Activities at Paternoster House Care Home
Our specialist activities staff are committed to organising a mix of activities and events for residents and the local community to get involved in, including trips out to local places of interest in our minibus and visits from entertainers and musicians. It is important to us that each individual who we support can get as much from these as possible, so we try our best to arrange activities that reflect their interests and capabilities as best as possible, and encourage them to participate in any way they can. We also encourage relatives to join with activities and events as often as they can.
Angela Hawkins
Hi my name is Angela, known as Angie, I joined Paternoster House in April 2016 as a care assistant, I have a passion for enriching our residents lives and being part of the Activities Team means I can help them achieve their dreams, keep them motivated and happy.
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 Paternoster House Care Home
Queen and Pearls’ for Centenarian Birthday
Celebrations were in full swing at Paternoster House on Saturday 2nd November 2024 as we celebrated the fabulous Violet turning 100! When asked what she’d like for her 100th birthday Violet said, in her distinctive cockney accent “I guess a stripper is out of the question?”
On hearing this the Paternoster House activities team got to work, and with a slight compromise booked the sensational Miss Lightning drag artist to perform. Violet loved every minute of the day.
During the party, attended by Violets’ family, friends, fellow residents and staff she was joined by The Mayor of Waltham Abbey, and surprize guest stars; the dazzling feather plumed Pearly Queen of Clapton Teresa Watts and her mother, Jackie who is the Pearly Queen of Hackney.
It was sparkles all round as Miss Lightning wowed the crowd with a melody of classic party tunes to really get the party started! The birthday girl said: “I’ve had an amazing day full of surprizes, thank you to everybody for making it so special…I’m a 100 you know!”
Corina Popesu, General Manager of Barchester Paternoster House added: “We’re delighted to be celebrating a truly remarkable lady as she reaches this amazing milestone. It was wonderful to host such a fabulous party for Violet, she’s a very popular resident who always has a smile on her face, and interesting tale to tell. Seeing everyone having so much fun in celebration of this wonderful lady’s big birthday warmed all our hearts.”
Monster-Mash Party
Here at Paternoster House we got into the spooky Halloween spirit of things by hosting a monster-mash of a party with delicious Halloween inspired treats, ghoulish games and themed music.
Residents, guests and staff dressed for the occasion, the homes café was a coven of witches, with wizards casting spells and everyone having a spooktacular time together!
Our varied life enrichment programme keeps residents active, and provides a daily choice of engaging physical, mental and spiritual activities tailored to residents’ interests and abilities
Seasonal Pumpkin Carving
As Halloween approaches the residents and staff at Paternoster House have been exploring the joy that pumpkin-carving can bring, particularly for those living with dementia.
Calving pumpkins is a great Halloween tradition for residents to get involved in, and today our residents loved working with the care teams across all four communities to design, carve and pimp their pumpkins!
We know that partaking in activities that stimulate the senses is a great way to encourage reminiscence and the sharing of stories. Our residents and staff had a wonderful time reliving special moments from their past; fond memories of carving pumpkins, from being children themselves, to carving and celebrating Halloween with their loved ones throughout the years.
General Manager, Corina Popesu said: “Our staff and residents love any excuse to get crafty and carving the pumpkins today as part of a whole home competition gave them a licence to get creative and potentially win!”
They all had a tremendous fun digging out the squashes before drawing and carving each design, adding googly eyes, arms, legs and even tongues to make a ‘Paternoster Posse’ of characters.
It was treats all round for the Meadowlands community as Corina and today’s Birthday Boy resident; Robert chose the overall winner as the Meadow-Monster!
Wear It Pink Day
Did you know that over 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK, thanks to research, more people are surviving breast cancer than ever before – ‘Wear it Pink’ day is one of Breast Cancer Now’s biggest fundraising events.
The residents and staff at Paternoster House proudly wore all shades of pink in support of this incredible good cause. Many staff donated £1 to wear pink for the day and chef cooked up a storm of cakes for people to enjoy.
The residents helped our activities team create some lovely pink satin bow badges for sale and throughout the day we discussed the importance of checking your breasts for changes. Our Wear it Pink - 'Sweepstake' winner was the beautiful Betty, who was very surprised to receive her bouquet of flowers. Overall the home raised £76.50 for this life changing charity.
Family Love Is All Around
Here at Paternoster House we had a lovely time celebrating National Grandparents Day.
Some of our residents spent time reminiscing about their grandparents whilst doing a little mindfulness colouring, as others remembered the moment when they were first told they were going to be a grandparent.
To help prompt happy memories we took time to capture the precious moment of generations together with a photo-corner. These photos were printed for the resident and loved one to cherish.
Trip to Local Farm Dream Comes True
At Paternoster House we understand the importance of taking our residents on regular outings, it's just one aspect of our life enrichment program and all the trips we take are at the request of the residents. This week we had the pleasure of taking a minibus trip to Pets' Corner Harlow.
Animal therapy is one of the cornerstones of our monthly activity planner. Residents' Doreen and Lee were super excited to make the trip as they'd requested to visit a farm. Doreen loved meeting the pigs, unusual fish and donkeys, and Lee's day was made as he got up close to his favourite; horses.