We had 26 members today. Lisa started the karaoke at 2pm and then at 2.30pm Lisa welcomed everyone during the chat time.
Lisa told the members about the good news with unpaid carers now moving up the Government priority list to receive their vaccinations. This is good news especially after Lisa’s speech at the last council meeting asking the Government to consider moving the priority for unpaid carers vaccination up on the list. Lisa is so pleased the JCVI have listened.
Lisa also mentioned about 2 articles in the Sunday Times paper and Sky News regarding ‘visiting in care homes’.
Lisa reminded everyone when Adam Purnell was invited to attend one of the carers group meetings on the 8th December 2020. Adam is a Care Home Manager at Kepplegate Care Services in Lancashire and he spoke about his best practices and how he didn’t need to stop visiting in his care home during the pandemic.
Too many loved ones in care homes have passed away. It’s about time all care homes start to follow and learn to put similar best practices in their care homes to allow relatives to visit their loved ones. Lisa said how very proud she felt of what Adam has achieved and hopefully these best practices will spread to other care homes.
Lisa also mentioned that she has emailed Theresa Villiers MP and also Mike Rich CEO of Barnet Carers Centre and also the Leader of Barnet Council.
Members were delighted to hear this news.
Ian James then joined and members cheered to see him and said how they really missed him. Ian was also very happy to be back and gave a very entertaining session with a variety of popular songs which everyone loved. Rachel was then ready to start her exercise session and everyone is now used to Rachel’s style of teaching which works well.
Rachel had prepared the Saturday Night Fever routine today which was a real success and everyone loved especially the ‘Put on your seat belt’ move. It was great fun and Rachel will repeat it again next week with a bit more of a challenge.
Kevin then took over to do a short Family Fortunes Quiz game. A bit of fun banter between Kevin and Lisa which everyone likes. When it came to adding up the scores unfortunately that was a bit of a challenge so that was left with no results.
Lisa then called out the Bingo numbers and todays winner was Laurie Porter.
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We had 27 members today. It was a sunny day and not so cold as normal which made everyone feel happier. Lisa’s Karaoke session as usual was great and everyone feeds back to say how they enjoy it. The chat times are also great after and Lisa has the opportunity to provide any updates and talk to members. Some of the members were wearing red today especially as it was Valentine’s Day yesterday. Katie Paine our music entertainer was then ready to start and she was also wearing a red dress. Katie’s theme today was Elton John and sang quite a few music favourites. In fact one our carers Kevin looked the part with his Elton John big glasses and his mini piano keyboard. The last 5 minutes was an Elton John quiz and it was interesting to hear from Katie that she used to work with Elton John and she also has as a memento his piano stall which she treasures.
Eon Walters was then ready to start the exercises. Eon’s music is so motivating and gets everyone really working out. Everyone also wished Eon a Happy Wedding Anniversary as yesterday on Valentine’s Day it was his 22 years anniversary.
Lisa then carried on with the session and today Lisa prepared a food and chocolate quiz. There were 16 questions and the top scores were Pam and Joan with 13 out of 16. Lisa then read out a couple of jokes which everyone enjoyed and then called out the Bingo numbers. The Bingo winners today were Keren and Frances and Laurie and Sandra.
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We had visitor, Adam Punell to one of our carer sessions where he explained about his care home that allows visits from loved ones during COVID and the procedures he uses to keep his residents safe.
The link below is from the Sunday Times which has a full article on it.
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We had 21 members. Lisa started the Karaoke as usual at 2pm and at 2.30pm members were ready for their chats. One of the members – Chris had a birthday today and everyone gave him their best wishes. Kevin - one of the carers decided to wear a false black moustache and a Queen’s crown today impersonating Freddie Mercury. Everyone thought it was very funny including James Le Bec when he joined us to start the music entertainment. Kevin asked for a special song request and James decided to sing – Crazy little thing called Love By Queen
James then made sure everyone sang Happy Birthday to Chris before starting the music quiz. The dice was not too kind today with the numbers but we still ended up with a good score of 120 points. Gina and Chris scored 10 out of 10 in the music quiz and followed by Pam with 8. Before James finished, Kevin made a final song request for James to play the Queen’s National Anthem especially as he was wearing the crown. Everyone made an effort to stand at this point too.
