Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from us all!
Here’s our latest newsletter packed with updates, stories and photos. Click on the link below to read
https://mailchi.mp/d201aac67980/our-2021-christmas-newsletter
Fundraising during 2021 has been very difficult for all charities. However the Charlotte Straker Project launched an appeal in March for the Community Respite Bed fund and with the support of the community and grants we have raised £55,000 against a target of £30,000. This is wonderful as it enables our facility to continue to provide a valuable service to the community.
Individuals raised funds for the Respite bed, including Susan Stephenson with her sponsored slim, Maureen Gordon ran in the Great North Run & Alex Gordon ran in the Kielder Marathon. The Corbridge Community Partnership (and Hadrian Border Brewery) created over 1500 cans of Corbridge Apple Juice sold in aid of ourselves and the Corbridge Youth Initiative. We are very grateful for their support.
With the help of The Crafty Women and The Sewing Bee we were able to attend the Tynedale Gift Fair and the Corbridge Youth Initiative Christmas fair in November. The funds raised at these two events will help with our refurbishment programme.
In early December we had a “Big Night Out” joint event with Corbridge Youth Initiative in Corbridge Parish Hall. This was a dinner with entertainment, quiz and raffle and raised just over £1200 which was shared equally with both charities. We will use our share towards a garden project.
The fundraising committee thanks everyone for all their support in this difficult time.
Christmas Message from Berenice Groves, Chair of the Trustees
As always, I’d like to send a huge “well done and thank you!” message to our staff, volunteers, trustees and supporters for their hard work and commitment over the past twelve months. As everyone knows we have been under great pressure this year, and I am extremely proud of the way we have managed our home throughout.
I have had many opportunities throughout the last year to work alongside our staff both whilst managing the significant Covid outbreak at the start of the year when we saw our levels of staffing impacted and also in supporting recent power outage incidents, the latest as a result of Storm Arwen, when cooperation between staff, our residents and families was very moving. It was wonderful to see staff constantly reassuring our residents and continuing to give the best care in a calm and professional manner. Pam, our Registered Manager, and Sam, our Deputy Manager, continue to be pillars of support, their experience and common-sense approach essential to the smooth running of Charlotte Straker House.
I think the greatest achievement we’ve accomplished is the fact that Charlotte Straker House has continued to be a warm, happy, and welcoming “home from home” and our new residents often remark on the open hearted and caring staff and the friendly and sociable atmosphere. We have welcomed many new residents into our home in 2021 and it is encouraging to see we continue to receive extremely positive feedback from our Charlotte Straker family about incredibly high standards of professional and loving care.
I also wanted to mention the residents that sadly passed away during the first months of 2021 during the Covid outbreak at our home. I know that recovering from such a horrible situation takes time and we are still healing, both mentally and physically. I wanted to send a message of love and support to all the bereaved families, plus our staff members who continued to work through the gruelling months, often contracting the virus themselves and then returning to work as soon as they were able. We won’t forget. I’ll make sure that their sacrifices and commitment will always be remembered.
The spirit, determination and compassion of our staff and volunteers has been very moving and it makes me very emotional to think of the sacrifices that they have made to ensure our residents experience minimal impact during the ongoing Covid situation. We are all immensely relieved that our residents, staff, and volunteers have had their two Covid vaccines, and the booster roll out programme is now in full force.
As everyone is aware charities have been hit hard over the past twelve months and fundraising is a real struggle – we are still raising funds for our Respite Care Bed. This costs us over £52,000 per year but we are absolutely determined to keep the bed open for our local community. It is an essential service and after speaking to some of our 2021 respite residents and their families it’s clear to see their relief at being able to access such high-quality respite care.
Our priority has always been the safety and wellbeing of residents and staff. For the residents I can’t impress on you how delighted I am that they are able to receive family visitors, cautiously enjoy outings and meet again in our lounges and dining rooms. We’ve recently had some wonderful coffee mornings, Christmas crafting afternoons, singing, and dancing. You can see all the photos and stories below plus on our website and social media. I am fully aware that having visitors and events in the home does not just benefit the residents but also the staff they get a sense of that family feel again and that we are all in this together. We are however continuing to provide additional health and well being support to our staff and this requirement cannot be underestimated.
Our Christmas events have been taking place including our Tree of Lights, visit to the Christmas Tree Exhibition, carol singing, coffee mornings, games afternoons and Christmas crafting sessions, we have managed due to the weather being slightly kinder to us to continue with these and kept to all guidance and distancing at events – thanks again to those that helped, lovely to see that 5 residents wrapped up warmly and went outside to join carols and shine against the beautiful tree lights.. We appreciate that normal as we know it nis not likely to return but we will aim to make this December, the Festive Period and coming months as cheery as possible. This Christmas season is shaping up to be a happy month, and we are all very thankful that life has some previous experiences back again.
I just wanted to end this message by saying, that on behalf of the Charlotte Straker Project, I would like to wish everyone a joyful and peaceful Christmas and hope that the New Year will bring prosperity, health, growth, and recovery for us all.
