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Balloon Tennis with Pool Noodles!

Our residents enjoyed playing a game of balloon tennis in our dining room – it was as if we’d arrived at Wimbledon!

We used pool noodles as our tennis rackets and balloons for the tennis balls, a great way to exercise our arms and upper bodies. Residents loved trying to keep the balloon in the air and watching their friends trying to do the same. Colleagues joined in and were giggling at each other’s efforts and shouting words of support to each other. Margaret said “it’s much better playing in a circle, rather than over a table, as it’s easier to hit the balloon to each other. It was great fun, but we were tired the next day!”

Jessie’s 99th Birthday

We had a lovely day recently when we celebrated our much loved resident Jessie’s 99th birthday. The Charlotte Straker team presented her with a card, a badge and sash, plus a beautiful bag decorated with a robin (Jessie’s favourite bird) along with a robin mug. Jessie said “I absolutely love them both, and I’m going to use my new bag for my tapestries, and the mug is a little big but I can fill it full of tea!”

Jessie then made her a pizza at our pizza making afternoon (with cheese, ham, tomato and sweetcorn) and enjoyed her birthday cake – she chose lemon drizzle flavour – plus smoked salmon and a glass of bucks fizz with her daughter Jane.

Corbridge Bridge Players Come up Trumps!

Thank you to the members of the Corbridge Bridge Club for their generous donation of £300 which will help fund the rolling refurbishment of our bedrooms. The Bridge Club held a Christmas party with a raffle, with prizes donated from local businesses. Adrian Andrews, President of the Bridge Club visited Charlotte Straker House to hand over the cheque to Berenice Groves, Chair of the Trustees.
 
Berenice said “Thank you to the bridge players of Corbridge for their donation! We are constantly updating our bedrooms and aim to create a warm and cosy space so that we become ‘home’ to each person who comes to live at Charlotte Straker House. In turn, this helps each person to have purpose, whilst improving self-worth. This donation will go towards new furnishings, curtains and décor, to help our residents take pride in their home and being part of Charlotte Straker.”

Topping off the week with Pizza Making

Who needs a takeaway when you can make your own? With the winter weather looking like it’s here to stay, our residents topped off their week, avoided the cold and spent a cosy afternoon indoors, being pizza makers.
Equipped with enough pizza bases to feed an army and plenty of tasty toppings, the residents spread their bases with tomato purée, before scattering on the cheese and choosing their favourite toppings from a choice of cheese, ham, chicken, peppers, sweetcorn, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, mixed herbs and crushed chillies.
Once cooked and cooled and with the scent of freshly cooked pizza in the air, the residents were very excited to tuck into their delicious creations for their tea, which they all thoroughly enjoyed.
Jayne, our Activities Coordinator said “The residents had a brilliant afternoon making their own pizzas, they could be as adventurous as they wanted to with the variety of toppings that were on offer. Of course, they enjoyed eating them just as much as they enjoyed making them!”
Our residents gave us the following feedback:
“My pizza tastes lovely!” said Jessie.
Margaret S said “mine is very tasty.”
Colin said “Please can we do this activity again? You have made a good job organising this!”
Clare mentioned that “it was nice to hear so many voices and laughter.”
Margaret G asked if she could make a vegetarian pizza for her daughter.
Alan said that had never made a pizza in his life so he made his first one to share with his daughter Lynn!

Care Home Hero – Peter Retires After Twenty Years

We held a presentation for Peter Wood on Wednesday to celebrate his many years of volunteer work at the Charlotte Straker Project. Peter has been at the heart of the Charlotte Straker Project for over twenty years; as a trustee, a volunteer, as Chair of the Board plus being an essential party of many committees and projects within our organisation.

Berenice Groves, our current Chair of the Trustees commented “After many years as a Trustee at the Charlotte Straker Project, Peter will be an extremely difficult person to replace. He will be greatly missed for his compassion, care for our staff and residents and dedication to our charity. We all wanted to thank Peter for his years of great leadership and I’d like to personally thank him for being a great mentor and for helping to shape the Charlotte Straker Project over the past few years. On behalf of our staff team I want to extend our heartfelt thanks and sincere appreciation for his years of diligent hard work and support, and we’re delighted that he has signed up as a volunteer so we will continue to see him at Charlotte Straker House. From us all we want to wish you a much deserved, happy and relaxed retirement.”

