Activities at Milford 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.
The Activities Team at Milford House are dedicated to providing a range of stimulating activities for both groups and individuals, that promote both physical and mental wellbeing based upon resident's interests both past and present. As a member of the National Activity Providers Association (NAPA) the team are always striving to incorporate best practice into the array of activities on offer and to enhance their own skills through qualification with NAPA to NVQ Level 3 in Activities Provision. The team combine weekly activity favourites such as sherry mornings with special events, musical entertainments, slide shows, outings in our own mini-bus as well as interacting with local community groups such as Plain Arts Salisbury to showcase resident art and creativity and others who come into the home to interact with our residents. Milford House also benefits from a strong network of volunteers who support the Activity Team as they deliver their programme and who, along with friends and relatives, are always welcome to come and join in our sessions and outings.
Gale Louw
Gale joined the Milford team in 2019, initially as a carer but has gradually transferred over to the Activities Team where she is now the full time Coordinator. Gale has a passion to create a comprehensive and inclusive programme of vibrant events for residents, family
members and friends to enjoy and, along with the rest of team, ensure that each resident is able to participate in meaningful activities tailored to their likes and dislikes.
Originally from South Africa, when not at work Gale loves nothing more than exploring the UK, catching up with family and friends, being creative across a variety of disciplines and keeping her eyes out for great activities and events she can bring back to the home for
residents to enjoy.
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 Milford House Care Home
Milford House Residents Join Community Project
Residents have been busy working on creating colourful fish which members of the community are being asked to decorate for use in some of the flower displays for the Salisbury Cathedral Flower Festival: 'Spirit of Water', which will be on from the 13th - 18th May. Residents have now completed 80 fish which will be handed in to the Cathedral this week as our contribution to the festival, and residents will be visiting the festival as well and will hope to identify some of their fish on display!
For anyone not able to visit the festival, we will be creating our own display to coincide with the festival in our gallery area, so do stop by and have a look. But we are not stopping there as our More Than Just a Gardener, Caroline, is also collaborating on an exhibit and has asked us to join in creating some of the decorative items for her display, so we are excited on both fronts to be participating in such a fantastic event.
Celebrating Mother's Day!
Residents, family and friends joined together to celebrate all the special ladies; sisters, aunts, godmothers and more on Mother’s Day. With the sun shining on what was also the first day of British Summer Time and making it feel like spring had definitely arrived, it was especially lovely to see so many family members and friends visiting the home.
There was a special Mother's Day lunch with a fabulous traditional Sunday roast cooked by our Head Chef Kevin and his team. The dining room and tables looked festive and spring-like and, with a floral theme, it was wonderful to have so many tables booked in our conservatory, as well as full dining rooms and to hear the chat and laughter around the home.
Bringing smiles to Milford for 18 years!
We are so lucky at Milford that we have a number of wonderful people who support our activities through the programmes that they deliver and have been doing so for a number of years, providing great continuity. Our stand-out champion, though, is Malcolm, who has been coming to the home for an amazing 18 years!
So we thought it was time that we said a huge 'Thank You' to Malcolm, who has just delivered another brilliant afternoon for us - the smiles and packed room say it all - his visits are a real highlight of life at Milford.
Malcolm always starts and ends his sessions with an individual greeting and chat with each resident, making that all-important personal connection before moving on to a brilliant hour of music, movement, poetry and quiz questions that keep everyone engaged and participating. Everyone leaves these sessions energised and feeling uplifted and wanting more - so that's lucky, as Malcolm visits us each month - we don't have long to wait!
Welcoming our two new resident ambassadors!
We are delighted to introduce you to our Resident Ambassadors, Margaret and Lorna, who we welcomed to their roles with the presentation of some lovely bouquets. Margaret and Lorna attend many of our events and activities and are an integral part of our home and are well known by our residents and many family members and friends, so please join us in congratulating and welcoming them to their roles.
As valued members of our community, we are thrilled that they will represent our residents at events and also be a voice for fellow residents by telling us about their wishes, suggestions, and giving feedback to our staff teams.
Colourful Celebrations for a 90th Birthday!
A special family celebration took place in our lounge recently, and it was a wonderful, happy and colourful occasion with lots of smiles all round. With the lounge dressed in the bright colours of India as requested, and a delicious buffet prepared by Chef Kevin and the team, all that was needed were his family and friends to celebrate this special 90th birthday!
We are always delighted to facilitate birthday parties or other special events with our chef, activity and care teams combining to provide support for the celebration. If there is a special date coming up that you would like some help with, please don't hesitate to get in touch via the main office in the first instance, and we will be delighted to work with you to create something special.
Rousing Sea Shanties from the Navy Larks
We had a fabulous sea shanty afternoon with the Navy Larks, and we can't thank them enough. Singing to a dining room packed with residents, family, and friends, they entertained us with a selection of sea shanties - some familiar to us and some not so well known - but each one had us foot-tapping and hand clapping away and even taking centre stage to join in.
As we celebrate the National Activity Providers Association’s year of musical expression, we are exploring various musical genres and this was a wonderful, cheerful and uplifting way to start and one which left the whole home buzzing! Thank you to all the Larks - we absolutely loved having you and what a great way to start our musical journey!
