We had a fantastic time on our recent visit to Beamish open air Museum.

The staff were so helpful and made sure that our group saw everything they were hoping to see, from the new 1950s “Clover Cottages” exhibition, the colliery, farm, the historic streets and old-fashioned shops and trams and the steam train at Rowley Station.

We had fish and chips in the tearooms and a stop at the 1900s Sun Inn for a drink. We also celebrated Ernie’s birthday with cake and singing happy birthday!

Some of the comments from our residents on their day out:

“I thoroughly enjoyed the day, bought some old-fashioned sweets in the 1900s town and loved the pub!”, Eileen

“I really enjoyed seeing the steam engines and the train and all the machines”, John

“The weather was lovely! I walked 6000 steps today. I liked seeing the spearmint sweets being made and some parts of the old town reminded me of being evacuated in the war”. Valerie

“I really enjoyed the steam engines. And my birthday lunch”, Ernie

“It was just a marvellous, marvellous day – a real highlight” Colin

A big thank you to our amazing staff, volunteers and families of residents for making this trip possible. Days out like these make a great difference . #CommunityOuting #MakingMemories #CareHomeLife

THANK YOU to Josephine and Michael Riley who ran the Scarborough 10k on Sunday in their target time.

They are fundraising on behalf of Charlotte Straker House, as Wendy, a dear family friend, was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and has recently moved into our care home.

They have already raised an amazing £855 and are leaving their fundraising page open until 22nd October for any further donations.

The money they have raised will go directly to Wendy’s care with the purchase of specialised wireless communication device that she can use without any staff support.

Berenice Groves, our Chair of the Trustees said “Thank you so much to Josephine and Michael for raising such an amazing total – we have been following their training and final run, which was in a very good time. The trustees and I whole heartedly support the purchase of this specialised device, to allow our resident Wendy to retain her independence and support her communication.”

If you would like to support the Riley family in their fundraising efforts, you can donate here:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/josephine-dargan-riley-1693935269896

#mnd #fundraising #scarborough10k #motorneuronedisease #running

Our care home residents had a fantastic time at our Coffee Morning gathering led by Jen last week.

Our volunteer Jen is organising a session each week to talk about our residents’ “favourite things” and on Monday it was all about holiday memories – we shared stories that brought smiles to everyone’s faces. John told us that one of the best places he’d visited was Botswana and Joan told us that she loved Venice as it was “such a beautiful place”. Birgit said that she had lived in lots of different countries, but Norway was her favourite. Muriel said that she had been abroad in many different places but “Scotland is my favourite, especially around the Borders. The scenery is stunning”

We then chatted about where everyone had gone on their honeymoons – Muriel, Colin and Joan mentioned the Lake District, Cornwall and Scotland. John amazed us by saying he remembered taking his own car on his honeymoon to Spain by driving it through the nose of an aeroplane – apparently this was a very common thing to do!

Thank you to Jen for organising these sessions – they’re great fun and very lively!

A group of residents, staff members and volunteers visited the Wentworth Centre in Hexham for a game of ten pin bowling this month. Everyone spent time choosing their perfect bowling ball ready for the games to start and had a lot of fun competing against one another and laughing at each other’s attempts. Claire said “yabba dabba doo!” as she pushed the ball down the ramp. Margaret G told us that she thought it was a fabulous experience and Margaret S was chuffed that she won her game. Birgit would like to go bowling again and Valerie told us “I wasn’t expecting that much exercise, but I’ve really enjoyed myself”.  After the bowling session we visited the Adapt Community Cafe for a coffee and a slice of cake. Thank you to all our volunteers and staff members who came along – it was an exhilarating and very fun morning!

Our residents have had a lot of fun painting and decorating memory boxes to hold special photos and items as a reminiscing and crafting activity.

Everyone was given a wooden box to paint plus a variety of materials to work with, including beach stones, paper and silk flowers, ribbon, stickers and pretty card. The residents collected all the items they wanted to put in the box, including old letters, family photos, newspaper and magazine clippings, postcards and their favourite crafts.

Day care resident Isobel showed us some beautiful crochet squares that she’d made along with her family photos. She said, “those are my photos and crafts that I want to put in – I’ve painted the box blue”. Muriel made a design using some tiny beach stones and pink flower petals and said, “there’s quite a bit of glue but it looks lovely. I’m just waiting for it to dry.” Volunteer Jen joined in with the session and helped Margaret paint her memory box bright yellow with lots of glittery stars and stickers.

The boxes will take a few sessions to finish but the activity has been great fun so far and has inspired a lot of interesting chat on the people and experiences in our residents’ lives.