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New Signage for Charlotte Straker House

2022 is the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Charlotte Straker Project. To celebrate our achievements over the past 30 years, our trustees and management are planning to refresh the branding of our much loved organisation. We want it to reflect the professionalism of our charity as well as the wonderful welcome that our residents experience in our home.

As a first step we have installed a brand new sign at the end of our drive. The previous sign was looking a little tired, so we worked with RW Sign and Design to produce 10 different designs and asked our residents which one they preferred. Once they chose their favourite, we asked the Northumbrian branch of the Dry-Stone Walling Association to build us a natural curved wall as a base and RW Sign and Design created and installed the new sign.

A local business owner (Sally French from French Beauty Lounge) remarked that she had spotted the change of sign immediately, was very impressed with it, as it is very in keeping with the community feel of both Corbridge and Charlotte Straker, and is a real improvement. We absolutely agree and think it looks very smart! The funding of this project was covered by a donation from Stephen Groves, husband of our Chair Berenice.

Chinese New Year at Charlotte Straker House

Last month our staff team did a great job celebrating Chinese New Year. We decorated the dining room with fans and lanterns and residents tucked into a meal of honey ginger soy chicken, egg fried rice, spring rolls and prawn crackers. We had special decorations for the residents to enjoy with Chinese drums and atmospheric table settings to really bring the whole experience to life.

To make the event complete, an amazing “dragon” danced for our residents and performed a Chinese Lantern Dance to bring good luck to everyone who saw him. The dragon visited all the residents, including those who stayed in their rooms and there was lots of laughter and clapping as it danced around the corridors. Resident Muriel said: “The dragon made me laugh and I love it that we get to try all these different things.”

The “Tiny Tablet” – an exciting new activity for our residents

A very generous donation from a local family has recently allowed a local care home to buy a new and exciting piece of technology. The “Tiny Tablet” is a giant touch screen activity tablet, which is built into a solid wood surround and mounted on wheels. It can be rolled into different rooms and is fully connected to the internet so that different apps are easily downloaded to be used by our residents.

Pam Crawley, our Registered Manager commented “The Tiny Tablet is an amazing piece of equipment. Some of our residents have poor sight, and they are now able to videocall and easily see their families and friends, as well as playing jigsaws, games, word searches and connect to the internet to use apps such as Google Earth, or YouTube. For those who are less mobile or who are isolating, it can be wheeled into their room so that they can keep connected and busy.  Simple things, like using Google Earth and being able to drop yourself into street view is such a wonderful experience as it really brings back memories for the residents and they are able to talk about where they lived previously.”

During lockdown or if a resident is isolation, the Tiny Tablet is constantly in use, allowing residents to see families, stimulate their minds through different apps and eradicate boredom. The tablets are also ideal in today’s climate, with the importance of infection control. They are fully wipeable and therefore potential risks are easily managed with our robust infection control measures.

Berenice Groves, Chair of the Trustees added, “The smiles from our residents when the Tablet is wheeled into their rooms will stay with me for a while. It’s such a versatile piece of tech, and so far, we’ve used it for relaxation and meditation, storytelling, art, creativity and music, memory games, video calling and quizzes. We’ve downloaded apps to allow residents to play sports that they’ve not played for a long time. It’s a wonderful piece of kit for improving coordination, memory, and mood. We are very grateful and would like to thank those who donated the cost of the tablet, and for the additional comfort and joy it has brought to the home.”

Tracy’s Fundraising Raffle

Thank you to our staff member Tracy Richardson who recently held a raffle to raise funds for activities at Charlotte Straker House. Tracey created a hamper full of delicious chocolate and toiletry gifts and managed to raise £46.00 from selling tickets to staff, visitors and residents. Thank you for helping us Tracy – it’s much appreciated.

Celebrating Stuart’s birthday

Our lovely resident Stuart celebrated his 71st birthday this week, with a home-made chocolate cake, presents, cards and lots of good wishes from his friends and family. The staff helped him unwrap his presents including a Sunderland Football Club plaque (he’s a great Sunderland supporter) that we will be putting up on his bathroom door! Stuart said, “thank you very much – it’s a lovely cake and I love my presents.” Happy Birthday from us all at Charlotte Straker House.

Launching the “Better Together Charity Beer”

Dear Supporters,

Corbridge Youth Initiative and The Charlotte Straker Project are registered charities based in Corbridge. Both raise funds by organising events locally to support the aims of each charity.

In 2014 Trustees of both Charities agreed to work together on larger fundraising events combining the resources of both organisations.  This was the start of the ‘Better Together’ concept. Examples of these events are several sponsored walks, cycle rides, fashion shows and Christmas Extravaganza dinners.  Each charity also organises other events for the sole benefit of that charity.

