It is wonderful at Newstead to have so many community connections. They bring lots of new experiences to our residents. In turn, our residents like to give back where they can.
Community support
For Father’s Day, we organised for some local motor bike enthusiasts to visit us on their bikes. It was lovely for residents to chat with them about their favourite bikes and biking adventures. One of our residents, Peter, used to be a motorbike dispatcher when he was in the army, whilst also being a competitive motorbike scrambler – he was in his element. We also shared stories and memories about our Dads.
We enjoyed a fantastic visit from Lexi, a hugely talent singer. She is a student at The Royal National College for the Blind (RNC) in Hereford The UK’s leading college for further education and training for the visually impaired.
We also had a magical afternoon with Picklelily Circus. She is a local magician and entertainer who wowed us with her jaw dropping magic tricks!
And we welcomed Sandra, who gave us a demonstration on 5 stick weaving. We were so intrigued by the history of this craft and loved getting stuck in.
Coming up ….. on Wednesday 19th July we have a visit from Wye Valley Falconry.
Giving back to our community
Our residents’ craft project has been making Tie Dye T-shirts for class 5 of St Francis Xaviers RC Primary School. We all loved tie dying, so we will definitely be doing it again. We personalised each T-shirt for each student and had a party in our garden, when we presented the children with their gifts. There were lots of garden games and refreshments and the children performed a poem for all of us about the seasons.
Our Knitting Group have started a new project for Cats Protection Hereford Adoption Centre. And we still have homemade bee boxes for sale in our reception – raising money for Herefordshire Wildlife Trust.
For Wimbledon we had our own Tennis Championships
Lots of residents competed in this playing our version of balloon tennis. We had a proper ladder knock out table and prizes for 1st 2nd and 3rd place. Peter was the winner – he is on a winning streak, also being our current Skittles Champ! So much fun and great for hand to eye coordination and stretching. All rounded off with strawberries and cream, in true Wimbledon style!