We were very pleased to welcome so many family and friends to Valerie Manor for our Christmas get together. Especially so bearing in mind the awful weather we had the previous evening and earlier in the day.

Mulled wine & mince pies were the order of the day, and were thoroughly enjoyed!!!

We also sold raffle tickets in aid of St Barnabas Hospice for our Chef Chris’s Christmas Cake and a bottle of Cava kindly donated by one of our Nurses, Sue.

It was so nice to see everyone enjoying themselves, our good friends from the Towers Convent School popped in to wish everyone a Merry Christmas as well.

When the time came to draw the raffle we asked a grand daughter of a resident to pull out the winning tickets.

Well done to the lucky 2 winning ticket holders and a big thank you to everyone for making it such a special afternoon.

Valerie Manor is having a fund raising year for St Barnabas and we had another successful and enjoyable day last Friday as staff and residents took part in our 2nd Go Green Day!

The green nail varnish and makeup along with our green outfits came out for the day as we enjoyed the afternoon with staff, friends & families and residents of Valerie Manor whilst eating green cakes with our afternoon tea – and bubbly!

Chris, our fantastic chef also made a delicious green cake for the raffle which was won in house by a delighted resident who was desperate to share it with the other residents the next day.

I am delighted to say that as well as enjoying the day we also managed to raise over £190 for St Barnabas during the afternoon which we are all thrilled with.

Our final fund raising event of the year will be our Christmas Raffle… next year two of our staff are running the Brighton Marathon for St Barnabas and we hope the total raised will be into four figures by then!

I know that everyone has been enjoying the 2012 Olympics so we thought we would arrange our very own Valerie Manor Olympics last Thursday for our residents to enjoy an afternoon of fun family field events together with staff, friends and families of the Manor whilst raising money for St Barnabas House.

We were so lucky with the weather, everyone had such a glorious afternoon in the sunshine with both children and adults taking part. Our special ‘Olympic’ events were organised by office manager Alan, including the sack race, tug of war, three legged race, obstacle race and the egg and spoon race. Alan was also on hand as the games official to record the race times and make sure there was no cheating! Cream teas, Pimms and ice creams were on sale and our chef Chris made a lovely Olympic cake which was raffled.

At the end of the events the Olympic flag was raised whilst listening to Chariots of Fire, while myself, deputy manager Alison and Valerie Manor resident, Cynthia, presented Gold, Silver and Bronze medals to the lucky winners of the events!

You can view photos from the day in our online gallery.

During the two hours the residents had a very special afternoon and we managed to raise over £230.00 for St Barnabas House, bringing the total raised so far this year by Valerie Manor for this worthy charity to over £600.00.

And you can still help support us in raising money for St Barnabas by visiting our JustGiving online donation page.

Thank you so much for your continued support!

We are all very excited here at the Manor about the 2012 Olympics and especially the opening ceremony tonight. It is broadcast too late for some of the residents but we have already planned an afternoon to enjoy watching the opening ceremony again with everyone in the conservatory!

We couldn’t let the special occasion go by without having our own alternative ‘Valerie Manor Olympics’ which is planned for the 9th August during the afternoon. We are looking forward to spending the afternoon with staff, residents, and friends and families of Valerie Manor who will form teams to take part in our own ‘Olympic’ events including sack races, egg and spoon races and tug of war! Medals will be presented at the end of the afternoon to the winners. During the afternoon we will also be having face painting and selling Pimms, cream teas, choc ices and strawberries and cream – there will also be a raffle of Chris’s Olympic Cake! Of course we are doing all of this to raise money for St Barnabas Hospice who do a fantastic job and support the staff, residents and families at Valerie Manor.

Please do visit our Just Giving website if you would like to donate to this good cause as we are spending a year fundraising for them and hope to reach a target of over £1000.

Well, what a fun packed special four days we had to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee at Valerie Manor. Of course some of the four days were spent watching the special events on the TV but we also managed to enjoy a fantastic Quiz developed by Horsham Museum for the residents, a Jubilee word search and enjoyed listening to some wonderful Jubilee music.

On Tuesday our chef Chris provided the residents with a very special lunch accompanied by Jubilee crackers, confetti, flags and Jubilee chocolates!

We did not let the rain spoil the day and managed to entertain 100 guests during the afternoon at our special Jubilee High Tea party with a wonderful menu once again created by Chris, plus face painting courtesy of ‘True Colours’ (a very kind relative), and bubbly of course, to raise a toast to the Queen. A very big thank you also to our hospitality assistant, Martyn, who helped out enormously throughout the day.

Not only did Chris arrange all of the catering he made a very special Crown Cake which was raffled off in aid of our local Hospice which we are fundraising for all year. We managed to raise £89 as well as enjoying a very special day.

I felt extremely privileged to be able to spend such a special occasion with the residents and friends and families of Valerie Manor.