It was recognised that a substantial number of people in the community supported both charities and therefore a combined event made their individual efforts “better together”. The overall aim of ‘Better Together’ is that both charities will provide equal effort to support these activities and will benefit equally financially after expenses have been taken into account.

The latest initiative is a ‘Better Together Charity Beer’. This has been made possible with the support of The Hadrian Border Brewery. They have generously canned a limited edition 3.9% session blonde ale, the sale of which will see a percentage donated direct to the Better Together project. This is an easy drinking, light beer and is wrapped in a unique Corbridge design label. The 440ml cans are on sale at £2.50 per can, ideally sold as a case of 12 at £30.

Corbridge Cricket Club have kindly agreed to support the sale of the beer on behalf of the charities, with cases available for sale and pick up from the Cricket Club on the following dates and times;

Saturday 26th Feb 9:30am – 12noon

Saturday 5th March 9:30am – 12noon

Saturday 19th March 9:30am – 12noon

Saturday 26th March 9:30am – 12noon

There is no need to book or pay in advance, you simply turn up, pay and collect. We hope you will support our latest venture (responsibly) and share with family and friends!

Ray Wind Farm and Barbour Foundation grant funding

Thank you to the trustees from the Ray Wind Farm and the Barbour Foundation who have each granted £5,000 towards our Respite Care Bed service. We are so grateful to their support, especially as fundraising has been so difficult during the Covid pandemic. Our bed has been absolutely essential to carers and their relatives in the local community over the past twelve months.

Happy 99th Birthday to Joy

Joy celebrated her 99th birthday last week. Joy is an absolute star in Charlotte Straker, is always chatty and cheerful and loves to take a walk every day to keep fit and well. She enjoyed a visit from her daughter, her home made special chocolate cake and birthday presents. She sent a lovely card afterwards to thank the staff and said “thank you for remembering my birthday and making it a special day”.

Christmas and New Year Celebrations

Even though we’re currently in the middle of a lockdown it didn’t stop our staff spreading joy and happiness this Christmas. Our care staff ensured that every single resident was bought a special present to open on Christmas Day and you can see on their faces how much they appreciated their gifts. The Christmas dinner with all the trimmings was successfully served and enjoyed (socially distanced) and our team of kitchen staff had the brilliant idea of providing a Christmas tea in a specially decorated package filled with all sorts of delicious treats. We made sure that we spread as much Christmas joy as possible and every resident felt included.

 

Happy New Year to you all from our residents and wonderful staff team!

Covid 19 Outbreak – Message from Chair of the Trustees

I hope everyone is doing as well as possible given the current transmission of Covid-19 and the increase in the positive rates across Tynedale. I also hope that you managed some Christmas celebrations this year, despite the rise in cases in this area.

It is with great sadness that I need to report a further outbreak in Charlotte Straker House, which is currently affecting staff and residents. Despite the rigorous infection control measures that we have put in place, we have unfortunately seen positive results from our current testing programme.

Due to the number of Covid positive staff and residents, on 25th December we officially declared an outbreak. As a result, our care home immediately closed to visitors and essential care givers. We recognise how important it is to have both visiting and care support in place and following confirmed results from our initial testing we will reinstate controlled visiting arrangements. We will ensure families and staff are kept updated

As you can imagine having a further outbreak has had a challenging impact on the residents and on our staff. We are concerned that given the rapid transmission of this variant it will quickly spread across our work force meaning that individuals will need to take a minimum of 7 days isolation, which will impact staffing levels. We are therefore doing whatever we can to ensure we have the cover required to provide the expected level of care to our residents.

We have re-implemented our isolation wing with the aim of protecting our residents and we will have dedicated staff to support this area.

Please remember that if you are visiting a relative at Charlotte Straker House, you will need proof of a negative lateral flow test. You can order or find out where to pick up these tests from the following website https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests  The site is extremely busy so may involve a wait or you may need to keep checking back to see where lateral flow tests are available. Thank you.

Relatives who are “essential care givers” must PCR each week, alongside the staff team and must also PCR in line with staff team during any outbreak situation

During the last major outbreak in December 2020, our wonderful community rallied round and supported us with gifts of hand creams, food gifts and local rooms for our staff. This was hugely appreciated by us all. If anyone does wish to donate similar gifts, we would be enormously grateful – please let us know and we will make arrangements for collection or drop off – thank you in advance.

If any relatives are dropping off gifts or items for residents, please can they ensure they are brought in a wipeable bag so they can be cleaned and prevent any delays in reaching your family member.

I wanted to end this message with a huge thank you to our families and community, as we know that we wouldn’t have managed this far during this pandemic without your support, understanding and spirit. I know that with your help, we will once again get through this further outbreak.

Thank you

Berenice Groves