Sycamore GroveBarchester Healthcare

Activities at Sycamore Grove Care Home

Our teams are trained to enrich the lives of residents through stimulating the mind, body and soul, and taking the time to learn about each person to ensure everyone receives support that adds enrichment to their life.

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.

Read our brochure ‘Life-enriching activities’ for more information about life in our care homes.

Read our brochure

Lynette Allen

Activities Co-ordinator

I first worked in the care sector in 2016. I have since gained a wealth of experience in dedicated dementia and residential activities, where I was an Activities Coordinator.

The largest and best part of my role was to ensure my residents were engaged in meaningful activities on a daily basis. I do this by taking into account their life history, their interests, likes and dislikes in order to promote their wellbeing currently and for the future. Liaising with family, friends and members of the community is also part of my role and it offers continuity to the lives of our residents. I love giving people a purpose and enabling our residents to do as much as possible of the things they love to do.

I cannot wait to welcome our residents into their wonderful new home and help to bring smiles, joy and laughter to each day.

Celebrating life at Sycamore Grove Care Home

A trip to Michelham Priory

We have been making the most of the glorious weather this summer and had a recent trip to Michelham Priory.

The surroundings were utterly beautiful and enjoyed by all. We all took a short walk to the tearoom to indulge in a well earned drink followed by a visit to the gift shop. What a lovely way to spend a summer afternoon.

Target games

Every so often we get the chance to have fun playing target games with residents trying beat each other’s scores. There is usually a clear outstanding winner but everyone seems to enjoy themselves.

Intergenerational fun and games!

Here at Sycamore Grove we are lucky to have weekly visits from our friends at Bluebell Barn Nursery. Our residents look forward to these visits when they get to play not only with the children but with their toys too.

An opportunity that many of them relish. The children get lots of attention, affection and advice. It is a wonderful sigh to behold and participate in, benefitting everyone across the age range. Fun, laughter and frivolity is had by all.

Flower Arranging

Did you know a member of our team is a trained florist? No now did the residents until they had fun learning a new skill.

They loved constructing beautiful and individual displays using colours and textures to enhance the effects. Fun and laughter was had by all and will have beautiful floral displays around the home for the next week.

Visit to Congress Theatre

We were lucky to spend an afternoon at Congress Theatre Eastbourne to watch Chicago.

The residents were thrilled to watch such an amazing performance and look forward to attending more wonderful shows throughout the year. We like to ensure our residents have the opportunity to engage in activities of their choice.

Wedding at Sycamore Grove

We had a wonderful wedding celebration recently for Jayne and Colin. Jayne is one of our wonderful carers here at Sycamore Grove. Residents, families, friends and staff were all invited to join together in an amazing opportunity to watch the happy couple repeat their wedding vows lead by one of our Resident Ambassadors. Jayne was given away by a resident who had been married for seventy three years, a very poignant moment for her having been recently widowed. The afternoon was blessed with glorious weather and the atmosphere enhanced by entertainment from a singer. This was followed by a fantastic spread prepared by our brilliant chef and his team.

National Carers Week

We recently celebrated National Carers’ Week, which takes place from 9th-15th June. Our residents and team wanted to thank all the wonderful carers in our home, whose hard work and dedication make a real difference to the lives of those living in our care.

Carers Week is an annual event to raise awareness of caring, highlighting the challenges carers face, and recognising the contribution they make to our residents, families and communities throughout the UK. The theme for Carers Week this year is ‘caring about equality’ which focuses on the challenges faced by unpaid carers such as poverty, social isolation and poor mental health. Carers Week aims to raise awareness, acknowledge the vital contribution of carers and encourage people to identify as carers and seek support.

Our team have been given lots of goodies to help celebrate including this wonderful and delicious gift box from Cadbury UK.

Snip and Socialise

Our new gardening club started this week and it was a huge hit with both our residents and members of the local community who joined us.

The club is lead by Ollie, our very own gardener. Together they potted, enjoyed each others company and were given some top tips on how to take care of their new plants.

Our gardening club will run every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month. The club will run between 11am and 12pm.

This will be a great chance to grow friendships and flowers, all whilst enjoying the summer sunshine at the same time!

If you are interested in joining, or know someone who would be, just give us a call on 01323 306709 so we know who to expect.

We hope to see you there!

Baking Club

This week we our baking club made some delicious Ginger Biscuits!

The club got together to chat, bake and of course taste test the biscuits. We love baking and it always gives us a chance to reminisce over our favourite sweet treats that we have enjoyed over the years.

Ladies that lunch

Here at Sycamore Grove, this group of friends get together every lunchtime to eat their lunch, have a catch up and enjoy a natter.

Our luxury dining rooms at the home are placed on each community meaning they do not become overcrowded at meal times. This makes for a much more intimate and enjoyable experience for all our residents.

We are hoping the ladies invite us to join them tomorrow!

Our Superstar Dementia Champion

It is Dementia Action Week and we are celebrating a superstar team member who always goes above and beyond to help others. Maria is the home’s Dementia Champion whose role it is to provide advice and support for the home’s residents who are living with dementia and their loved ones.

We are so proud of Maria and so lucky to have her, she is a wonderful member of the team and all our staff and residents love her. She works so incredibly hard to support all our residents living with dementia and their loved ones and ensure they have everything they need, nothing is too much trouble. It is lovely to be able to recognise her invaluable contribution to the home during Dementia Action Week.

A day in Paradise Park!

Some of our residents recently enjoyed a wonderful trip to Paradise Park and Gardens.

We took a stroll around the gardens, soaking up the beautiful sights and of course we followed this with a visit to the café to enjoy some refreshing drinks. The trip would not have been complete without some shopping in garden centre, picking up some beautiful blooms for our own gardens at home.

Thank you to all at Paradise Park for making us feel so welcome, we can't wait to visit again!

Our Rainbow Table

We love using our interactive Rainbow table. The table is full of wonderful games, music and learning tools that keep us all entertained. Maureen was really enjoying this colouring game, giving it her full attention until all she was left with was a beautiful piece of art!

This table is full of wonderful benefits and here are just some of those:

Positive effect upon well-being by improving mood, reducing apathy and restlessness, as well as increasing engagement levels especially across the mid-to-late stages of dementia.
Increased physical social and cognitive activity.
Increased positive emotion and reduction of withdrawn-like symptoms.

An added benefit of our mobile Magic Table means that our residents can utilise it anywhere in our home; lounges, coffee area, the garden or even bedrooms – the fun will come to them!

Provided to us by The Digital Rainbow Ltd visit their page for more information!

Intergenerational Fun

This week, we were so pleased to see the children from Bluebell Children's Nurseries here at the home for another visit.

The residents have such a wonderful time when the children visit us. They played games, built things together and laughed a lot.

These types of relationships are so important for the residents and the children leave a lasting smile on their faces. Thank you for visiting us and we look forward to seeing you again soon!

VE Day Celebration

After our wonderful VE Day street party, we thought we would squeeze in one more activity as we enjoyed the celebrations so much. The residents took a trip down to The Red Lion to continue the party!

There was amazing live music by the Landgirls 1940s entertain and of course lots of fun, singing and dancing.

We enjoyed being part of the community celebrations so much and cant wait to get back to the pub!