Richard Kravetz then joined us for the Yoga exercises and his theme today was ‘Love’ as Valentine’s Day was soon. He then followed with a Valentine’s quiz and the winners with a top score of 7 out of 10 were Keren and Frances and their pretend prize were flowers and chocolates.
Lisa then read out a Valentine poem to everyone and then called out the Bingo numbers. The Bingo winner today was Keren and Frances.
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We had 30 members this evening. Lisa welcomed everyone and also Andrew Wrensch who is delivering the weekly training and Mike Rich – CEO of Barnet Carers Centre. Lisa informed everyone that the first half of the session from 7pm to 7.30pm this would be an opportunity for a general chat before Andrew started the Training at 7.30pm. The session then started promptly and Lisa had 3 questions which were emailed by members previously to this session that wanted to discuss.
The first topic was about looking forward and planning a break for carers and their loved ones. The pandemic has caused a lot of disruption and stress to people’s lives and having something to look forward to was important. Lisa suggested an organisation called Revitalise https://revitalise.org.uk/ as they have previously attended to do a talk before the pandemic at one of the dementia clubs. Lisa showed a slide show of one of the centres called Sandpipers -
https://revitalise.turtl.co/story/lockdown-breaks-at-sandpipers/
- showing briefly what Revitalise can provide at this centre. Although Revitalise have more centres, at this present moment during the pandemic they are not operating their usual service as their other 2 centres are working in partnership with the NHS welcoming patients from local hospitals so that they can make room for Covid positive patients. Lisa informed members that the links would be in the in the zoom chat section.
At this point Mike Rich who is CEO of Barnet Carers Centre mentioned that he is happy to offer Grants for carers for Travel and breaks for a maximum of £300. Members were delighted to hear this and thanked Mike.
The second topic which was emailed to Lisa to discuss was – ‘Early Detection, Prevention and Treatment of dementia’ Lisa mentioned the previous visit to the carers group session from Dr Paresh Malhotra a consultant neurologist and lecturer at Imperial College who did discuss these briefly and also clinical trials. Lisa also mentioned that she wanted to invite Dr David Jefferys – a Professor of Medicine and Senior Vice President in Eisai. Lisa also mentioned that these topics would be explained in more details through the weekly training delivered by Andrew Wrensch.
The third topic was about Vaccinations and the side effects. For this Lisa decided to play a YouTube introducing Dr John Campbell talking about vaccinations and side effects. Everyone thought this was very informative. Lisa then informed members how to find the YouTube and also provided the link in the zoom chat section Dr. John Campbell - YouTube
Lisa then introduced Andrew at 7.30pm to start the Training and Andrew introduced the topic – ‘Understanding Distressed Behaviour’. Andrew explained that if there were more issues raised after today’s training that needed expanding, he would happily continue in providing a part 2 to next week’s training on this topic. Andrew presented the topic and showed different slides to explain. After Andrew finished his presentation he opened up the session to questions.
Everyone first thanked and congratulated Andrew and were so overwhelmed by the training he provided as it touched a lot of the carers in how they were feeling personally in their own situations. As anticipated, further questions and concerns were raised in the discussion and Dr Angela one of our Trustees was very helpful responding to medical concerns and questions leading Andrew to confirm that next week he will be introducing a Part 2 training discussing – How do we deal with distress, Sun Downing, How we could promote healthier sleeping cycles and also he will be researching on the Bladder issues.
A couple of members asked if the slides could be made available and also if the Training could be recorded. Andrew informed members that he would email Lisa the slides after every Training and is happy for the Training to be recorded but we must also be mindful of members privacy.
Lisa said that she would email everyone the Training slides and also refer them to the website for further details.
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