Latest news from Pinewood Residential Home

Double First class honours at Pinewood.

From care and kitchen assistant to first class honours, two members of the team at Pinewood Residential Home have recently graduated from university with the highest of degrees.

Over the last 4 years, both Christina Ward and Sam Pester have worked long and hard to achieve their degrees, juggling the demands of college work and the difficulties faced in care homes during the covid pandemic.

Christina has worked at Pinewood for a number of years, whilst also undertaking a degree in Adult Nursing.  Starting as a care assistant when Pinewood was a nursing home, progressed on to become a senior and now, following her first class degree success, will continue her career as a District Nurse.  As a part of her new job, she will be running a pain clinic in Exeter.

Similarly, Sam started working for Pinewood when he was 17 years old in our kitchen. In fact, he used to visit the Home with his primary school choir to sing to the residents! He eventually went off to university to study French and German and has worked for Pinewood as bank staff during the holidays. Sam will for the moment continue to work for Pinewood full time whilst he considers what he is going to do with his degree. 

Philip Sadeghi, Managing Director at Pinewood Residential Home said “We are immensely proud of both of them.  We will be sad to see Christina leave but wish her all the best in her new role, we know she will be fantastic. We are pleased Sam will continue to work with us for the time being as a valued member of the team.”

“Over the weekend, we decorated the lounge in a fun graduation theme and held a little celebration for them both alongside other members of the team who they have worked with over the years. We had a number of special gifts for them including a professional stethoscope marked with the Pinewood logo for Christina and a bottle of his favourite vodka for Sam.

“Huge congratulations Christina and Sam. We are very proud of you and all of your hard work”.

 

Residents from Pinewood were the first to try out new beach wheelchairs on Exmouth Beach.

Residents from local residential home were the first to try out new beach wheelchairs on Exmouth Beach.

Carers and residents from Pinewood Residential Home in Budleigh Salterton were given the opportunity to test drive Exmouth new beach friendly wheelchairs recently. 

The new wheelchairs have been by purchased Exmouth Town Council and through generous funding by The Chiefs Foundation, the Clare Milne Trust, the Devon Super Team, plus crowdfunding community donations, of which Pinewood has been a big sponsor.  

Four of Pinewood’s residents were lucky enough to access and enjoy the beach whilst trying out Exmouth's new beach wheelchairs over the Easter holidays. They were joined by the Lord Mayor of Exmouth Councillor Steve Gazzard, Councillor Pauline Stott who has been instrumental in this amazing initiative for Exmouth, plus members of the team from Pinewood.

The Town Council initiative aims to provide disabled people with greater access to the beach through the provision of specially adapted, all-terrain wheelchairs which will be hired out free of charge from their new premises on the beach front.

Philip Sadeghi, Managing Director at Pinewood Residential Home said “Our residents have thoroughly enjoyed being out and about on the beach again today. It’s great to be able to offer people with accessibility requirements access to the beach in Exmouth, the beach should be for everyone to enjoy.

“We are proud to have been a sponsor and supporter of this fantastic initiative and are looking forward to going back in the summer when the weather is warmer and having a proper dip in the sea with the beach wheelchairs”.

Carers and residents from Pinewood Residential Home in Budleigh Salterton were given the opportunity to test drive Exmouth new beach friendly wheelchairs recently. 

The new wheelchairs have been by purchased Exmouth Town Council and through generous funding by The Chiefs Foundation, the Clare Milne Trust, the Devon Super Team, plus crowdfunding community donations, of which Pinewood has been a big sponsor.  

Four of Pinewood’s residents were lucky enough to access and enjoy the beach whilst trying out Exmouth's new beach wheelchairs over the Easter holidays. They were joined by the Lord Mayor of Exmouth Councillor Steve Gazzard, Councillor Pauline Stott who has been instrumental in this amazing initiative for Exmouth, plus members of the team from Pinewood.

The Town Council initiative aims to provide disabled people with greater access to the beach through the provision of specially adapted, all-terrain wheelchairs which will be hired out free of charge from their new premises on the beach front.

Philip Sadeghi, Managing Director at Pinewood Residential Home said “Our residents have thoroughly enjoyed being out and about on the beach again today. It’s great to be able to offer people with accessibility requirements access to the beach in Exmouth, the beach should be for everyone to enjoy.

“We are proud to have been a sponsor and supporter of this fantastic initiative and are looking forward to going back in the summer when the weather is warmer and having a proper dip in the sea with the beach wheelchairs”.

 

Merry Christmas.

Ho ho ho.... Look who's been to visit this morning! Merry Christmas ðŸÅ½…ðŸÂ¼â­Âï¸Â

We hope you are all having a lovely day, we certainly are.

Remember, remember the 5th of November ...

This year due to Covid, we were not able to hold our formal firework display where we invite the public to join us for the evening. However, we still wanted to do something for our residents, so we arranged a small display from within Pinewood gardens.  We had a lovely evening with resident visitors (who are involved in our PPE and Covid Testing regime), Pinewood staff and of course our wonderful residents.  All topped off with a buffet, hot chocolate and mulled wine. 

For more photos and videos, visit our Facebook page www.facebook.com/pinewoodonline

 

Halloween fun for all ...

We've just enjoyed having lots of creative fun for Halloween this year. Instead of carving pumpkins, we painted pumpkin glass table decorations. We think you'll agree they look fantastic and will last much longer than a pumpkin ðŸÅ½ƒ 

The residents especially enjoyed having some of the staff's children in to lend a hand too, all followed by a devil princess handing out treats to everyone! All treats and no tricks for our residents. 

Also, a special thanks to Janet for decorating the lounge and day room - it was spookily good!

 

Remembrance Day.

Look out for the resident's creativeness this week. We have been doing activities around remembrance day and creating Poppy wreaths to be displayed around the home and in the day room.

Activities galore.

We've been super busy at Pinewood over the last few months, enjoying daily activities with Deborah and the team. We enjoy board games (especially snakes and ladders!), catch and chat (a great opportunity for hand-eye coordination whilst having a little chat too) and of course Bingo (an all-time favourite).

 

We enjoyed the summer at Pinewood...

Whenever we could, we took the opportunity to enjoy the warmer weather and the sunshine at Pinewood, and if that meant taking the board games outside, that's just what we did! The lure of ice cream was just the ticket for enjoyable times too.

 

 

The ever popular film club...

Friday's are all about film club. We love to choose and watch a different film each week over a cuppa and a piece of cake. Each week someone different chooses a film, we've had lots of variety to keep everyone entertained including Matilda, Downton Abbey, Paddington and The Queen recently.

Entertainers join us again...

We are so pleased that external entertainers can visit us again. We've enjoyed a few familiar faces, and one of those is the ever-popular Paul Stephens. As always it was a joy to watch, listen and even join in the singing. 

 

Just Bowl, a Sports England project ....

'Just Bowl' is a Sports England funded project to research 'Active Aging'. By offering regular 'Just Bowl' activities within care homes settings, they have found significant improvements in physical, mental and social well-being. 

We are very pleased that 5 members of our team will be delivering this 12 week program within Pinewood Residential Home. They will commence their training in early June. The activities will run for 12 weeks, with at least two 30 minute sessions per week. 

The project states that "The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a halt to activities in most care homes and it is clear that many older adults need to be ‘re-conditioned". Here at Pinewood have managed to maintain a large number of activities with our activities coordinator Deborah, this is a great opportunity for the team and the residence to experience even more. 

Just Bowl is a low impact, fun activity that can be used in a lounge area or in an individual’s room and is a great way to reintroduce residents to physical activity.