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Grace wins our Christmas Card competition

We are delighted to announce that Grace Baty, aged 8, from Corbridge First School has won our Christmas Card Competition with her festive drawing of a snowy penguin!  We asked the pupils of Corbridge First School to send in their best designs for our 2022 Christmas Card and we were sent some fabulous drawings. Our residents were then asked which one they thought should become the official card for the Charlotte Straker Project and after a lot of discussion, it was decided that Grace’s penguin should win. Sam Willis, our Deputy Manager, presented Grace a prize of a £25 voucher and a special certificate. John said “It was very difficult indeed to choose the winning drawing as they were all so wonderful, but we took a vote and Grace’s penguin came top.  it has made my week.” Sam added, “there were some beautiful drawings including a snowman, a reindeer and a snowflake. Our residents really enjoyed choosing their favourite. We’re very keen to keep in touch with the local community and this competition has been a brilliant way to strengthen ties. It was wonderful to see the children and meet their teacher and of course, listen to their wonderful carol singing on Wednesday morning.

 

Carol Singing from Corbridge First School

As a special treat for us, children from Corbridge First School walked the short distance to Charlotte Straker House to sing Christmas carols to our residents. They stood outside and sang their hearts out – everyone gathered around the windows to hear favourites such as Away in a Manger and We Wish you a Merry Christmas. Thank you to the children and teachers for their wonderful singing – we absolutely loved their choir!

Our Christmas Message from the Chair of the Trustees

Christmas Message from Berenice Groves, Chair of the Trustees

“This month I’ve spent a festively fabulous Saturday evening at the Corbridge Parish Hall at the Corbridge Big Night Out. I can confirm that a great time was had by all, the band was amazing and Bill Cunningham’s quiz was slightly less fiendish than 2021! Events like these take so much planning and it’s heart-warming to see the local community gathering together to produce such a successful event.

Looking back over the last 12 months, 2022 has been another challenging year and the pandemic has continued to impact every part of Charlotte Straker House. However as always, our amazing staff team continues to provide our much-loved residents with a happy home from home and the very best in high quality care.

Over the last year the community respite care bed service has provided an essential lifeline to many families. We have helped 23 families and we have received 100% excellent feedback from respite residents and their families about our services.

Fundraising is extremely difficult in the economic current climate, and we know we will face future challenges in this area, but we managed to secure enough financial support to keep our respite care bed open over the past twelve months. I’m grateful that we have succeeded, despite considerable challenges, to keep the care of the local community at the heart of our service.

The fundraising group has been working extremely hard to raise funds to fund our respite service, help meet any shortfall in fees and to support requirements for increased infection control measures that we needed to implement. This year we enjoyed a wide variety of fundraising events including a Craft Fair, Summer Fete, a Family Fun Day, the Christmas Big Night Out, a Quiz at the Angel in Corbridge and a first for us – the Crafty Women manned a stall at the Northumberland County Show.

We have also worked in partnership with other local charities, producing a charity “Better Together” Beer and a delicious Corbridge Lightly Sparkling Apple Juice – both still on sale in various shops in Corbridge Village.

Our supporters have also stepped up to raise money for our charity, including our Deputy Manager running the Great North Run and a local supporter attempting a sponsored swim at Lake Windermere.

With the easing of restrictions, we have been able to resume social activities including daily coffee mornings, exercise classes, crafting activities, reading afternoons, games sessions and visits from therapy animals, coffee shops, local museums, taken walks to beauty spots and even tried trout fishing, supported by our staff and several local volunteers. Thank you to those who help us with our social activities – we couldn’t manage outings and visits without you!

As with many in the care sector, we have faced enormous difficulties in employing suitable care and nursing staff and have had to set aside a large proportion of our budget on recruitment costs. We’ve been trialling new projects such as the Recruitment Morning in Corbridge Parish Hall and advertising on the Indeed app.

We’ve also implemented a much-needed new computerised care planning system to enable staff at all grades to have access to resident information at the point of care. As well as these major projects we’ve continued to take additional steps to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, including the continuation of stringent infection control policies, strict visiting procedures plus regular Covid Management Group meetings.

It has been yet another challenging year. However, the Charlotte Straker Project has continued to address every adverse situation and it is extremely positive to see that community support has remained at a high level during the last 12 months.

Our staff and volunteers have been a true inspiration to us this year and we would not exist without you. Thank you to everyone for their patience, determination and resilience. It has been fantastic working with you this year and I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a happy new year and all the best for 2023.

