
Professor Sophie Scott CBE
Our second speaker was Mr Harry Venning, Guardian cartoonist, comedy scriptwriter of ‘Clare in the Community’ for Radio 4 and cartoon workshop presenter. Harry had us laughing from start to finish of his talk, Crash Course Cartooning. We learned that cartooning is storytelling in its purest form. You need a template – Introduction/Composition/Resolution/Completion – and the story needs devices or symbols to get the story across in as few details as possible. This is where the use of dites, hites, vites, grawlixes, agitrons, briffits, blurgits and indotherms comes in. (You’ll have to look them up!) it also helps to make noises as you draw, such as growling when drawing an angry person. With two strokes of a pen you can make a pair of eyes look evil, angry, happy, surprised or even turn them into Roger Moore eyes! In Harry’s opinion The New Yorker has the best cartoons in the world but it will be Harry’s use of the asterisk that stays in the minds of conference attendees for a very long time!
Mr Harry Venning
After lunch there were various hour-long activities – yoga with sound bowls for relaxation, a mindful walk through the lovely grounds of Roffey Park, a 1000 piece jigsaw of arty cats to complete and a joyful, singing workshop.
The day ended with the sharing of jokes and the revealing of amusing captions that members had given to characters in artworks placed on each table during the day. All in all, a happy day spent in the company of NWR friends.
Here are a few comments received from NWR members
The Feel Good Factor with Prof Sophie Scott and Harry Venning was filled with interesting information on laughter, a crash course in cartooning, great workshops and plenty of laughter and friendship. Well done to all the committee! Jill, Crewe & district
Another brilliant day. Ann, Deepings (NWR Trustee)
Excellent conference. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day finished off with a swim and jacuzzi.
Gill, Horsham
Another great day, lovely venue, good organisation, lots of laughter and seeing lots of familiar faces. Lyndsay, Chichester
Really enjoyed it and so good to meet up once more with FB friends. Susan, Burgh Heath
….such an interesting and fun filled day. Laughter is so good for you. I loved the food too!
Barbara, Shoreham-by-Sea
A really fun day. Ruth, Newport
I haven’t laughed so much in ages!! Margaret, Horsham
…the bonus for me was being given Harry Vennings’ “drawn on the day” signed cartoons. Oh yes and “Thank you for the music”. Jan, Bury St Edmunds
I enjoyed both speakers very much. All good fun. Lovely sunny walk too. Liz, Horsham
