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
A trip to the park
It has been a little while since we were allowed out to play but now the world is opening up, slowly but surely, a couple of our residents managed a trip to Coronation Park for an ice cream and make the most of the recent good weather. It was so good to get out and about but still adhering to all government restrictions – weekly outings are a very popular part of our life enrichment programme.
National Beer Day
We had a fun-filled day as we raised a glass and tasted some top ales from around the world on National Beer Day.
We would love to tell you that our residents enjoyed a mini beer festival in the garden but you know where we live and our brolly just isn't big enough.
Truth be told though, the weather had no impact on our day as we retired to the dining room and travelled the world, beer by beer. Residents scored each beer and the clear winner was a cheeky wee Belgian number from Aldi Scotland. We used clear cups for our sampling so that residents could enjoy the educational beer mats at the bottom. Great wee day had by all.
Residents enjoy tour of Hereford Cathedral
We had a lovely time joining the team from Hereford Cathedral for an exciting virtual session.
We enjoyed a glimpse of this spectacular building and its treasures in a series of short pre-recorded videos. From the stunning gardens which lead down to the River Wye, to the Mappa Mundi and Chained Library.
It was wonderful to learn more about the history and beauty of Hereford Cathedral.
A peek behind the scenes at Knowsley
Staff and residents at Barchester’s Balclutha Court were treated to an exciting live streaming tour of Knowsley Safari, hosted by Engagement Assistant, Verity Dann.
Knowsley Safari has been welcoming visitors for 50 years since it opened in July 1971. Situated in the Knowsley area of Merseyside, the safari park is home to 750 animals on a 550 acre site, it boasts the longest safari drive in the UK.
Senior Health & Fitness Day
Here at Balclutha Court in Greenock, we understand the importance of remaining active and as you can see we take it very seriously! To acknowledge National Senior Health and Fitness Day, we focused on some gentle physical activities, which included seated yoga, armchair exercises and walking.
We also did some really amusing things and laughed a lot! Some of our residents preferred to join the group sessions, organised by the team, others focused on their individual movement activities. We took the time to learn more about the benefits of physical activity and how it can improve anxiety and overall well-being.
We would also like to thank Morton in the Community for the equipment, we are getting plenty of use out of it.
Virtual floral masterclass
Here at Balclutha in Greenock we were delighted to spend time creating a beautiful floral masterpiece to enter the #BloomingBarchester competition in partnership with Blooming Haus following their amazing virtual flower arranging masterclass.
We all had a wonderful time decorating and working on our arrangement and we are happy to say we were impressed with our skills in applying all the tips and ideas learnt during the class to make a colourful floral design.
Upcoming events
May
May is the gateway to summer and we have lots of fun filled things planned - all welcome.
