Activities at Austen House Care Home
Our teams are trained to enrich the lives of residents through stimulating the mind, body and soul, and taking the time to learn about each person to ensure everyone receives support that adds enrichment to their life.
Here at Austen House, we like to get to know those we support, and from the day of moving in, our activities team will spend time on an individual basis learning about interests, likes and dislikes, life history and favourite hobbies.
We provide a wide range of activities, from one-to-one time, manicures and board games, through to live entertainment, prize bingo and our ever-popular cheese & wine events. Our activities team will also tailor individual activities to ensure residents can have as much or as little involvement as they choose.
In the summer months, greater focus is given to outdoor activities, such as barbecues and garden parties. In conjunction with our Chef, themed events are planned throughout the year, bringing activities and food together.
In their pink polo shirts, our activities team are easily identifiable and embrace ideas and suggestions from residents and their relatives to ensure that the activities provided keep those we support engaged, stimulated and entertained.
Activities and Events Partnerships
As part of our bespoke life-enrichment programmes, we host a number of live virtual events in the home on a regular basis through a number of partnerships with places of interest and world class performance companies
Life at Austen House Care Home
Summer BBQ Party!
Staff, residents, relatives and the local community came together at Austen House to enjoy a Summer BBQ Party that was held in the home’s grounds on 31st of August.
Austen House hosted a variety of activities throughout the day, including a delicious BBQ and cocktails, live entertainment by fabulous Gary and garden games, which were enjoyed by everyone who came to the event.
Staff at Austen House made everyone feel welcome and were delighted to see different generations having fun together. Visitors enjoyed plenty of refreshments, such as Mojito, Strawberry Daiquiri, Pimm’s, Aperol Spritz, burgers, hot-dogs, chicken drumsticks, cakes and more prepared by Hospitality and Life Enrichment teams, who were hard at work making sure that a great time was had by all – it really was a team effort!
Resident Roger said, “I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surrounded by lots of great people, and the refreshments kept flowing. The weather was perfect and we had great fun. Staff did a great job, not just on the day, but organising the event and getting everyone together.”
Celebrating National Housekeeping Week
Here at Austen House we marked National Housekeeping Week in style.
A massive shout-out to all of you from residents, staff and visitors for your dedication in keeping everything spotless and creating a welcoming environment. We are so fortunate to have a fabulous housekeeping and laundry team here.
Thank you to all our colleagues for your continuous hard work and support – you truly make a difference every day.
Well done everyone!
Celebrating Platinum Wedding Anniversary!
We always love to mark special and important moments in our residents' lives, here at Austen House.
So, recently a couple in our home celebrated 70th years of marriage.
Dorothy and Albert have known each other since childhood, but their love story began in 1950, when Dorothy invited Albert to her 18th birthday party. In 1954 they married and after that they had children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, but they are still very much in love after all these years.
On this occasion, the Life Enrichment team arranged a special party for them with live music by Gary, dancing and cocktails, inviting family and friends.
Dorothy and Albert were very happy and said: "This is the most beautiful wedding anniversary we have ever had. It was so special and we will never forget it!"
Our director, Arturas Repkovas, said: “We had a wonderful day celebrating Dorothy and Albert's Platinum Wedding Anniversary. It's so wonderful to see two people still very much in love after all these years!” We always love to mark special and important moments in our residents' lives, here at Austen House.
So, recently a couple in our home celebrated 70th years of marriage.
Dorothy and Albert have known each other since childhood, but their love story began in 1950, when Dorothy invited Albert to her 18th birthday party. In 1954 they married and after that they had children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, but they are still very much in love after all these years.
On this occasion, the Life Enrichment team arranged a special party for them with live music by Gary, dancing and cocktails, inviting family and friends.
Dorothy and Albert were very happy and said: "This is the most beautiful wedding anniversary we have ever had. It was so special and we will never forget it!"
Our director, Arturas Repkovas, said: “We had a wonderful day celebrating Dorothy and Albert's Platinum Wedding Anniversary. It's so wonderful to see two people still very much in love after all these years!”
Celebrating Maurice 40 Years of Outstanding Service Recognition!
Recently our resident Maurice 94, has been recognised for 40 years of outstanding service to the National Association of Retired Police Officers and received a certificate of life membership
After completing national service, Maurice joined the Reading Borough Police department as a constable within the force. He undertook various duties around the town as became the area constable for Southcote. Alongside gaining experience in National Service, Maurice was asked to set up the physical training unit to train Cadets, which included marching drills; enabling some cadets to participate in the Devizes to Westminster canoe event.
Maurice retired after 25 years of service to the police force and became a member of the National Association of Retired Police Officers. During his time in the Association, Maurice played an active role in the Thames Valley Police Berkshire Branch culminating to him becoming President of the branch.
At the moment, Maurice is our Resident Ambassador and he loves being active, helping people and getting involved in planning future activities and events giving us his valuable suggestions.
In recognition of the 40 Years Outstanding Service, Austen House organised a party for Maurice and we all had such o lovely day. It was wonderful to see Maurice so happy sharing his experience with friends, family, residents and team members and inspiring everyone around him.
Book Lovers Day
We were very happy to celebrate Book Lovers Day, as we all share a passion for reading.
The day offered us a fantastic opportunity to spend it with our noses in our favourite books. We also had a great debate about reading from print or electronically from a tablet, there were strong arguments from both camps.
Our residents love getting lost in a good book, so they very much enjoyed exchanging information about their favourite books and having discussion about literature, local writers and famous libraries. There are so many wonderful books to discover, everyone enjoyed finding out about new titles to put on their reading lists.
It was a brilliant day.
World Photography Day
Here at Austen House we are continually adapting, and finding new ways to make sure every effort is focused on life enrichment opportunities for all of our residents. World Photography Day was a great opportunity for residents and staff to reflect on past experiences by looking at treasured photographs. A photograph has the ability to capture a place, an experience, an idea, a moment in time.
A picture really is worth a thousand words, and photographs play a large part in reminiscence for residents with dementia.
Our residents were thrilled to bring a selection of photos from their collection and talk about happy memories and past experience. They love to look back at their photos and reminisce about when and where the photos were taken. We have spent many happy hours on the day looking at photos, talking about what we love about them and how they make us feel.
