Residents from Bernard Sunley, the residential, nursing and dementia care home in Woking, Surrey and clients from the Woking Day Care Service which are both run by charity Friends of the Elderly, have been going head to head in their monthly family affair cup game of Family Fortunes.
Each month, the care teams recreate the iconic family TV game show for the residents and clients to enjoy. It has become quite competitive as the teams work together to correctly answer as many of the open-ended survey questions as possible, with the winning team taking the coveted Challenge Cup.
“The Challenge Cup goes to the monthly winning team – either the Bernard Sunley Residents or the Woking Day Care Clients,” said Monika Ahmed, one of the Activity Coordinators at the care home. “The monthly Family Fortunes Challenge Cup is now one of the must do activities on the calendar. The games are always highly spirited and great fun, especially when the acting compare says the legendary words ‘Our Survey Said….’, there’s always a resounding ‘Uh-Uh’ like the famous TV computerised sound when wrong answers are given. It has everyone giggling.”
“We have slightly adapted the traditional game, so our two teams – Bernard Sunley and Woking Day Care – do not have to stand up in turn and answer a question, it’s the first team to shout out an answer,” said Fran Simpson, the Manager at Woking Day Care.
“The questions are the same as the TV show with our teams having to guess the results of open-ended survey questions which 100 people have been asked. Such as ‘We asked 100 people to name a sport played with a ball’, or ‘We asked 100 people to name a breed of dog’,” added Ewelina Wagner, one of the Activities Coordinators at Bernard Sunley.
The much loved television family game show originally aired from 1980 to 2002 on ITV. It was hosted by Bob Monkhouse from 1980 to 1983 and later in 1983, by Max Bygraves, who hosted the show until 1985. When Family Fortunes came back in 1987, it was hosted by Les Dennis until 2002. A celebrity version followed from 2006 to 2015 with Gino D’Acampo taking over as host when the programme returned to the television in 2020.
“The Family Fortunes Challenge is actually a great reminiscing activity for the clients and residents,” continued Fran. “The residents and clients remember the original Family Fortunes with much affection and often natter about Bob Monkhouse, Max Bygraves and Les Dennis and the other shows they remember them hosting like the Golden Shot, Celebrity Squares, Russ Abbott’s Mad House and The Laughter Show.”
Monika, Ewelina and Fran create a wide and varied range of meaningful activities for the residents and clients at Bernard Sunley Care Home and Woking Day Care to take part in. “We are all focused on enhancing the residents’ and clients’ days with interesting, engaging, inclusive and person-centred activities,” continued Monika.
“The activities we run are varied and tailored to the residents’ and clients’ individual likes, preferences, favourite pastimes and hobbies. We all try to ensure that there is something for everyone to take part in and enjoy.”
At Bernard Sunley, in addition to the monthly Family Fortunes Challenge Cup, the activities include a Boules Club, quizzes, Scrabble Club, arts and crafts sessions, exercise classes, Dominoes, Bingo, food tasting, Cooking Club, card games, musical entertainment, themed afternoons, afternoon teas and movie nights.
“We also have individual or group games on our large interactive ‘Rainbow’ tablet screen and the very popular interactive armchair travel around the world trips, which take place in the HMS Bernard Sunley Cruise Lounge,” added Ewelina.
Friends of the Elderly’s Woking Day Care Service cares for and supports older people who are living with dementia and a range of age-related conditions and Fran works hard to give clients a great day, every day, despite them living with dementia.
“In addition to all our meaningful, interactive and inclusive activities, I also host the monthly ‘Have Your Say’ session,” continued Fran. “This is a great way for clients and their families to give feedback on how they think the activities at the day care centre have gone, what they think worked, what they enjoyed, what they want to see more of and what they feel didn’t work.
“This constructive feedback has enabled me to introduce a number of new initiatives such as our Afternoon Walking Club and a Past Histories Game which is tailored to the non-verbal clients or clients who find it hard to converse.”
“The monthly Family Fortunes Challenge Cup gets everyone animated and enthused,” added Monika. “Ewelina, Fran and I take it in turns as Games Master or Compare, and it is truly wonderful to see each client and resident engaged and enjoying the competition.”
Currently, the Bernard Sunley Team is on top of the Challenge Cup leaderboard. “The Woking Day Care Team is ready for the next game,” said Fran. “They are really looking forward to taking part and are full of fun, competition fighting talk.”
“The Bernard Sunley Team won’t sit on their laurels. They don’t want to hand over the Challenge Cup. Roll on the next game and may the best team win,” concluded a smiling Monika.
Every day, Monika, Ewelina and Fran make sure they have activities tailored to what each resident or client wants to do, when they want to do it. https://www.fote.org.uk/
