Activities at West Abbey Care Home
Our Activities Coordinators are constantly striving to mentally and physically stimulate those we support by organising group and individual activities for anyone and everyone to participate in. There are regular outings in the minibus to nearby places of interest, as well as visits from the Donkey sanctuary, musicians and entertainers. We also host evenings such as our Cheese & Wine evenings and BBQ's in the summer, that we encourage relatives to come to. Activities are one of the most important aspects of a care home, so it is essential that our team are dedicated to ensuring that residents are entertained. We encourage our residents to participate in any way they can. We also encourage relatives to join with activities and events as often as they can to ensure that life at West Abbey is fun and active for all.
Nikki Griffee
Hi, I'm Nikki and I originally came to work at West Abbey in 2018 and have worked in various roles supporting our residents.
What I enjoy about my job is that no two days are the same and most of all, I thoroughly enjoy everyday activities with the residents including 1-2-1 room visits all the way to professional singers visiting us. A firm favourite of mine and the residents at West Abbey is using our mini-bus weekly and visiting local nature hot spots! I look forward to welcoming you to our home.
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 West Abbey Care Home
Bingo Afternoon
Residents at West Abbey Care Centre recently enjoyed an afternoon of hard fought bingo, with prizes galore to be won. Activities Coordinators at the home supported the residents at the home by ensuring as many people could take part as possible from safe distances.
Helen Colaço, General Manager, said: “In these unprecedented times, providing a range of engaging physical, mental and spiritual activities for our residents is more important than ever. Our residents really enjoyed their bingo afternoon. Our varied life enrichment programme for residents includes ways to stay in contact with relatives digitally, such as Skype, and we have new ways to keep residents active, whilst ensuring that the group activities are smaller, adhering to social distancing advice”
Sheila, a resident at the home was able to enjoy the bingo. Sheila said “I haven’t tried bingo before, though after giving it a go and winning a prize I can see why people playing it so much. I can’t wait for next time!”
International Nurses' Day
Coinciding with the birth date of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, International Nurses Day, held on Tuesday 12th May, is a day to celebrate nurses and care staff around the world. Residents and staff at West Abbey were happy to get involved by hosting a much-deserved celebration of the excellent nurses at West Abbey.
This year, the World Health Organization has designated 2020 as the first ever global Year of the Nurse and Midwife, because it will also mark the bicentennial of Nightingale’s birth. This theme is even more relevant in this unprecedented time, when we are hugely indebted to all our care staff, and we are incredibly proud to applaud their extraordinary efforts and commitment, on this special day of recognition. It is a day to recognise the important work and dedication of care givers everywhere, who often go above and beyond the call of duty.
At West Abbey, our nurses and staff are hard-working, dedicated, and passionate about caring for others, and that compassion and commitment has shone through even more these past few weeks. They continue to work tirelessly, and everyone is proud of the professionalism and duty of care they uphold. All their efforts are focused on creating an enjoyable environment for our residents, so it’s nice to take this time to show our appreciation in return.
Over the Rainbow
These rainbows were made my staff and residents alike, and can be seen from the main road for anyone passing!
Easter Celebrations
Staff and residents at West Abbey celebrated Easter with Easter eggs and hot cross buns aplenty.
West Abbey enjoyed an eggs-tensive range of Easter eggs, which very kindly donated by both Morrison’s and Tesco for staff and residents to all enjoy over the Easter period!
As always, we’ve all been looking forward to Easter. It’s such a nice time of the year – the residents love all the colourful Easter eggs and got some fresh air out in our gardens. We would like to thank both Tesco and Morrison’s for their donations; they’ve both really helped us to make this an eggs-cellent day at West Abbey!
Mother's Day
Residents celebrated Mother’s Day with a tea party for all residents, ensuring that every lady received something for the day on top of the many gifts and flowers sent into the home over the weekend!
Staff at West Abbey arranged for each resident to receive a gift on the day, which included flowers, teddy bears and specially made wooden hearts. Head Chef, Andrew Pippard, prepared a special afternoon tea with freshly made scones and sandwiches for all to mark the day.
We all had such a special day; the ladies loved receiving their gifts and the staff did everything they could to spoil everyone rotten.
Intergenerational Fun
West Abbey Care Centre in Yeovil have teamed up with Preston Primary School for a newly launched partnership which includes a pen pal scheme as well as giving the pupils at the school a chance to show off all their hard work, in this case showing off their masks that they’d made for Mardi Gras!
Residents of West Abbey Care Centre were overjoyed to see their young visitors and were very impressed by the craftsmanship which went into making the masks, as well as making new friends in the inter-generational scheme. Residents got to try on some of the masks, all while being able to get to know the pupils, something that in the next few months will become a much more frequent occurrence.
Helen Colaço, general manager of the home said: “Residents have really enjoyed sharing their time with the young pupils; so many have incredible tales and they love hearing the adventures of the students, as well as being able to see what they’ve been up to as well. Both the residents and staff can’t wait for them to visit again!”
