This month’s topics and themes are Chinese New Year, Valentine’s/Pancake Day, Shoes and Bags and Romans.
You might be wondering where our themes and topics come from. In part, we draw on world events and traditional celebrations but also from a bank of ideas that the members and staff have generated from their own interests and hobbies.
Chinese New Year
Year of the Dragon. We tried bubble tea after remodelling our ever-changing Tiki bar into a Bubble Bar served by our resident mixologist member. Chopsticks were a challenge, but we got better with practice, even picking up tiny pieces of pasta. For our members who like sensory input, we had rice and pasta and bottles to pour from one to another. Blowing bubbles and popping them was a big hit also.
Valentine/Pancake Days
Assisted by our lovely volunteer members stitch together hearts to either keep or give away. Everyone at Eastleigh James’ Place had a heart shape with their names in and members and staff left words of affirmation about each other inside each heart, which we have displayed inside the front door – if you are a visitors please take a look. For pancake day we mixed Valentines and Pancake days by making heart shaped pancakes and enjoying them at tea break time. Our lovely volunteer showed amazing patience by teaching Vickie -Team Leader how to crochet, every day is a learning day!
Shoe/Bag
Following our successful trip to the Shoe exhibition our members were inspired to design their own shoes and handbags, (Members love a little glitter on their shoes!) We played an array of shoe related games such as match the shoe to the member. Matching the occupation to the shoes they would wear and shoe bingo.
Romans
We are looking forward to spotting and identifying Roman Roads while we are out and about – would you know what to look for? We are looking forward to making a mosaic and wearing a toga.
Our enrichment trips included the majority of the members visiting the Royal Logistical Corps museum and looking at uniforms from the past up to the modern-day day solider. There was a huge array of medals on display, and we even got to defuse a bomb! (everyone was safe). The Museum left out resources so we could make a parachute and try to land our soldier into the landing mat below.
Munch Club
We have begun a 5-week course at ‘Munch Club’. This was born from our members’ desire to increase their independence and cooking skills. The course is fully funded by Winchester City Council. Members join new friends in a community centre to prepare, cook and enjoy a shared lunch all made by themselves. Some member’s comments were;
“I can’t believe I cooked by myself”
“mine was really tasty”
Members have invited the organisers to Lunch back at James’ Place Eastleigh keen to show what they have learnt. Confidence is at a new time high.