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
Veterans Visit Milford to Mark Remembrance Day
Milford House was honoured to host a group of army veterans who gave up their time to join residents for lunch,reminiscence and a Service of Remembrance.
Lt. Bridget Hamilton, Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps: Lt. Colonel Robert Hamilton, Royal Artillery: Lt. Colonel Andrew Gillespie, Royal Artillery; Colonel Kevin Arnold, Royal Artillery and Lt. Colonel Barry Fairbrother, Royal Logistics Corps shared their experiences as serving officers as they chatted to residents over lunch, many of whom had brought along their own keepsakes and remembrance sheets highlighting their personal experiences or those of loved ones.
After sharing lunch in the dining rooms everyone convened downstairs to hear some amazing stories from the veterans as they described particular aspects of their service, talked about soldiers from the past and showed their memorabilia.
Everyone then shared in a Service of Remembrance where the two minute silence was observed and the Last Post played.
Before enjoying afternoon tea many residents placed their Remembrance Sheets onto the home's Remembrance Wall created in the Art Gallery area.
Milford Celebrates A Bumper Crop of Birthdays
This month has seen a host of birthdays around the home and there is nothing we love more than a bit of a celebration! Thank you to our chefs who always make a cake for every birthday and to the various teams who have sung the birthday choruses. Amongst our birthdays we have had a 105th celebration and a new centenarian leading the way. It is lovely to see family and friends arrive to join in and we are always happy to help in any way we can to make the day extra special - so if you know of a birthday coming up and want to do something to make the day extra memorable for someone let us know and together we can make a plan!
Making Autumn Memories
Residents have been embracing autumn here at Milford House and they started the season off with the latest in our series of 'Making Memories Lunches' where the theme was ‘Harvest’.
The table looked fabulous, decorated as it was with all the warm autumn colours and as always our chefs served up a delicious meal and the team supporting the lunch were all dressed in suitably autumnal colours as well!
Elsewhere around the home, autumn has also been appearing with craft sessions producing some lovely work incorporating leaves, pumpkins and more, much of which is displayed in the home’s gallery area. There are boxes of pumpkins, leaves and flowers elsewhere to brighten up our communal areas and we are all looking forward to our wine and cheese evening later this month which will feature pumpkin soup to keep the theme going.
We will enjoy taking the warming memories of these events into the winter months.
Residents Present Cheque to Community Farm
Residents from Milford House were absolutely thrilled to be presenting another cheque to their chosen charity for 2023 River Bourne Community Farm, this time for an AMAZING £1000.
This was the result of their fundraising efforts over the summer which included the proceeds from the Summer Party, Silent Auction, Vintage Tea and more! So far this year we have been able to donate over £1600 to the farm, so thank you to everyone who has joined in to make this possible.
The farm and cafe are an amazing community resource which residents visit regularly and this time the monies raised are going towards a specific project - providing a mobile oven/kitchen for the farm's classroom. Sara-Jane Hancock who received the cheque on behalf of the farm said she was 'blown away' by the donation.
While at the farm residents also dropped in the Cafe at River Bourne Farm to view their art works which are on display there, and which everyone agreed looked fantastic.
Cuisines from Around the World Delight Residents
Working with our talented chefs and building on our regular Wine & Cheese evenings featuring cheeses from different countries we are now holding regular evenings highlighting Italian, Chinese and Indian dishes which are all proving popular with residents. With our Activities team ensuring that the dining rooms are suitably 'dressed' for each occasion these fun-filled evenings are so enjoyable and we are always delighted to welcome family and friends along to join in as well.
A Vibrant Vintage Tea Afternoon
It was a great afternoon as residents, friends and family enjoyed our Vintage Tea. Even the Bank Holiday weather played along, and we were able to set up our tables in and around the courtyard, in bedrooms and even on balconies so that families could get together for what was our last outdoor event of the summer. We had our special and surprise guest for the afternoon, Cosmic Sparkle who entertained everyone with a great playlist of songs that were the perfect accompaniment for the event. Our tables looked lovely with all our vintage china, pretty tablecloths and settings and our delicious cream tea with strawberries and a glass of pink fizz hit the spot. It was a great afternoon and thank you to everyone who came along as we also raised money for our 2023 charity River Bourne Community Farm and The Salisbury Hospice Charity.
