Congratulations to Tom Young, who has been named as a Divisional Winner for Carer of the Year at this year's Barchester Care Awards.

Residents and staff at Woodland View applauded Carer, Lembit Saar, for being named ‘Employee of the Month’ due to being very helpful in all areas of the community and because of his outstanding dedication to his role. Well done, Lembit!

What a glorious afternoon we had!

Out on our second trip this week, we visited Clacton on Sea Memorial Gardens.

The memorial garden contains beds with high quality formal bedding displays and a central area with seating around a war memorial in remembrance of those died in the First and Second World Wars.

This garden is a popular meeting place for both residents and visitors and has not changed much since the war memorial was erected in 1924.

The colourful bedding displays and the mature cordylines create an important eye-catching feature, somewhat tropical in character. The number of bedding plants used in this garden during the year is in the region of 34,000.

The sun was shining; the flowers in bloom and we all enjoyed eating a cool ice cream

What a lovely afternoon we all had – it was a trip down memory for some.

Where will we go next week?!

Those wonderful people at Secret Hamper recently donated one of their bumper goody-filled hampers to our home.

In support of the Woodland View Residents Fund, raffle tickets were sold and the winning ticket was drawn. A very surprised Anne Harvey was the lucky lady to win the Secret Hamper and its contents. Anne spent some time circulating among her friends at Woodland View, sharing out the hamper's contents, much to the delight of the recipients.

Secret Hamper is a company providing the ideal gift with various different hampers, full of day-to-day essential items that could make a difference to someone’s life within a day or two. They aim to create a feel good feeling for the person who kindly sent the hamper and for the recipient who will know that someone, somewhere is thinking of them. They also provide hampers for pets too! What a great idea.

Residents and staff at Woodland View in Colchester applauded Senior Carer, Tom Young, who was named the divisional winner for the ‘Care/Support - Worker of the Year’.

Having over 40 homes within 7 divisions and thousands of carers and nominations in the division, Tom was successful in gaining the prestige of divisional winner. He will now go forward to the National Awards ceremony on 12th October in Manchester, competing against others in the final stage of the annual event. 

Woodland View Care Home always likes to celebrate those who go above and beyond to support those living at the home. The difference this dedication makes in providing the highest standards of quality care is always recognised in some way.

Today, Woodland View had great pleasure in awarding Colin Bennett a special framed certificate. Colin is now officially an exclusive 'Friend & Home Hero'. The certificate was awarded to Colin following his regular weekly visits to the home to play piano, which he does on a voluntary basis.

Colin visits Woodland View and plays piano with discussion and anecdotes about his music. Colin was very surprised when he was presented with the award, along with a number of small gifts, by resident Sylvia Davies - herself a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music.

If you or anyone else you know would be interested in becoming a volunteer and supporting residents at Woodland View in some way, please contact the home on 01206 855390.