We Went To The Pantomime....

.....oh yes we did!!

On Tuesday 11th December, some of our residents were lucky enough to be invited to Holy Family's KS2 performance of Aladdin.

We got wrapped up nice and warm, and walked around to the school in the afternoon.

We then assembled in the hall to watch the children do their performance. And what an excellent performance it was too! Brilliant singing, great acting and lots of laughs. The residents who attended thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was lovely to see the children who have visited Holly Bank, up on stage performing.

We are sure parents and families will enjoy the performances over the next couple of days.

Well done to everyone and thank you again for inviting us.

Diwali

On Wednesday 7th November, residents, staff and visitors took part in some Diwali celebrations. Diwali is the Festival of Light celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains. It is a festival of new beginnings and is to celebrate the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness.

We started with a Diwali inspired yoga session held by Gail from Wonderful You Yoga. She led everyone in gentle chair based yoga and then did a guided meditation. This was well attended and the residents really enjoyed it. Some were so relaxed, they actually fell asleep.

Following on from the yoga and meditation, we then enjoyed some Indian snacks and beer. Residents and families liked sampling the different foods and it was lovely to have such a social activity. Yoga has proved very popular over the past year with residents. It not only helps to provide gentle exercise for them, but also helps to improve their mental well-being.

We look forward to our future yoga sessions and thank Gail for coming each week to hold them.

Community Initiative with Holy Family Catholic Primary School

Over the last few months we have been researching lots of different activities for our residents to take part in. We want to be able to offer a broad selection, not only to ensure that we are providing lots of variety but to also help contribute and maintain positive mental well-being.

One of the initiatives we have embarked upon is working with Holy Family Catholic Primary School. There has been lots of research carried out on the integration of elderly people with young people, and how it prevents feelings of isolation, promotes friendship and respect and is beneficial for preventing depression and improving physical health.

Our first session took place on Tuesday 30th October, when a group of children from Holy Family came along to Holly Bank to have a joint session with our residents and volunteers from The Atkinson. The volunteers brought along their WWII Memorabilia Suitcase. Holy Family's Year 6 students are currently taking part in a WWII project, so they came to look at the memorabilia and listen to first-hand accounts of what it was like during WWII from our residents who had lived through it.

Lots of items of memorabilia were passed around, whilst the ladies from The Atkinson talked about the history of the items. The children got to dress up in the style of clothes from the era. They also got to measure out an air raid shelter to try and understand the size and how frightening it could have been to have to be inside one for great periods of time.

We thought the session went really well. The children were really eager to learn and our residents loved telling stories of their memories from that time. The children had lots of questions for our residents and enjoyed listening to their stories.

Our residents commented on what a lovely group of children had come to visit them, and they have been telling their families about the time they spent with the children.

It was really lovely to watch residents and children interacting together.

We are going to be holding sessions with Holy Family every half term and we look forward to building on our relationship with them. We are really grateful for the time they are happy to spend with us to help make this a really great community initiative.

State of Care 2017/18

This morning, the Care Quality Commission published their annual State of Care report.

The report "looks at the trends, shares examples of good and outstanding care, and highlights where care needs to improve."

For those who would like to read the full report, you can download it here.

We shall be going through the report to see what we can learn from it and to see if we can utilise any of the information to help us ensure we are providing a high standard of care for our residents.

The report also helps give us a better understanding of how other sectors within health care and adult social care are performing.

Dementia Friends

Dementia Friends is an initiative by the Alzheimer's Society to "change people's perception of dementia." It aims to transform the way society "thinks, acts and talks about the condition."

Several of our staff are already registered as Dementia Friends. This means they have committed to learn about what it means to live with dementia and then putting that understanding into action. These actions could be something as simple as telling a friend about the initiative and asking them to look at becoming a Dementia Friend.

We are now wanting to become more involved as a home, rather than just individually, in the Dementia Friends initiative. We are therefore registered as an organisation with Dementia Friends to make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure we are recognised as dementia friendly. Emilee has also agreed to be our Dementia Friends Champion. She will be taking part in a training session in November, which will then allow her to be able to run information sessions with staff, friends, families and organisations in the local community. To help give Emilee an idea of what the information sessions involve and to also allow our staff to see what is involved, we have registered for one of the current Dementia Champions to come in October to hold an interactive 45 minute session at Holly Bank. Once the date is confirmed, we will also open up this session to residents' friends and families. 

We have been successful in applying to join the Dementia Action Alliance. The application process involved creating an action plan committing to help improve the lives of people living with dementia. We can also work with other groups in the area to help with the Dementia Friendly Community status of Southport/Sefton. We are very excited to work on this and hope that we can help bring different groups together to better understand dementia. With this in mind, we are currently speaking with a local primary school to get them involved in helping develop a choir at Holly Bank. It will be very informal and fun. it is part of the "A Choir In Every Care Home" initiative which is being run by Live Music Now, Sound Sense and Canterbury Christ Church University. They have all worked together, investigating the growing evidence that music benefits older people and their carers, by helping to improve their mental wellbeing.

We are looking forward to working on all these initiatives and hope they will be of great benefit to Holly Bank and the local community. 

Upcoming Activities

We are getting a really fun packed calendar for the rest of 2018, with lots of things going on.

We still have our weekly yoga sessions and hairdressing sessions. As well as Fran coming in each week to do nails, facials and activities in the lounge.

