Activities at Woodland View Care Home
Woodland View is passionately committed to providing residents with a varied choice of entertainment, social, health and well being, craft and relaxation based activities.
Our teams are trained to enrich the lives of residents through stimulating the mind, body and soul, and taking the time to learn about each person to ensure everyone receives support that adds enrichment to their life.
The activities provided will also include involvement from other local community based organisations and are open to all residents, family and friends of residents. Our activities will be facilitated by staff from all departments as well as invited guests. Families are also enthusiastically encouraged to play a part in activities when possible.
There will always be at least one person at every activity who has been DBS checked to ensure the safeguarding of our residents. The dignity of our residents and our respect for them is at the centre of everything we do, each and every day.
We are always reviewing and changing our schedule of activities to be a centre of excellence and actively invite feedback and suggestions for new and meaningful activities and ideas.
Petra Hardman
Hi my name is Petra and I'm the Activities Coordinator here at Woodland View. I love seeing the difference that activities can make to each individual, and finding out what interests they have and ensure I incorporate that into our activities here.
I love music and drama coming from a musical background as a singer all over the country, music is important to me and I feel it makes such a difference to everyone, it evokes memories, and creates happiness. I also love to boost residents self esteem by creating pampering sessions and having one to one time to relax and reminisce.
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 Woodland View Care Home
Celebrating cultural food, and getting out in the community!
What a busy day for our Activities Team and residents!
We continued, as we did last year, celebrating different cultural food, and we made Sushi! With guidance from Sita, the team made Smoked Salmon, Seafood, and Veggie Sushi, which went down a storm with residents, staff, and also visitors!
We had quotes from residents saying how they didn't think they would like it, "but this is actually delicious!"
And we had families saying, "Wow, this is as good as I have tasted in a restaurant."
We think this was a huge success, and we have more plans for our baking/cooking club, that allow residents to discover different foods!
In the afternoon, some residents went out on the minibus for coffee, and also visited St Helena Hospice Shop on Peartree Road, to look at some new clothes and get out and about in the local community. Everybody wrapped up warm, and got some bargains!
A lovely, enjoyable Wednesday, here at Woodland View!
International Flower Day
With many thanks to generous donations from Asda Colchester and Tesco Highwoods Community Champion , the lovely Marie, we had a fantastic time displaying some beautiful blooms for International Flower Day.
Residents made some beautiful bouquets with Roses, Carnations, Tulips, Daffodils, Gerberas and Gypsophila at our Gardening Club.
Everyone agreed how beautiful these floral displays looked, and how kind of our local community it was to donate them, with residents commenting "We are so very lucky to have kind people to give us such lovely flowers."
Woodland View Wishes
Today marked the first day of our 2025 Activities Team 'Woodland View Wishes' initiative.
For our first of 2025, we made a wish come true for our lovely resident, who was a former pupil of County High School For Girls in Colchester, which is now GreyFriars Luxury Hotel and Restaurant, on East Hill.
On another outing, our resident stood outside GreyFriars, telling our Coordinator all about her days there, and how she "Would love to go and have a look, but knew it would never happen. Look how posh it is"
So, after some emails, and a lovely conversation with Jemma Mitchell there, we were invited for a complimentary Afternoon Tea. Today, our resident got to trace her steps from her school days, with a guided tour from the wonderful Julieanne. Looking at all the rooms, which were dining rooms, classrooms, and having afternoon tea in the old Head Mistress's office!
It was a lovely afternoon with lots of reminiscing, lots of smiles and the best hospitality, with fantastic food and drinks.
We are so very privileged to have been invited, and for memories to have been made today, that are priceless!
A huge thanks to Greyfriars Luxury Hotel and Restaurant, and to Jemma, Julieanne and everyone involved.
Festive Panto Fun!
Well, we all had a fantastic evening watching Frederick Douglas Care Home Entertainment panto Aladdin!
"Oh yes we did!"
A huge thankyou to the very talented Debbie, Mark and Amrit for such a wonderful, funny and festive show. There was lots of laughter, boos for the baddie, sing-a-longs and shouts of "He's behind you!"
It was such a fun evening, and we were joined by the children of Chestnut Childminding also, to add to the fun!
We loved every minute, and we can't wait for next year’s panto already!
Christmas Outing!
We had a lovely pre-Christmas weekend, with lots of social time, music and festive fun!
We took delivery of all our Christmas Cards from the children of Highwoods Primary School, which was so very kind, and greatly received!
At the requests of our ladies some were taken on a festive shopping trip to Marks and Spencer in Colchester, where they bought some new clothes, and enjoyed some festive coffees in the cafe!
We had entertainment from Paul Wood, thanks to Boogie Oogie Entertainments with some festive favourites, and also residents favourite Mick O'Connell.
We also held our baking club, which we had to of course make a festive treat of Gingerbread Men, there was lots of laughter and fun with this one!
Spooky fun at Woodland View
We had a 'spooktacular' time here at Woodland View for Halloween!
We started the day with our friends from Nannas Day Nurseries, the children joined residents in the coffee lounge, and then in individual rooms, for "trick or treat" Residents were ready with the treats to delight all!
The children stayed with us while we had our session with Owen from Rise Life - Essex, but this week, he looked a little different!
Thankyou Owen for being a great sport! You bring so much happiness to our residents in your sessions!
We then finished the day off with a Historic Ghost Talk from the fabulous Di Bignell of Colchester Heritage Tours, who told us all about the spooky side of our city. Who would have thought that some of the buildings we pass each day are full of so many interesting stories. Thankyou once again, we can't wait to see you next for our 'Christmas Traditions' talk.
Thankyou to all involved for making our residents day fabulous!
