Talent shows, bake offs and more: Activities at King’s House in Bournemouth

The past year has been a really difficult one for everyone as we’ve tried to deal with the pandemic and adjusted to living with restrictions and lockdowns. During all of that Together services have continued to work alongside the people that use our services and were proud to share some the creative and enthusiastic ways our staff do this with an update from our King’s House accommodation service in Bournemouth.

Lockdown 3.0 saw many of people’s usual activities take a back seat but that wasn’t the case at Kings House Care Home in Bournemouth. Staff in that period were dedicated to supporting residents during the unprecedented time and tried their best to take positives from the enforced isolation. Throughout the latest lockdown at the start of 2021, staff and residents were planning and participating in many socially distanced activities to ensure people could stay engaged and to support one another’s wellbeing.

Kings House have organised various socially distanced daily events with residents in the morning and the evening as it helps residents enjoy being able to spend time doing activities with each other. Additionally the staff have also organised larger activity based events and competitions to keep residents spirits up and to have something to look forward to.

Kings House’s Got Talent was one of the most popular events hosted where both staff and residents took part in displaying their knowledge alongside hidden talents and learning more about one another. Talents displayed by the residents included poetry reading, guitar playing, and poetry that was written and read by the resident. Staff also participated and there was a quiz created by a member of the team that two residents were joint winners of while another member of staff performed magic. Also the Project Manager and another member of staff performed the song “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now“ by Starship but rewrote the lyrics to dedicate the song to the Kings House and Together for mental wellbeing service. They’ve been kind enough to include the lyrics below along with an instrumental version of the song if you’d like to sing along:

“Working at kings care home
we don’t want you to feel alone
This organisations values
are to work alongside you

Standin’ here beside you
Want so much to give you
This care in my heart
That I’m feelin’ for you

…….And we can build your dreams together
Standing strong forever
Nothing’s gonna stop us now”

Another event that took place at King’s House gave residents and staff the opportunity to show off their culinary skills and take part in the King’s House Bake Off. Entries received were a Jamaican ginger cake, a lemon cake, chocolate chip cookies, marshmallow and honeycomb cookies and a Victoria sponge cake with strawberries.

Everyone at the property got really stuck into the baking and the lemon cake was crowned the ultimate winner after the judges scores were all in. The event encouraged everyone to try out their baking skills, whilst being supported by staff and we were able to spend one on one time with the residents that took part and catch-up with them on their wellbeing.

The last event that took place at Kings House was King’s House Pool Tournament which ran for the duration of the month. It was played out in a scheduled activity slot once a week in the evening so that residents and staff could take part although they were also able to do so anytime. Everyone enjoyed the tournament and there was one resident who was a clear winner and champion of pool for Kings House beating the rest of the participants by at least 10 points!!