Activities at Newlands 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.
Activities within our home are tailored around the requests of residents. Our Activities Coordinator holds regular activity meetings to seek new thoughts and ideas. The home is committed to offering a varied range of activities for all residents, from hand and nail care to gardening for those who have green fingers. We carry out reminiscence activities, including planned entertainment days, bringing the seaside into the home or dance hall meetings.
We hold strong links with the community, especially schools and local children's sports teams, who visit the home to provide entertainment and engagement with residents. We also maintain relationships with the church to ensure that residents’ spiritual beliefs are met. Externally, we have our own minibus, and outings are planned and carried out, again tailored to residents’ preferences, whether it be shopping, visits to the local pub, tea and coffee afternoons, or a scenic day out in the lakes and lovely countryside that surrounds us. However, the fun does not stop at the residents we care for, but we also hold events to involve family and the wider community.
Hlabekile Nyoni (Nayoni)
Hlabekile Nyoni known by everyone as "Nayoni" is the Activities Co-Ordinator at Newlands Care Centre as of December 2023. Hlabekile joined the Barchester team in August 2023 on a part time basis then later became fulltime at the end of December 2023.
"Nayoni" says, ‘ I love sharing my ideas and knowledge to make residents life at Newlands enjoyable and memorable for them and their families. Each day is a different day and each resident is different therefore I always put that into consideration when coming up with activities that can suit each individual. I am so glad to work with a great team throughout the home, from housekeeping, clinical, care, kitchen, maintenance, admin and managers all play a pivotal role in my work. With my strong artistic background I find it easier to come up with creative ideas. I love my job here at Newlands.
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 Newlands Care Home
Puzzle time
Putting Pudsey together again was a challenge our residents took on. "Mo" loves puzzles and when she saw Pudsey needed peacing together she couldn't wait. She was excited when "all the pieces fell in place", that made her take another go to help another resident.
Halloween
Here at Newlands Care Centre we got into the spooky Halloween spirit, it was all fun and games as we hosted a fun filled dinner with delicious Halloween inspired treats which were prepared by our amazing chef. The children came and trick or treated while enjoying the wonderful games prepared for them.
Some of our residents preferred to face paint and staff didn’t disappoint by dressing up for the occasion. Residents where in high spirit as they enjoyed being spooked. Some residents opted to decorate their units as they desired.
A splash of pink!
The home was lit up with a splash of pink every where as residents and colleagues came together to raise funds for charity as they embraced 'Wear in Pink' for Breast Cancer Awareness.
Pumpkin carving
Residents and colleagues have been busy showing their creative designs as they enjoyed an aftternoon of pumpkin carving as they prepare for the homes Pumpkin Carving competition. Everyone is looking forward to receiving photographs of their friends in the community to see what they have been doing to celebrate.
Live entertainment
Residents enjoy a varied life enrichment programme and especially the live performances when local entertainers visit. Residents are relaxed, happy and enjoy discussing the session, their favourite songs and why they like them.
General Manager, Kim Whelan said, “Our residents and guests had a wonderful day singing along with the wonderful performers. We do our best to provide a wide range of activities and entertainment at Newlands as part of the lifestyle enrichment programme for residents, and this was one of our favourites!”
One resident said “I haven’t heard some of these songs in many years. The classics never go out of style!”
The sound of music
Music is one of the most important things to us here at Newlands. We had the wonderful Sam Davidson Small visit us for an afternoon – and we couldn’t keep the smiles off our faces!
He sang lots of our favourite throwback songs, from Tom Jones to Louis Armstrong. One of our residents, Tom, didn’t stop dancing for the full hour!
We even had a resident’s family join us and they told us they had a fabulous afternoon.
