Louise

At residents meeting this week our residents voted not to have any activities but are happy to have xmas in July special lunch.

Hi I am able to create the word search easily but then want to include it into our monthly newsletter. How do I copy and print onto newsletter document? Thanks for any help.

Is anyone planning on celebrating International Women's Day on March 8th? If so I would love some ideas.

The ladies where I work love to fold laundry, hang shirts on hangers and match and fold sox. They sit and chat together while doing their "chores". This is the one thing that seems to settle them more than anything else.

We do ours on the computer. We basically just comment on what the resident has been involved in/done for that evaluation period. e.g." Fred enjoys playing bingo, bus outings, quizzes, current affairs and happy hour. Fred also attend weekly mass and enjoys reading the newspaper. Fred interacts well with residents and staff and has family visits and support." Hope this helps.

Hi Maria
Last week we took 10 residents to a local shopping centre for a bit of a shop and coffee and donut for afternoon tea. I was lucky that I had 2 volunteers come with me as no way could I have managed this on my own. We were very careful in who we did take out. Most of the residents do have some sort of dementia but the biggest risk we thought would be wandering. We didn't have any trouble. We made sure to go to a fairly small shopping centre and once there showed all residents where our meeting point was. Some residents went off by themselves to shop but the majority stayed with me and the volunteers. So keep it small and only for a couple of hours. Next time we may have afternoon at one of the parks or even garden centres now have cafes.

We have an entertainer the last Friday of every month and combine it with our monthly birthday party. All the residents who have celebrated a birthday that months sit at a specially decorated table and all other residents are seated nearby. Staff encourage residents to have a dance and for those who can't get up or prefer not to, they also enjoy just watching. Some entertainers are better than others.