Hello and welcome to my December Friends of the Elderly blog.
December is always a busy and fun-filled time at Friends of the Elderly, and I would like to share with you all the exciting Christmas activities that have been taking place throughout our care homes and day care services.
Our staff love to make sure that all our residents and clients have an enjoyable Christmas, and we always thoroughly enjoy engaging with them in a wide range of yuletide activities.
Our residents and clients enjoyed many visits and festive performances. RNNH, our residential and dementia care home in Bournemouth, welcomed St. James’ Church of England Primary Academy’s Choir for a yuletide carol concert and also the 4th Christchurch Brownies, who delighted the residents with their nativity performance. RNNH residents also received handmade Christmas cards from Year 5 pupils at St. Walburga’s Catholic Primary School.
In true ‘thigh slapping’ Christmas style, pantomimes were a plenty. At Redcot, our residential care home in Haslemere, and at RNNH, residents got further into the Christmas Spirit, enjoying performances of the classic Dick Whittington. Both shows were put on by The Carousel Theatre Company. All the actors are seasoned professionals, many of whom have worked in the West End. The performances were created to be as visually and mentally stimulating as possible and written especially for people living in care homes or visiting day care centres, which was ideal for our residents and clients.
Clients of our Malvern Day Care service and residents from Bradbury Court, the dementia care home at Friends of the Elderly Malvern, also enjoyed the Christmas pantomime tradition when they visited The Coach House Theatre in Malvern to enjoy a special dementia-friendly performance of Snow White. The show was staged by students of Drama Studios London who are managed locally by professional Director and Producer, Kirsty Cubberley of The Phoenix Collective.
To make the pantomime dementia-friendly, the theatre, cast and crew worked hard to make the performance an enjoyable experience for those living with dementia, making it not only accessible but entertaining as well. The volume of music was reduced, the house lights dimmed so the auditorium still had ambient lighting, the cast were fully briefed on how some of the audience may react during the show and there were additional staff on hand to offer support if needed. This created a relaxed, friendly, comfortable and safe environment for everyone to enjoy the magical performance.
However, that’s not all. Our Malvern and Kidderminster Day Care clients and team created a bespoke Friends of the Elderly Christmas Tree which was displayed at Worcester Cathedral; and many of our care homes took part in the Friends of the Elderly Mince Pie Bake-a-thon.
I hope you have enjoyed this brief snap-shot of some of the activities our residents and clients have enjoyed during December. If you would like to find out more about how Friends of the Elderly can help you and how we are dedicated to caring for the older people we support, we are always on hand and happy to talk with you.
To set up a call please email enquiries@fote.org.uk or give us a ring on 020 7730 8263.
Of course, if you have any questions, you can always email me at chiefexecutive@fote.org.uk
Festive regards to you all – and I’ll be back in January with my New Year Blog, where I’ll be looking back over 2023 and ahead to 2024.
Steve
Chief Executive of Friends of the Elderly
Steve Allen, Chief Executive of Friends of the Elderly, writes a regular blog which gives insight into his role at the Charity.
He offers information and advice about important areas affecting older people and their families. Steve can be reached at chiefexecutive@fote.org.uk.
Watch this space for more of Steve’s posts.