Activities at Cherry Trees Care Home

This year Dementia Awareness Week runs from 14th–20th May, and the Alzheimer’s Society is asking everyone across the UK to unite against dementia. As we know, dementia is set to increase dramatically over the next few years but awareness and understanding remains low, with many families often facing it alone. That’s why during the week everyone is being encouraged to come together and take action… to raise awareness, offer help and understanding, improve care and most urgently help others to find a cure. This week we decided to turn Cherry Trees Blue for the duration of Dementia action week! Monday we celebrated world cocktail Day with of course our signature Blue cocktails and a good general knowledge quiz, Tuesday we planted an array of Blue forget-me-nots. Wednesday we had international Day of families where we enjoyed a good Blue inspired singalong with live entertainment. Thursday was a crafting Day where residents made Blue forget-me-not flowers using resin and we shared our favourite poems. Friday we ended our amazing Dementia week with ‘Time for a cuppa’ where visitors joined us for cake and cuppas and we had the incredible kitchen staff make the most delicious cake for our guess the weight competition. It really was a magical week and all monies raised will be sent to Dementia UK.

Cherry Trees care home in Alcester marked the anniversary of Victory in Europe Day in style by throwing a 1940s afternoon court yard party to remember.  The home was decorated in red, white and blue and residents and staff dressed up in their 1940s-inspired glad rags and enjoyed an afternoon of music from Beccie Marshall and our own senior carer Tom Riando, it was a day of singing and dancing.

Head chef Chris Aston whipped up a delicious selection of sandwiches, cakes and pastries for the occasion, all washed down with pots of tea and a celebratory glass of fizz to mark the occasion. 

Residents observed the national two minute silence and listened again to Churchill’s iconic speech accepting Germany’s surrender and an address from the Queen. They reminisced about their memories of VE Day and watched clips of the celebrations that took place outside Buckingham Palace and all across London.

Debbie Osborne, General Manager at Cherry Trees said: “Many of our residents can remember the end of the war and we all know what it meant for our country so we wanted to celebrate the date and listen to our residents memories of the war and the experiences they lived through.”

Joan, resident at Cherry Trees care home said: “I remember all the family gathering around the radio to listen to Churchill’s speech telling us the war was over, it still gives me goosebumps now, such an important date.  It was wonderful to reminisce and to celebrate with all the staff and residents here, we’ve all had such fun and lots of cake!”

Cherry Trees had a wonderful afternoon on the 24th April where we enjoyed an amazing afternoon at our grand cinema opening showing a very favourable film with Judy Garland. At sixteen she was cast as the young Dorothy in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, and sang the much loved song, ‘Over the Rainbow’ Our residents loved to watch Dorothy and her dog Toto whisk away to the magical land of Oz!!

Our residents enjoyed freshly made popcorn from our new popcorn maker which was gifted to us from a residents family for the love and care we gave to Rosemary. Sandra and Mark gifted us with the popcorn maker, smoothie maker and a beautiful Salt lamp which is in our Namaste room. We are so grateful for all of our gifts and especially the  wonderful popcorn maker which made the perfect addition to our afternoon event. A special mention also needs to be given to our lovely Activities lady Emma who painted the Elvis and Marilyn Silhouettes onto our walls, it looks absolutely incredible and added just the finishing touches we needed.  A fantastic afternoon was had by all the residents and we look forward to having our cinema open for the classics every day!!

It was ladies day here at Cherry Trees on 12th April. On the home stretch now...

Our horses in the running this afternoon were:

Barb Barb

Handsome Harry

Vicious Valerie

Black beauty

Larkin about

Maggie moo

Pee pee

Princess patsy

Kirky

Delboy

We had great fun racing our horses around our lounge, Residents picked a card one- six and that was however many moves they made on the horse track. Two races were won! Barb Barb took the lead and won some yummy chocolates and Larkin about took the lead to win chocolates in the second race! It was a fun afternoon and the residents thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

We set up a table in the foyer for any food and toiletry donations our friends, colleagues and relatives could give towards the wonderful young man Friends of Isaac’s Food Bank CIC. This amazing young man has done so much for the community and we wanted to support him as much as we could here at Cherry Trees. Please go check out Isaac's page and see for yourself the difference he has been making! We just wanted to say from all of us here at Cherry Trees a huge heartfelt thank you for helping us to collect all the food we have for the lovely Issac and his amazing cause. We met Isaac and his mom Claire and the residents had such a lovely time chatting to Isaac and hearing all about his mission. We really appreciate the hard work he is doing and if we can help further we absolutely will. Keep doing what you’re doing Isaac, you are an inspiration to us all.

On the 8th of April we had our Enable Purple Prosecco Party.

Enable is our digital care system, reinventing how we plan, record, and coordinate care using smartphone handsets.

The rollout is in full swing, and thanks to our whole home approach, every member of staff will use Enable to document those precious, life-enriching moments for our residents. A massive thank you to our incredible transposing team for guiding us through this smooth transition.

We can't thank everyone enough for their hard work and commitment to enhancing the lives of our all residents through Enable. We are so excited for the future here at Cherry Trees.