Activities at Milford House Care Home
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.
Read our brochure 'Life-enriching activities' for more information about life in our care homes.
Read our brochure
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
The Year of Art!
Following the exhibition of some of resident’s creative work at Plain Arts Winter Exhibition that ran in Salisbury Library and the wonderful comments we received as a result Milford residents have been considering their artistic plans for the year and have decided to officially make 2022 our ‘Year of Art’.
We have plans to take part in the September Salisbury Arts Trail and will lead up to this with a number of events. We plan to have an exhibition at the home in the spring and are hoping to get an artist from the Plain Arts group to exhibit alongside work by our residents. We are also working on running some in-house workshops with local artists to create collaborative works and themed mini-exhibitions in our special gallery area that take inspiration from our fabulous gardens and places of local interest as well as looking to exhibit work out in the community. We are looking forward to a busy and creative year!
Treasuring Memories
This year our as part of their Christmas gifts each residents received a Memory Box which is theirs to keep and add to whenever they want. Contained within the boxes were a selection of items to remind them of what they have done over the past year and to add to with things from their friends and family whenever they feel like it. The activity team have already started helping residents add in photographs or other momentos of events or special moments that took place over Christmas and New Year and will continue to do so throughout the year. We hope that these boxes will be a real treasury of special things and happy memories that can be shared with family, friends and staff.
Residents Take Part in Christmas Art Exhibition
Residents are delighted to be taking part in the Plain Arts Salisbury Winter Exhibition which runs during December and early January in the main in Salisbury Library.
This a wonderful opportunity to showcase some of our residents' work alongside that of other local artists. Milford House is a member of the Plain Arts group and as such we are looking forward to taking part in a number of events and initiatives in 2022 not least the Salisbury Art Trail scheduled for September.
We are very proud to have six works included in the exhibition and we think they look great - a big thank you to the team at Plain Arts Salisbury who have put together the exhibition and made it look so attractive.
Christmas Cake Making
Our fabulous Christmas Cake has been created and is ready to admire - follow the photos to see how it developed. With the traditional cake made and plain iced by Hayley our Head Chef, it was over to Li Yam one of our activities coordinators and the residents to do the rest. Following a planning meeting where ideas were discussed, residents opted for a holly wreath surrounding a small group of carol singers.
Then it was onto the step by step process of creating the decorations and adding them to the cake - and what a triumph! We love the individual carol singers and their expressions and the holly wreath is festive and colourful and the whole thing definitely looks too good to eat!
A HUGE well done to everyone involved and we can't wait to enter it into the Barchester Healthcare Christmas cake competition.
Musical Theatre Salisbury Brings Festive Cheer
A huge thank you to the members of Musical Theatre Salisbury who braved the sunny but crisp weather to serenade Milford residents and their guests with carols and festive songs. Singing in our inner courtyard they had an enthusiastic and appreciative audience, who were all well wrapped up, joining in from the dining room, conservatory, rooms overlooking the gardens and even some hardy out in the garden themselves.
It was a really magical afternoon and has really made everyone feel Christmassy, and with mulled wine and mince pies served up as well we were all truly in the Christmas spirit by the time we said our goodbyes! This is such as busy time of year for everyone so we are especially grateful to the members of Musical Theatre Salisbury who gave up their Saturday afternoon to be with us - have a great Christmas one and all.
Crafty Foxes & Autumn Leaves
Residents have been having creative fun using the lovely autumn leaves from the Milford garden as their inspiration and have put together this colourful collage of the animals and birds we see every day in the garden. Everyone wanted to make something light-hearted and cheerful and they certainly succeeded. We just love the tones, textures and wit in the scene and it makes everyone who walks past the display smile. Residents have also enjoyed taking some of their finished works back to their rooms so that they can enjoy them all the time. We are looking forward to seeing what we can do for Christmas!