Berenice Groves
Chair of the Trustees
Look at our gorgeous hand made nativity scene! The stable and crib were made by our Senior Care Assistant Keith Harkis and the knitted figures by our trustee Angela Jones. It’s being displayed in our entrance hall and everyone who walks stops to admire the little Christmas family. Our favourites are the knitted camel, the donkey plus the wonderful Christmas star that actually lights up! Thank you to Keith and Angela for such a wonderful display – it will definitely become a treasured part of the Charlotte Straker Christmas celebrations.
We held our annual Tree of Lights service on Sunday, with carols (chosen by our residents), plus prayers, readings and a short address from Rev Jenny Kinnaird. Our residents, staff, volunteers and relatives took the opportunity to remember and celebrate the lives of loved ones who passed away in 2021, with readings and a short address from Peter Wood, our Deputy 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 either served from the outside pod or inside the dining room. Our Christmas Tree looks magnificent and all our residents have been admiring all the lit up decorations and lights.
Muriel said “It’s certainly very sparkly! It looks lovely when I go outside.” Margaret added “It was a very touching service and I loved the carols.”
Our residents have given their seal of approval to the Corbridge Apple Juice!
Local apples were used by the Hadrian Border Brewery to produce 1500 cans of lightly sparkling apple juice, with all proceeds split between ourselves and the Corbridge Youth Initiative. It has been a sparkling success as over £2000 has been raised in total – thank you to all those who were involved in the project.
The cans were sold out within weeks, but we managed to snag some cans to share amongst our residents and staff members during our daily coffee morning.
Colin said “it’s really refreshing and not too sweet. I like the taste very much.” Muriel enjoyed a glass and told us “it’s very nice and I like the sparkles. I could definitely drink this as I like apple juice.”
There’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to keep our care home running smoothly and we are using a phalanx of volunteers and trustees to ensure the systems are working efficiently.
Angela Jones, our Chair of the Fundraising and trustee is pictured entering all our staff and key family member PCR tests into the Government system. The tests are done every single Tuesday and Angela has been a key helper in making sure all the details are entered correctly.
She said “The office has been so busy with everything that has been going on, that it’s great I can help out in a small way and help free up some staff time.”
Thank you, not only to Angela but to all our volunteers who have been helping either at home or in Charlotte Straker House.
We were all very excited to see the Corbridge Christmas Tree Festival at St Andrew’s Church, especially as it was cancelled last year – it is DEFINITELY worth visiting, especially as all the trees are so creative and many are absolutely stunning.
A special mention must go to our staff member Helen Coombes, who used her crafty talent to quilt our entry – a beautiful Charlotte Straker Christmas tree, complete with the initials of all our current residents. The residents helped by cutting out all the bauble shapes and Helen then made the quilt with all their names picked out in stitches. Helen told us that “I wanted to make something to celebrate all of our lovely residents. It took around two weeks, and I used sequins and different chrismassy fabric and the residents helped me by cutting out the shapes.”
Pam Crawley, our manager said, “Helen has made a beautiful quilted Christmas tree and I know everyone who sees it will be impressed by her vision and talent. I’m proud that we’re displaying it in the Corbridge Tree Festival.”
Our residents wrapped up warmly to make a visit to the Festival last week. They LOVED looking at all the different Christmas trees and discovering all the different touches that made up each exhibit.
Alan said “they’re beautiful, absolutely beautiful and so much work has gone into them all.” Muriel loved them all, and told us “They were lovely and it was a wonderful afternoon. Some of the trees are amazing. It makes me feel so christmassy.”
Thank you to the relatives, volunteers and staff who helped our residents visit the Festival.
The Corbridge Big Night Out went ahead on Saturday with an assembly of delicious food, fabulous entertainment and lots of fund raising on behalf of the Corbridge Youth Initiative and ourselves. Sixty happy attendees enjoyed a three course buffet meal from Papaya catering, music, plus raffles and speeches and raised just over £1,200 to be split between the two Corbridge charities. Hardworking trustees from both charities organised the event and along with supporters decorated the hall, managed the raffles, entertainment and the bar (with a clever text ordering system to ensure everyone remained in their seats so we adhered to all covid regulations). After such a long time in lockdown it was lovely to meet up with friends and supporters – thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make such a successful evening and of course all those who attended and were so generous with their donations and support.
The latest update to our rolling refurbishment programme is the installation of a brand new wet room in a downstairs room. This has been funded by a generous donation from Nick Oliver, Northumberland County Councillor for the Corbridge Ward – thank you so much!
The bathroom has been completely retiled in a grey marble finish, and refitted with new shower, basin and toilet and is designed to be fully accessible by non mobile residents. John, the resident who lives in the new ensuite room said, “I like the bathroom a lot. I’m very impressed as it’s so smart. And there’s lots of room.”
It makes such a difference to the lives of our residents, when we are able to completely refurbish a room and make it smart, accessible and welcoming. Thank you again to Nick and his team for their generous donation.
The Charlotte Straker Project
Charlotte Straker, Cookson Close
Corbridge, NE45 5HB
01434 633999
office@charlottestraker.org.uk
