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
Showing Off Our Dance Moves
On Monday 17th October, Sue Yorke from Music for Health popped in to get us moving and enjoying some of our favourite music.
To warm ourselves up, we used pom-pom sticks with bells on them to jingle in time with music; this was great and made us enthusiastic for the rest of the experience. We got to shake tambourines, maracas - and even ourselves - to music and enjoyed being able to dance and sing! Two ladies got up out of their chairs and rocked out to The Who’s hit, ‘Rocking all over the World’, with other residents and staff cheering them on.
We finished the experience with a little quiz, which residents aced! They loved reminiscing about old times, when they used to dance a lot, and their favourite music - and the experience really gave them a sense of happiness. It's safe to say that Sue will be returning to help us get our boogie on again and we can’t wait!
We take our minibus on its maiden voyage!
Residents at The Fernes have been enjoying our first adventures in the minibus! We visited our local church for their Sunday service - a church that received help from one of our ladies to make all of their hassocks! 2 days later, we visited Lee-on-the-Solent beach, stopping in at The Bluebird Café for a bite to eat and a hot drink to warm us up from the cold but refreshing winds. We also went to the Abbey Garden Centre, just down the road from our home. There, the ladies looked at all the tropical and marine fish, even getting to feed the massive Koi Carp. We shopped around the Garden centre, looking at all the lovely plants and talking about our gardens, before stopping for a quick cuppa and some cake. After we had relaxed a little, we went to buy our very first Christmas decorations for the home. We decided to work together and pick out one to take back and put on our tree when we put it up in December. After finding loads of things that we like, we had to whittle it down, but couldn’t decide between the last two and ended up buying both! We all got very excited for Christmas, especially with it being our very first at The Fernes. Our minibus allows the ladies and gents to get out and about in the local community - something which puts a smile on their faces and a spring in their step!
The Fernes Has a Spooky Party!
We enjoyed our first Halloween celebrations in the home! We had a party after our lunch, which included Halloween cakes and sweets, as well as making chocolate-coated apples, and an apple bobbing race between staff members. Brodie won by getting all 4 apples out of the bowl in 15 seconds! The residents chose who they thought might win and then started counting us down from 30 seconds, cheering us on all the way. We then attempted an Arrow Words puzzle as a group, but it defeated us and we retreated to the lounge to watch the Halloween-inspired film, A Series of Unfortunate Events.
With October now over, it’s now time to focus on Christmas and everyone here is very excited to get geared up and decorate the home for the festive season! We can’t wait to share our experiences with you. Why not pop along and check out our decorating skills as we prepare for our Christmas Fayre on December 3rd at 1.30-4pm. We look forward to seeing you there!
The Fernes' Official Opening
On 21st September, we held a special event for staff, residents, relatives and guest to celebrate our official opening.
The Chairman of Hampshire County Council, Cllr Keith Chapman MBE attended the event as did The Mayor Cllr Mrs Connie Hockley and The Mayor’s Consort Cllr Geoff Hockley.
Pupils from Orchard Lea Junior School kick-started the celebrations by singing a selection of songs, which were enjoyed by everyone. Following their performance, the home’s General Manager, Catherine Bezer gave a welcome speech in which she spoke of her hopes for the home as it begins to welcome more staff and residents.
Speeches were then given by the Chief Executive of Barchester Healthcare Dr Pete Calveley and Barchester’s Chairman of the Board, John Coleman. The Mayor of Fareham also addressed the guests and shared her thoughts on the stunning new home.
Local hero, John Stephens was then invited to unveil the official plaque. John, known to his friends as Jonno, used to serve in the Royal Navy and now works as a civilian at HMS Collingwood in Fareham. He was nominated to be the home’s local hero for the support he gives to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity. He gives up a huge amount of his spare time to organise fundraising collections for the charity and has raised over £6,000 in total.
Staff conducted tours of the purpose built home, showing guests around the bedrooms and communal spaces, as well as facilities such as the hair salon and specialised features in the Memory Lane Community for people living with dementia.
Meanwhile, people were treated to delicious canapés prepared by the home’s Head Chef and entertainment from harpist, Audrey Cameron Finnemore.
It was great day that was enjoyed by all!
The Fernes indulges in some home-made cakes!
On the afternoon of the 30th September, we hosted our first ever coffee afternoon in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. Everyone’s friends and family came along for a bit of cake and coffee, with a huge amount of support from the bakers among them!
We had a cake-off, and the winner was a lovely raspberry cream cake. All entries were more than up to the job of winning, and it was a very close call!
On sale, we had 3 lemon cakes (including 1 that was made by residents), granny’s cookies, coconut buns, cupcakes and rice crispy cakes, to name but a few.
Our chefs also took part, selling home-made jam and supplying us with a variety of cheesecakes, including banoffee, cherry and chocolate!
We decorated our tables with bunting that we had made earlier in the week - and it looked amazing!
In total, we raised £103.87 for Macmillan, and we are looking forward to next year already. Thank you to all the family and friends that came along, to the residents for their arts and craft and baking skills, and to our staff who made sure that everything ran smoothly.
Zoolab
On the 13th September, we had a visit from Zoolab, who provide something a little different for care homes and schools across the country.
Hannah, one of Zoolab’s keepers, brought us a whole variety of different animals to get to know. First up, we met Sam the Dumbo Rat, who loved all the attention from residents.
Next, we had Brian the Giant African Land Snail. He was quite shy and didn’t want to come out of his shell to start with, but residents and staff coaxed him out to come and say hi.
We admired Rose the Tarantula from afar; she is the most common tarantula species to be kept as pets in the UK, but when this type of spider gets unhappy, it rubs its back legs on its abdomen and kicks off lots of tiny little hairs, known as urticating hairs, that can cause a nasty irritation and a rash, so we made sure that we admired her in her home.
We also got to hold a baby Giant African Millipede, whose many legs had us all mesmerised!
Residents thoroughly enjoyed the visit from these unusual friends, and relished in the opportunity to hold and cuddle all the creatures they could. We can’t wait for Hannah to come again in January!
