Activities at The Fernes Care Home
At The Fernes we endeavour to make our care as personal as possible, including when it comes to activities. We will give you a 'Getting to Know Me' booklet for you to fill out with your loved one before they arrive, which includes a little life history and a tick sheet for a vast amount of activities. This enables us to offer the activities we know they will enjoy and enables us to learn valuable information about their lives and what might stimulate them in conversations and trips.
Our specialist Activities and Lifestyle staff make sure there are always meaningful activities to take part in, such as helping in the garden, baking some bread to have with our dinner, and trips out to various locations nearby such as the beach and the garden centres. Residents are encouraged to take part, but it is always the resident’s choice to participate or not as we believe that having choice is very important to help our residents feel in control of their lives. There are activities on offer every day (and night for those night owls) in the form of word puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, arts and crafts, needle crafts and board games to name a few. We have entertainment that is organised at least twice a month such as Music for Health, Zoolab or musicians, and also have a wonderful Yoga instructor who comes every other week.
Activities are provided by everyone in our home from carers and specialised activities staff, right through to our admin team. If there is a task that needs doing and a resident would like to do it, such as sealing envelopes and putting stamps on or handing out popcorn for our Movie Mondays, they are very welcome to help out which enables us to give them a better feeling of purpose and self-worth.
We are a registered member of the National Activity Providers Association (NAPA), which means that we are always working to make the quality of life of all of our residents as high as possible by working with person-centred activities that aim to stimulate our residents, both mentally and physically.
Sophie Wasteney
Hi, I'm Sophie, I am the Activities Lead at The Fernes. I've worked in the care sector for 26 years and here at The Fernes for 3 of those. When I started here I worked in care so really got to know the residents, relatives and home very well. When the Activities Lead role arose I naturally jumped at the opportunity as it was one aspect of care I really wanted to do as I really enjoy making people happy. As you cannot put a price on a smile!
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 The Fernes Care Home
Hollywood Heartthrobs
Residents received a visit from Betsy, who performed an amazing show called Hollywood Heartthrobs.
Backed by a red carpet backdrop and with multiple costume changes in between, Betsy performed songs from all the best-known artists, including Gene Kelly, Doris Day, and Elvis Presley.
The dresses matched each era that she sang through, with a simple light pink to start, through to a polka dot halter for the more 'rock 'n' roll' numbers, and finishing with a glamorous green floor length dress, completed with a white fur shawl for the more classy numbers, such as Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.
Betsy will be back on 2nd June performing a tribute to Judy Garland.
A Day of Musical Fun at The Fernes
With a relaxing pianist in the morning and a bit of upbeat karaoke in the afternoon, our musical medley day was great for everyone.
We started the off day with Ang coming to play her piano for us in the morning. She delighted us with classical numbers, such as Air on the G String by Bach, A Thousand Years by Christina Perry and many others.
After a break for lunch, we were joined by Bernie for a bit of karaoke. With the words on the screen - and lots of energy and laughter - we sang along and danced to each and every song that was played.
The atmosphere was fantastic and all residents had a chance to sing with the microphone to different tunes if they wanted to.
We can’t wait to see these ladies again and look forward to their next visits in the very near future.
Burns Night
Resident, Pamela (in the middle), and her two sisters celebrated Burns Night at The Fernes. A special Burns Night menu was enjoyed by everyone at the home, which was followed by a little competition of guessing the content of the chocolate liquors. The dining room was decorated with tartan bunting made by residents earlier in the week.
The Fernes have a whale of a time at the Henry Cort Christmas Party
At The Fernes, we were lucky enough to be invited to the Henry Cort Christmas Party on Tuesday 13th December. Henry Cort is a secondary school based less than a mile down the road, so we were happy to come along and take part.
We were welcomed on arrival by smiling pupils who helped residents through to the hall that the party was taking place in. We were seated at a table filled with lovely cakes, crisps and snacks and were offered a hot drink. This was just the start of a fantastic party!
Our first lot of entertainment was from the school's choir singing a variety of Christmas music. This was interwoven with solos from different pupils who sounded amazing. Next, we had a bit of bingo and won with 2 full lines! Finally, we were all given raffle tickets and we had a raffle draw with all the residents being lucky enough to come home with a prize.
Thank you so much to the lovely staff and pupils at Henry Cort for hosting us, and we hope to see you again next year!
The Fernes take a trip to a winter wonderland!
On Tuesday 6th December, The Fernes residents took a trip to Keydell Nurseries in Horndean to visit their winter wonderland, complete with Santa and reindeer!
There was a vast amount of displays, from Beatrix Potter-themed displays through to Harry Potter. They even had The Snowman movie playing in one of the exhibits. We walked our way through the enchanting path, coming across many beautiful lights, some polar bears, and Father Christmas. We had such a wonderful time, finishing off with tea, coffee and doughnuts. Yummy!
If you want to find out more about our Christmas goings on, the please pop in or call.
Christmas Fayre
On Saturday 3rd December, we at The Fernes opened our doors to host our very first Christmas Fayre. We had stalls from Arbonne Cosmetics, Tash’s Home Bakes, Fareham and District Parkinson’s Committee, Vicky Taylors Needle Crafts and Christmas decorations made by residents.
We held a raffle with donated prizes and indulged in mulled wine, mince pies and ginger bread men and reindeer. Residents had a wonderful time, with families coming in to help us get into the festive spirit. We also had the very fabulous Rod Hack to entertain us with his music, singing some Christmas classics to celebrate our Christmas light switch on!
The money raised from donations for food, drinks, decorations and raffle tickets totalled £122.35, which will be split between our charities, so thank you to everyone who was able to attend and make this possible, especially to our wonderful stall holders and entertainers - and we hope to see you again for our Easter Fair in the new year!
