Activities at St Thomas Care Home
Our activities coordinator is dedicated to organising meaningful activities on an individual and group basis to fulfill the daily needs of our residents, as we understand how important mental and physical stimulation is for their wellbeing. Our activities are available to everyone who wants to take part and there is something different going on everyday. We often go out on day trips including visiting shopping centres, garden centres, evening meals at the local pubs, visits to local schools and also coffee mornings with other care homes. We have a wide range of entertainers that visit us at our home including musical therapists, Millers Ark Farm, pantomimes as well as our local salvation army and lots more. We encourage families to join us on trips out and also in home activities such as baking, arts and crafts, dancing and singing, we believe this is a great way for our residents to live an active and fun life here with us at St Thomas.
Charlie Burns
Hello!
I'm Charlie and I am the Activities Lead here at St Thomas. I have worked for Barchester since 2017, and have recently transferred here to the wonderful St Thomas Care Home.
I enjoy delivering enriching and fun activities to the residents here and am looking forward to meeting you!
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 St Thomas Care Home
We went on a visit to the Zoo today!
Residents and staff were treated to an exciting virtual tour of Five Sisters Zoo, hosted by Head of Education, Adam Welsh.
Five Sisters Zoo is a family run zoo with over 160 different animal species from around the world. Originally a garden centre that helped to rehome unwanted pets, the animal collection grew and grew until the zoo was officially founded in 2005. Now Five Sisters Zoo is the most visited wildlife attraction in West Lothian.
Gone are the days when a visit to the zoo was merely a fun day out. Adam’s presentation showed all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes at the zoo and explored the vital conservation, rescue and education work carried out at Five Sisters.
The session explored the fascinating rescue stories behind four lions and five European bears, before highlighting the vital Eurasian beaver conservation work that is carried out. Some other highlights included finding out about how and why Five Sisters Zoo helped to re-home two female snow leopards and discovering the captive breeding programmes they are involved with.
Adam says: “We really enjoyed being able to show the Barchester residents some of the fantastic animals we have at Five Sisters Zoo, we are very proud of the work our brilliant teams do. We were just so happy to be able to share our passion for wildlife conservation and animal rescue.”
Arranging flowers from our garden
Residents spent a morning arranging flowers we had collected from our own garden, no miles travelled so very Eco friendly! We displayed the vases around the home for everyone to enjoy and it felt like Spring was really here
Heartwarming visits for residents
We have been welcoming nominated visitors into the home since early March and now residents can see more of their loved ones in the garden to enjoy afternoon tea or a special birthday celebration. It was a delight for a four legged visitor to come and see a resident in their room - you can see in the picture the joy on her face after nearly a year apart
Residents visit V&A Dundee from their armchairs!
As part of our continued partnership with V&A Dundee residents enjoyed a "Creating V&A Dundee" virtual talk by Peter Nurick, the Museum’s Communities Producer with refreshments and delicious homemade cakes.
Everyone at the home had the opportunity to discover the fascinating story behind the origins of V&A Dundee – Scotland’s design museum and the latest addition to the country’s list of instantly recognisable buildings.
They heard how the history of the city and site inspired the architect to draw from a range of unusual sources to create a thoroughly modern museum that is as intriguing as it is complex. The presentation showed incredible images of the entire design and construction process – from initial concept to opening celebration – as well as sharing a few of the building’s lesser-known secrets! It was a testament to the skills and creativity of all of those who brought the museum to life.
Easter colouring for our local preschool
We visited Alphabet City Preschool with Easter cards for the children to colour in and take home, from the pictures you can see how much fun they had
St Thomas are the winners in the Big Barchester Easter Quiz!
We got ready for Easter by joining a virtual afternoon of chocolate-fuelled fun along with the staff and residents at over seventy Barchester care homes across the south of England, Jersey and the Isle of Wight and much to everyone’s delight we won!
Our staff and residents put on their best Easter bonnets and broke out the Easter eggs for an afternoon of fun activities culminating in the Barchester Big Easter Quiz when they linked up with all the other Barchester homes in the south of the country. When they weren’t quizzing, residents enjoyed a feast of seasonal Easter dishes prepared by the home’s chef.
General Manager, Fatmata Cochrane said: “Now that we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel following what has been a year like no other for our residents and staff, we wanted to ensure our Easter celebrations were an extra special treat. ‘Meeting up’ with the other homes virtually has given everyone such a boost, we’re so grateful to our brilliant Managing Director, Natasha Lazovic, for organising this event and for all her support. We’ve all had so much fun letting our hair down, everyone really enjoyed the afternoon.”
