Meet our Activities Coordinator, Karen Tipper

Hello my name is Karen and I am activity coordinator at Harton Grange care home. I have been an activity coordinator for ten years now, I really enjoy this job as there is never a day the same, everything from trips out in our mini bus into the community, to lovely group sing a longs with my little ukulele. I have a musical back ground and just love the effect it has on the residents

Activities at our 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 Coordinators are 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.

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 Harton Grange Care Home

English National Ballet virtual event

We celebrated Last Night of the Proms virtually with members of English National Ballet’s Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Music Director Gavin Sutherland.

We listened and danced along as members of the orchestra took us on a magical, musical journey. English National Ballet Philharmonic is made up of many of the country’s top musicians, and boasts considerable experience in all forms of music-making. With insights and anecdotes into what it takes to conduct an orchestra for a world-class ballet company, this special concert got our feet tapping, arms waving and hearts singing!

It was a wonderful experience, enjoyed by all.

V&A Scottish Galleries talk

We had a lovely time joining Becca Clark and James Wylie – members of V&A Dundee’s exhibitions team – as they took us on a virtual tour of the museum’s incredible Scottish Design Galleries.

We were introduced to the wide range of unique objects at the galleries from architecture and engineering, jewellery and textiles to theatre and their fascinating stories.

And we were able to learn more about the importance of all objects in telling the rich and varied history of Scottish design.

It was a lovely talk, enjoyed by all.

Spending time in the kitchen

At Harton Grange we have some lovely places to work with our residents one of our favourites is the living kitchen we had an amazing morning chatting about our lives and how we used to live whilst enjoying a cuppa from our fine crockery, we looked at some of the memorabilia that has been donated from times gone by and then made chocolate crispy cakes, what a lovely start to the day.

Keeping fit together

At Harton Grange we enjoy our seated exercise our friends from Northumberland (Mind active) are providing on line zoom sessions of Tai chi and also seated exercise with soft balls, shakers and stretch bands. Mavis who facilitates the sessions is amazing, our residents are really enjoying the sessions and how they are feeling afterwards. A big thankyou to Mind Active for their support.

Residents enjoy sing-a-long

At Harton Grange we love to dance and sing and be merry we had an amazing entertainer in called Dave Brewis who took us through an lovely journey through music, great singalongs and dance music and of course some Neil Diamond…all arms up for sweet caroline…then our lovely Chef brought out an amazing buffet, the weather stayed fine what a lovely day.

Tinkling the ivories

At Harton Grange we encourage our residents to continue with their interests, hobbies, past and present. Resident, Florence had an amazing career as a teacher who had an important impact on many lives, one of her passions has been playing the piano and we were delighted to hear her tinkling the ivories and we even laughed when we spotted a few notes from 'Les Dawson'. Everyone enjoyed the performance and that they were able to listen to her amazing musical gift.