Next week we have Jenny from Musicures coming to do a Bond Show. We have not experienced the Bond Show before, so it should be fun for everyone. Jenny will also be coming in September to do a Doris Day Show.

We have volunteers from The Atkinson coming in during September with their World War 2 memorabilia box they are trialling. We are looking forward to testing it out for them and giving them some feedback.

Another volunteer from The Atkinson is coming in October to give the residents a local history talk. Again, this is a new activity for Holly Bank so we hope it will be well received.

We will be hosting a World's Biggest Coffee Afternoon on Friday 28th September for Macmillan Cancer. It would be really lovely if people could come along for a coffee and cake to help raise money for this extremely worthwhile cause.

There will be a Halloween party on 31st October, details of which are still to be finalised. Our Christmas Party will be on 20th December.

We will also be continuing with our monthly taster sessions. This month it was cheese and wine, which went down extremely well.

Cheese & Wine Tasting

Yesterday (Thursday 9th August) we held a cheese and wine tasting in the lounge. Residents tried two red wines, two white wines and four cheeses. They then had to guess the country of origin for each.

We had great fun tasting everything and encouraging residents to try different types of cheeses - which all went down very well with everyone. Unfortunately we didn't do very well in guessing which countries they were from, but a good time was still had by all.

This type of activity is one that we are doing to try and encourage our residents to try different types of foods. We can then gauge what people like and look at adapting our menu to incorporate these ingredients. For example, people really liked the Manchego cheese which we could use in a Spanish Tortilla.

We shall hold future cheese and wine tasting as it was definitely a hit, so keep an eye on our Activities Wall (in the porch) for the date of the next one.

Refurbishing

 We are slowly starting to refurbish some of the rooms within Holly Bank to make them brighter and give them a bit of an uplift.

Below are some pictures of the latest room refurbishment we have undergone:

We have kept decor neutral, plain and bright. These calming tones are more dementia friendly and better suited to some of the residents who come to Holly Bank. Residents are obviously then free to personalise their rooms with furniture, photographs, pictures etc, so they feel as comfortable and settled as possible.

We hope the new decor is well received.

Chocolate Tasting

Source: Choc Amor

On Thursday 19th July, we had the wonderful Choc Amor in for the afternoon. Choc Amor is an award winning manufacturer of chocolate. They are based at Cedar Farm Galleries in Mawdesley, and well worth a visit if you get a chance.

Paul from Choc Amor gave us a talk on how they set up their business, how chocolate is made, and some delicious samples to try.

The residents really enjoyed listening to the talk and hearing all the different facts and the processes of producing chocolate.

We got to try some delicious samples - milk, white, dark, turkish delight, tonka bean, orange jalfrezi, salted caramel to name a few.

The session was well received and it was nice to do something a little bit different.

Summer Garden

Our garden and patio area are looking wonderful at the moment. Please feel free to sit outside when you come to visit, and enjoy all the beautiful plants and flowers. It is bursting with colour.

Some of our residents have been enjoying their breakfast and afternoon drinks out there this week.

It is lovely having the warm weather to be able to enjoy the garden at the moment.

Musical Bingo Round Two

After such a successful first event of Musical Bingo, last Thursday, 14th June, we held our second session with Jenny from Musicures.

The second session proved to be just as popular with lots of singing and laughs. I think a little bit of dancing may have also snuck in !!

Frank proved to be a winner again. He won two prizes this time, after also winning at our first session. He is definitely on a lucky streak.

Jean, who unfortunately didn't do too well in the first session, came into her own this time and ended up another double winner.

There was lots of chocolate to be won.

We shall definitely be holding another musical bingo session later in the year.

A Royal Afternoon

On Saturday we enjoyed a Royal Afternoon Tea whilst watching the wedding of the Duke & Duchess of Sussex.

We had delicious salmon sandwiches, ham sandwiches, egg sandwiches, crisps, scones, UK & USA flag biscuits and some amazing cakes made by Emilee - Lemon & Elderflower cupcakes (in keeping with the Royal Wedding Cake flavours) and some mini Victoria Sponges. Even a cheeky glass of Bucks Fizz for those who wanted!

Everyone really enjoyed watching the wedding and the different elements to it than the "normal" Royal weddings. We even had our very own Queen for the day......

Lots of food was eaten and everyone who watched the wedding seemed really happy, and commented on how they had enjoyed their afternoon.

There's even be a few more viewings of the wedding on TV because people enjoyed the ceremony so much.

We are now looking forward to the warmer and sunnier weather we are meant to have for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we can have lots of outdoor time.

Five Star

We are pleased to announce that during our Food Hygiene inspection last week, we were again awarded a rating of 5.

This is all thanks to the hard work of Gill, our cook, and everyone else who helps to ensure our kitchen is complying with all necessary hygiene regulations.

We take great care to ensure our kitchen is kept clean and hygienic and that our home cooked meals are being prepared in a safe environment.

Well done to everyone involved in helping us achieve this rating.

Fun In The Sun

We have been taking advantage of the warm weather over the Bank Holiday weekend.

We have been sitting on the patio area and enjoying all the newly planted flowers. Also enjoying a choc ice or two!!

Some of our residents have been on a trip to Hesketh Park, which they have really enjoyed. It is great to have a park so close by that we can utilise.

We are now hoping for some more sunny days so we can take advantage of the patio area and park again. Fingers crossed for more sunshine and warmer weather.