Activities at Balclutha Court Care Home
At Balclutha Court our resident’s happiness is extremely important to us. We all know that a large part of this is keeping active and continuing to enjoy your interests and hobbies. At Balclutha Court, we have regular activities including arts and crafts, music, entertainment, trips to local attractions such as canal trips, safari parks and many more. Our activities team are always busy organising events, entertainment and excursions with the broadest possible appeal and many of our residents see living at Balclutha Court as an opportunity to develop a new skill or interest. It is important to us that each individual who we support can get as much from these as possible, so we try our best to arrange activities that reflect their interests and capabilities as best as possible, and encourage them to participate in any way they can. We also encourage relatives to join with activities and events as often as they can.
Karen Dillon
Karen Dillon is our Head of Activities and has worked within the home since 2005, starting out as a Carer. Karen is very outgoing and full of fun. She has many hobbies, with arts & crafts being her favourite, and her passion for this can be seen in our life enrichment programme.
Karen is supported by Kay Millar and Anita Marsh, between them they ensure that residents are happy and have loads of fun.
They are very keen to involve the residents in the decision making within the home to enhance their experience. They take part in the residents' meetings, catering forums and assist the General Manager in interviewing new staff members.
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 Balclutha Court Care Home
Happy birthday your Majesty!
It was a Royal affair at Balclutha Court today. Residents threw a party for the Queen on her 96th Birthday and low and behold look who turned up. Great fun was had by all!
Just hanging with my gnomes!
There was an invasion of gnomes at Balclutha Court today and they were very drab indeed but never fear our residents weren't slow in catching them and getting to work with a makeover. They will now be set free to make mischief in their new home in our garden. Dont worry about laughing if you see them among the flower beds .... Garden Gnomes don’t understand jokes, they go right over their heads
Romeo, Romeo! where art our pens?
Romeo! Romeo! Where art thou colouring in pens? Residents at Balclutha Court celebrated shakespeare day with a wee bit of mindfulness while watching a virtual life and works of the great playwright, poet and actor.
“Lay aside life-harming heaviness, And entertain a cheerful disposition.”
Book corner with Henry Slator
We had a lovely time joining Henry Slator for an exciting virtual event to discuss his book ‘Conversations at the Pond’.
Henry had an unusual writing journey, which many of our residents found inspiring, he underwent chemotherapy in early 2020, which allowed him to rediscover his light-hearted outlook on life by imagining conversations with creatures in and around his large garden pond and adding buckets of fun.
The entertaining Conversations at the Pond, with its mass of colourful illustrations, took our residents along his journey, they felt inspired, cheered and loved hearing all about Henry’s experiences.
Discovering the Astor's
Our residents came together to enjoy an exciting virtual talk courtesy of the team at National Trust Talks Service. The illustrated talk took us closer to one of Cliveden’s most famous families, the Astors. Our residents were able to discover what motivated William Waldorf Astor, America’s richest man, to purchase Cliveden in 1893 and how the estate became the centre of high society in the 1920 s and 30 s thanks to his son Waldorf and daughter in law Nancy Astor.
Wallace Collection
We had a lovely time joining Holly and Marie-Therese from the Wallace Collection, for a virtual introduction to the Collection, followed by a sensory exploratory walk through one of the museum’s most famous landscape paintings. The Collection ranges from Old Master paintings to 18th century French furniture, arms and armour. We all had a wonderful time and cannot wait to put our creative skills to a test and paint some landscapes in the upcoming days.
Upcoming events
May
May is the gateway to summer and we have lots of fun filled things planned - all welcome.
