Jean

Thanks for your advise Danielle, I like the idea of the free coffee/tea coupon and will give out several each day to keep people popping in. I will do tea, coffee, and strawberry or chocolate milkshake. along with scones, waffles and scotch pancakes as they all go with butter cream and jam and are items that are not on the regular menu very often.

Thanks for your input Molly, if this goes down well I may try a 'pop up bar' for Fathers Day too. will post feedback

I have a few clip boards that have a poem on them and sometimes hand them out to the residents and ask them to circle, or mark with a highlighter a certain letter eg all the 'e's. Make sure it is a good size print. While they are busy doing that I can get other residents engaged in doing a puzzle or similar activity.

I want to create a Pop up Cafe in a spare room in our care home. I would like to run with it for a week and invite visiting family and friends to use it when visiting. The idea is to make the residents feel as if they have had an outing, I would like it to be a real treat for them and the visitors. Any ideas hint or tips will be appreciated. Thanks, Jean

I am going to set up a Pop up Cafe in a spare room for a week and invite family and friends to make use of it when they visit. I want our residents to feel as if they have had an outing. Does anybody have any hints and/or tips on how I can make this 'outing' a special treat. Thanks, Jean

It will be a quiet one at our care home. 3 red paper poppies in a little vase will be on each table in the dining room and I have bought paper serviettes with a poppy design on them for the 1 day only.

Today we had a game of musical bingo. I have 1 resident who is nearly blind and heard her comment that she wished she could see to play. I often hear her singing along with CD's and know that she knows a lot of music so I involved her in the game by telling her to sing along with the tune in order to give the other residents a 'clue' to the title. She enjoyed her role and so did the other residents.

I had difficulty getting the residents, most of whom have dementia, together after lunch so started serving tea and coffee in the lounge after lunch. They responded well to this and I now get a decent size group gathering there motivated by the thought of a cup of tea.

I am in the early stages of planning this activity so many thanks for any comments that are made that make a contribution to my final product.

Two of my residents familys did something similar to this and typed out a sheet of facts:
My name is xyz: and I was born in 1346
'Important steps in my life'
they then listed the steps chronologically eg
1974 Sold my house in Baxter Avenue
1976 my daughter, Anne, was born
this sheet of facts is so much help to the dementia resident who continually asks the same question, where is this place, have you seen my dog, etc. we read through the sheet and explain they have probably forgotten because that happens when you get older. Straight away they feel less anxious.