We are thankful at West Eaton to have forged connections and a support team in our local community. They help us deliver activities and new experiences to our residents and some special moments.
Team work this year at West Eaton
This January residents took part in the RSPB Garden Birdwatch. This is a national event that takes place on the last weekend of January. It is to record bird populations in gardens and open spaces and the RSPB collate the data they receive from the general public.
Welcome to Our Future
To get ready for the event, we made suet balls and bird seed feeders. Thanks to Bill Richardson and his team at the charity Welcome to Our Future, we were donated some new bird tables. These have been positioned in spots around our garden and were stocked up with treats for the Birdwatch weekend.
Welcome to our Future is a local community charity https://wtof.org.uk/ that promotes and delivers sustainable development across the Marches in the rural West Midlands. It has been great to have their support for our garden project and residents.
Top of our bird count were the blue tits and crows, but we also saw some birds of prey. We have a lot of squirrels and rabbits. They had better stick to hijacking the bird feeders, rather than digging up our garden bulbs!
Dance to Health
We are taking part in a scheme called Dance to Health which is part of AESOP. This is Arts Enterprise with a Social Purpose https://ae-sop.org/ . They have created and run a pioneering community dance programme for older people. Dance to Health combines evidence-based falls prevention principles with the creativity, expression and energy of dance.
In 2022, the total annual cost of fragility fractures to the UK was estimated at £4.4 billion which includes £1.1 billion for social care; hip fractures account for around £2 billion of this sum. As part of a fall prevention initiative, Herefordshire and Worcestershire Council are funding a pilot scheme with dance to Helath and AESOP . We are delighted to be taking part in these dance sessions each week. Dancer Yuvel Soria took us through some moves. Residents thoroughly enjoyed it and we are looking forward to the next session.
Other support from the community and our staff
Our team no longer have to wear facemasks at work. It is wonderful for residents to be able to fully see nurses and carers faces. They knew there were smiles behind the masks. It’s wonderful to now actually see them!
We marked the “unmasking” with a party for our home manager Charmaine’s birthday. And Huw Knight visited to sing for our residents – without a glass screen!
Thank you to Sian from Herefordshire Growing Point for showing us how to make simple tissue paper flowers. It gave us some ideas for our Leominster in Bloom display!
And we got to play with trains thanks to Steve Thornhill and friends. They set up a huge model train set for resident to enjoy! One of our residents is a big train buff and so we are hoping this got his ferroequinologist juices going!
Emlyn made a delicious Valentines lunch for everyone, with a cherry cheesecake and cocktails. We made some origami hearts with positive messages for all the residents and staff! We also made some personal cards and gifts for special people in our lives.
Thank you also to Rose with her music and movement sessions, where the bubble machine is a big it!