Happy New Year to all our friends and families of Millvale House Waikanae! We hope you all had some enjoyable time off and for those who worked through, hopefully you will be able to enjoy some time off later in the year. Thank you to those of you who came to our Christmas gathering. We hope you had a lovely time! It was great to meet some new faces and our staff did a wonderful job of keeping everyone fed with delicious food. On Christmas Day we enjoyed a feast of roast lamb and turkey, followed by the traditional pavlova and fruit for dessert.

It is getting much warmer here and we are giving ice creams to our residents in the afternoons. These are very much enjoyed! We welcome you to join your loved one for an ice-cream if you are here at the right time. Our residents are also being encouraged to sit outside to enjoy the fresh air. Residents that are interested have been assisting with watering the plants in our garden. We are excited about getting some new vegetable and flowering plants into our shared garden area. Planting and tending to these will soon be a lovely activity for our keen gardeners.

On a final note, we have some exciting recruitment news; we recently welcomed our new clinical manager, Larry Montoya, who started in January. Some of you may already have met him during your visits to our home. Larry comes to us with significant experience in dementia care, and in mentoring and leading teams. He has most recently been working as the Special Unit Coordinator in a dementia care home at Julia Wallace Retirement Village. It is wonderful to have Larry’s expertise within our team.

For now, we look forward to 2024 and all that it may bring. We hope that you are able to enjoy relaxing in the warmth and the last of the long summer days.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the summer as we have at our homes. It is a lovely time to get out and about and enjoy the garden.

We have changed the format of our newsletters for this year. We know that most people receiving emails do so on their phones, this new format will cater to phone users better. It will also mean that we can send newsletters more regularly.

If you prefer to read a printed copy we will still have these available at each of our homes.

As with any new service we will look to improve as we go, so we will be asking for your feedback during the year.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the development in our homes over the course of the year. We will have a strong focus on staff training this year, we are further upgrading our IT systems and continuing to focus on our cultural care. Lots to look forward to.

We are also preparing for our Clinical Managers day in April. These have happened online for the past few years so it is wonderful to be able to plan an in-person session. These days are so important for sharing ideas and experiences from around our homes and improving the care we provide to each of our residents.

I enjoy meeting families as I travel around our homes so please do say hello if you see me when you are visiting.

I wish you and your whānau all the best for the year ahead.

Andrew Sheard, Managing Director

Magic Moment from our Christmas Gathering

Around eight people from one family attended and they were up dancing to the music and having a really good time. One of them came up to thank me and gave me a big hug. They were so grateful to be a part of the day. It was so lovely to see the hard work that everyone had put into the gathering being appreciated.