Dining table setting Competition

We view meal times as an opportunity to socialise, it is an activity not a task, we want to ensure that meal times are enjoyed by all of our residents and that every aspect of the experience is good.
We have had many conversations with residents, staff and visitors to try and highlight what the residents expectations are. Interestingly some residents where happy with food on trays, clothing protectors, however maybe they just needed a good visual to show them that I think that we can do better.
The staff formed 4 teams, and we set about to have a dining table setting competition. To my suprise and delight the challenge was recieved with open arms by our staff, there were a few notices of "do not touch this belongs to Team 1", Team 4 were the kitchen staff team and they were quite reluctant to hand over the cutlery for the challenge. It ended up being a fantastic afternoon, the residents all got involved, walking around all 4 tables giving their feedback, some feeling that some of the table were too lovely for everyday use. Bless, isn;t that what it's all about, making them feel special everyday! So now we will post the photos, ask the residents, visitors and staff to vote on their favourite table setting, and then we move forward with enthusiasm, as all have been involved in the choice, and we will have a gorgeous dining room for meals.

General Managers Forum - Geelong

I have arrived back from our Bupa Care Services Quarterly General Managers Forum in Geelong. This was a 2 day Focus Forum, where GM's from our 46 homes and Bupa Care Services come together to re "Focus" on where we are heading as an organisation, and how we can improve what we are already doing.
Focus this quarter was on Memorable Dining Experiences, Customer values, Person Centred Care, Personal Best, and Dementia Gardens - Destinations. It was a wonderful couple of days where we were also able to network with our colleagues and "steal some ideas with pride". We also were given the opportunity to have a tour through Bupa Bellarine, which is a lovely 62 bed facility with some fabulous living areas, for example: 50's style kitchen, with old fashioned sewing machine,ironing board, mix master; fantastic vege patch the residents maintain and a quilting room for those passionate about sewing. I am looking forward to getting back to the facility to facilitate some really positive changes. As you know the Memorable dining experience is a key one for me......

Kaizen Team Challenge

The benefits for working within such a large health care organisation is that we are able to share our great depth of knowledge, and have the support from our Operational Leadership Team. One example is Kaizen, a Japanese word for continuous improvement. Late last year 6 people were selected to be a part of the Kaizen challenge and after rigorous mental and physical training were flown to the UK and Spain to be involved in a 2 week intensive personal and team learning experience. The team then came back and delivered their findings at our February General Manager's Forum. They had spent 2 weeks reviewing Bupa aged care facilities in both Spain and England, reviewing 3 objectives - Food, Purchasing and Repairs and Maintenance. We have seen quite a few new changes since this Forum. One area that seen some improvement is in food services. It is the simple things, like Seasonal Produce updates from Lahood our Fruit and Veg suppliers, being a foody I love the concept of only purchasing food that is in season, as it really does taste so much better. It has also then raised enough discussion around our dining experiences that we are looking closely at:
Times we have meals - is 5pm really when our people want to have dinner.
Do our people want to have a larger meal at dinner time instead of lunch time.It had been proven that behaviour issues decreased with a larger meal later in the evening, and residents slept better.
All wil be revealed, we are putting it to the people, and all facilites have been asked to conduct a Food Services Focus group to ask the residents what they would like, food is such an important part of what we do, how can we make it a better experience. Speaking of food, I'm thrilled to say I'm off to "Coffee Shop", it comes around quickly......

Mother's Day cards

I put my kids to work to make thirty eight Mother's Day cards for the all resident Mothers. We used the gorgeous stamps and watercolours we purchased at the Craft Expo in March. I think they came out pretty well, I hope they appreciate them.......

Australia - We're in the top 10 of worst polluters

Australia has ranked 9th on a list of nations for its absolute impact on the natural world. On a per capita basis, Singapore was classified as the world's worst offender, followed by South Korea, Qatar, Kuwait and Japan.
Professor Bradshaw said the better-ranked countries were small places such as Cape Verde, Swaziland, Niger and Grenada.
''They haven't wiped out all their forests but they live well below what we'd consider poverty,'' he said. ''We have things to learn from these countries in terms of consumption and in reducing our consumption.''
We should be ashamed......

Coffee Shop....

We had "Coffee Shop" this afternoon, where we set up the dining area like a coffee shop, the espresso machine comes out, the chef makes devine cappuccinos, and we eat all our coffee shop favourites, cup cakes,Portuguese custard tarts, danish, cheese cakes and tiramisu, coffee orders are taken and numbers are placed on the tables. It definitely sets a scene, there is a real buzz in the room, the smell of coffee draws quite the crowd. And, yes on these days Hayley and I have been known to skip lunch to make room for cupcakes,and Portuguese custard tarts.....is that really so wrong?? A great alternative to braving the chilly day to head out for coffee.

The Vegetable Patch

Although it was a terribly rainy cold Autumn day today, I still thought it necessary to get the thinking caps on for our vegetable patch. It has been 1 week since all the Agapanthus have been relocated, and they are doing very well in their new homes, however the natives are getting anxious as to what is going on in the empty garden bed. After being inspired by Marta Stewart, I had morning tea with the residents in our Special Care Unit, as it is the raised garden bed in their courtyard. "What herbs and vegetables would you like to plant?" Well the suggestions came thick and fast...chives, different types of lettuce, cucumber, beetroot, tomato, onion, garlic, lemongrass, chillies, carrots, parsnips. This of course then led to the very lengthy conversation around when it is the right time to plant certain vegetables/herbs. Luckily I had just picked up the complete Collection of Gardening from Vinnies last week, so we have a reference for such curly questions. We did decide that we should plant herbs in the 12 pots that we had, so that we can move them around if they need more sun. So the next sunny day we will start sowing seeds. I was however reminded by Bessie that now that they are getting a little old they might need me to remind them to water the plants, as they don't have they aren't so good at gardening anymore!.....Consider it done. We also have some flowering plant seeds and bulbs to think about. This is going to be fun.