A virtual trip to the Swiss alps

Our residents enjoyed a virtual trip to Switzerland last week. Megan, our student nurse, had the brilliant idea of creating an itinerary involving passports, maps, a tasting session of Swiss chocolate and discussion about the country. Some residents had visited the country: Colin had cycled the Alps whilst Margaret and Muriel had been to Bern as well as Lake Geneva. The group discussed the history of Switzerland, it’s national dish (rosti), the Bernese mountain dogs that come from the country, plus the Swiss economic and military history. It was very interesting to listen to everyone’s memories. Colin told us that he cycled up the Alps in the early 1950s on a bike with only four gears! Margaret told us that “I love Swiss chocolate and I enjoy rosti as well – although I’ve not had it for a number of years.” Thank you to Megan for leading the session and all her preparation. We’ll hopefully be travelling virtually to a new country soon.

Our Winter Newsletter

Our Winter Newsletter is out now! Packed with the latest news, photos and articles and a forward from our Chair of the Trustees.

Click on Winter 2023 Newsletter to read a copy. If you would like a hard copy please email sally.urwin@charlottestraker.org.uk

 

Singing with “Baldy Holly”!

We had such a lovely afternoon with the singer “Baldy Holly” (otherwise known as Jamie)! Jamie is a singer from Longbenton in Newcastle and often tours with his band in Las Vegas and Chicago.
The dining room was full, with 14 residents, some of their family members and 2 bungalow residents. Everyone was offered a glass of wine or beer, and started joining in the singing and dancing, helped by our volunteer Avril, and the staff team. Jamie sang songs from Roy Orbison, Cliff Richard, Buddy Holly, Drifters, Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond, and the Everly Brothers – everyone knew the words and music and danced as much as they could – Bruce, Stuart and Mick thought it was a great afternoon and Alan was dancing with his arms and singing along with his niece.
Everyone went away with high spirits – Joan, a bungalow resident, said “I enjoyed my glass of wine and have now put the doom and gloom of January out of the way and I’m looking forward to joining in the house activities over the next few months.”
Margaret G, another resident said “I’ve had such an enjoyable afternoon and it was nice to see the staff taking part and enjoying themselves. I really liked sitting next to ladies I used to know when I was a bungalow resident and we shared some memories about being neighbours.”
Thank you to all the staff who joined in, our volunteer Avril, and of course “Baldy Holly”! The general consensus was that it was a happy and uplifting afternoon and we can’t wait for Jamie to come back and sing for us all again.

Thank you to Karen, a “vital part” of Charlotte Straker House

Karen Dover, a Senior Care Assistant, was presented with a bouquet of flowers, as a token of our appreciation for her absolute dedication to Charlotte Straker.  Karen has worked at Charlotte Straker for many years and is a truly committed team member, being a great support to residents and the team alike.  In recent weeks over the Christmas and New Year period, Karen made herself available to support the service in any way that she could. Such is her commitment that Karen was prepared to forgo her own plans at such a special time, prioritising our team instead. We are so lucky to have Karen as such a vital part of Charlotte Straker, we simply would not be the same service without her. We’d like to thank her from the bottom of our hearts

Chinese New Year

Charlotte Straker House rang in the new Chinese Year last week with help from a special visitor! Our Chinese Dragon (actually staff members Christian at the head of the dragon, Luke in the middle and Judith at the tail) danced into the dining room to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. Everyone was clapping and laughing as the Dragon danced in and out of the tables to Chinese music.

The dining room was decorated in the “lucky” New Year colours of red and gold and the kitchen team served a delicious Chinese banquet including a variety of tasty dishes such as twice cooked pork, crispy beef, soya and honey chicken and duck spring rolls.

Chinese food is always a favourite with our residents. Margaret said “I’ve always loved a Chinese dishes and this was lovely, especially the pork.” The delicacies were clearly a firm favourite amongst the residents and at the end of the banquet, there were lots of empty plates. Thank you to our staff for being such a brilliant dragon and the kitchen team for their delicious menu.