Berenice Groves
Chair of the Trustees

Christmas on Broadway at the Sage in Gateshead

This might have been the highlight of our year! We took a group of residents, plus staff and volunteers to the Sage Concert Hall in Gateshead for “Christmas on Broadway”. After an exciting bus trip through the bright lights of Newcastle everyone made their way to their accessible seats in the ultra-modern concert hall in the Sage building. The concert was amazing – the Royal Northern Sinfonia and a cast of West End and Broadway Stars performed songs from huge musical hits such as The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!, The Lion King, Wicked and Frozen, plus a selection of seasonal musical numbers that definitely put us all in the Christmas spirit. Everyone absolutely loved it, and we spotted plenty of residents (and helpers!) singing along to the music, clapping wildly and cheering the professional singers and musicians. Thank you to all those who came with us as helpers and volunteers and huge thanks to the staff of the Sage, who were extremely helpful in ensuring we all enjoyed a brilliant evening out.

 

Dobbies Christmas Lunch

A group of our residents visited Dobbies Garden Centre in Ponteland last week for a special Christmas lunch.
Dobbie’s is always extremely kind and welcoming to our group visits and this time was no exception. We had a delicious roast turkey dinner in the quieter part of the cafe, and then had a great time looking at the sparkly decorations, Christmas gifts and homewares. Thank you to all our volunteers and members of staff who accompanied our residents plus the wonderful members of team at Dobbie’s – they always look after us so well!

Tree of Lights 2022

We held our annual Tree of Lights service on Sunday, with carols (chosen by our residents), plus prayers, readings and a poem read by our resident Margaret. Our staff, volunteers, residents and relatives took the opportunity to remember and celebrate the lives of loved ones who passed away in 2022, with readings and a short address from Berenice Groves, Chair of the Trustees. The Christmas Tree (kindly donated from Bywell Estate) was blessed, and we switched on the Christmas tree lights.
 
We also have a special Memory Tree which we light every year and place in the downstairs lounge so that everyone can see the decorated and inscribed hearts that are hung on the branches, to remember all those who have passed on in the last twelve months.
 
After the service, everyone enjoyed mulled wine and mince pies. Our Christmas Tree looks magnificent, and all our residents have been admiring all the lit-up decorations and lights. Jean, who lives in one of our assisted living bungalows, said “the service was very touching, and even though it was very cold I loved listening to the poem and seeing the tree all lit up.”

Crafting sales help our charity

Pauline, a member of our office team, is a very talented crafter and has made some gorgeous teddy bears, all with different outfits and accessories. She has also stitched some very cute Christmas tree decorations in the shape of pears, fairies, animals and more. These items, under the brand name WhatIFeltForYou have been on sale in our lobby, with 50% of sales going towards the Charlotte Straker Project and have made over £40 for our charity. Please look out for them when you visit, they’ll be for sale right up to Christmas. Thank you very much to Pauline for her kind donation (and our favourites are the little bear with the skateboard and the athletic skiing bear!)

Christmas Crafting Afternoons

It is a hive of activity in Charlotte Straker House at the moment, with some very busy crafting afternoons. Residents have enjoyed making Christmassy wreaths and calendars, using fabric, card and ribbon to make the decorations for their own rooms and to give as presents to friends and relatives. Jessie, our talented embroideress, made a wonderful tapestry cushion with a cute robin. She also made a 2023 calendar for our office staff with strict instructions “not to hang it up until the New Year, as it’s bad luck!” The photos show Claire with her calendar, Margaret and her wreath and our office manager Karen and receptionist Alice with their calendar gift from Jessie.

Singing Christmassy songs with Carolyn and Lee

The talented Carolyn and Lee visited us all on Saturday to sing a medley of Christmas themed tunes and other songs. The residents love to sing a long to the music, and everyone was clapping and swaying to the music. Alan loves the music and always sings his heart out – he said “Oh I love it. I don’t always know the words but I like to sing the tune. It gives you a boost.”

The photo shows resident Ernie, family member Lynn and resident Alan.

 

Angels on our Christmas Tree

A group of residents visited St Andrew’s Church this week to admire the amazingly creative entrants in the Corbridge Christmas Tree Festival. Our residents have used their crafting skills to design and make our own entry into the Tree Festival. One of our residents, Colin (aged 89) is a very keen model builder. With help from Paul, our handyman, he designed and made the unique wooden Christmas tree and our other residents decided that they would choose our staff team and volunteers as a theme for the tree, and turn them into “angels” to celebrate their dedication to our care home. So every little angel on this tree represents one staff member or volunteer and was carefully cut out of coloured card by our residents. Creating the tree has been a real team effort – and we hope you enjoy! Our resident Claire told us that the Festival was “beautiful and the colours were so lovely” whilst Colin said “it has turned out really well and the lights on the side and the angel on the top is a great touch.”