Activities at Chester Court Care Home
We understand that the people we support have passions and interests that could be difficult to pursue after moving into a care home – but that doesn’t mean we don’t encourage them to try! Some hobbies can define a person, so our Activities Coordinator is dedicated to ensuring that everyone we support is able to do what makes them happy to the best of their abilities. Social events are organised with individual tastes in mind and with the idea that residents have the opportunity to try new and exciting things.
Our aim is to make sure that our residents feel they had something to look forward to each day. We have a varied life enrichment programme, both in the home and in the community, and we always ask if there is anything different that residents would like to do. Residents and families approach our Activities Coordinator and comment on how much they enjoy what we do, so that we can continue to develop our programme to the benefit of our residents.
Lauren Corbett
Hi, my name is Lauren and I am the Activities Coordinator here at Chester Court. I joined the team in December 2020 and bring a wealth of enthusiasm to the role. I have just graduated from university in July 2020 and have previously completed work experience at another Barchester home. During this work experience I discovered how meaningful and important activities are for residents and how they can help enhance resident’s lives. Therefore, I decided to become an activities coordinator myself as I feel this is such a rewarding role.
I love working with our Residents here at the home and getting to know them and their families so that I can deliver and support in meaningful activities, keeping them socially stimulated and active as part of our extensive life enrichment calendar. The lifestyle and continued community links are also important.
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 Chester Court Care Home
English National Ballet
We celebrated Remembrance Day with English National Ballet Associate Dance Artist, Richard Bermange, who led a creative dance workshop for our residents followed by a special extract of Akram Khan’s work Dust, premiered in 2014 as part of ENB’s Lest We Forget programme, commemorating the First World War.
ENB company dancers, Erina Takahashi and James Streeter performed the extract and provided some insight into this moving work.
Our residents had a wonderful time as they listened, danced and were able to singalong to famous war time music performed by ENB Associate Musician, Matt Hartley-Stevens.
Cooking demo
We had a lovely time joining Chef Alex Connell from Vegetarian for Life for a Halloween-inspired virtual cooking demo.
Alex demonstrated how to prepare a few themed dishes, such as root vegetable tagine, roasted butternut squash mac-n-cheese, chocolate pots with piped biscuits and flapjacks.
Our residents were delighted to be a part of this lovely virtual culinary session by tasting the vegetarian dishes from the comfort of our home.
A hand-made card
During a 1-1 crafts session one of our residents created a thank you card for her daughter to say thank you for all she has done for her. She gifted the card to her family during a garden visit, her daughter was very pleased and she is going to display it on her fridge.
The Butterfly Effect
Residents released 10 painted lady butterflies into the garden after observing them throughout the month.
To begin with, we started off with 10 tiny caterpillars; we observed them grow 10 times their original size before turning into a chrysalis and then we observed them emerge from the chrysalis as butterflies. All 10 of the caterpillars survived and turned into beautiful butterflies.
Charity Fundraising
Congratulations to John Hindmarsh for completing a charity bike ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise money for the British Heart Foundation. John has worked for Chester Court care home for many years as a bank nurse and the British Heart Foundation is a very important charity to John after he had heart surgery himself.
John managed to raise a total of £1,055! The staff and residents at Chester Court are incredibly proud of him and were more than happy to help him raise this fantastic amount, along with his family and friends.
Top tips for creative writing
We had a great time joining journalist and novelist, Mike Gayle, for an intriguing virtual interview, during which he shared top tips for creative writing with our residents and read passages from his latest book, All the Lonely People.
We were thrilled to find out about Mike’s background, to understand what led him to become a writer and his creative process.
It was a lovely talk, enjoyed by all, especially by our keen writers at the home.
