Interviewer

All right. Can you start by telling us your name, your age, and what member group you are discussing today?

Catherine Wood

Okay. So I’m Catherine Wood. So I’m discussing the Friends of Oakland’s.

Interviewer

So, can you talk a little bit about your role at the Friends of Oakland’s?

Catherine Wood

So, yes, I’m the chair of the Friends of Oakland’s, and I have been since we started going, which was approximately eight years ago now. I also run the Dementia cafe at Oakland’s.

Interviewer

What first inspired you to get involved with the Friends of Oakland’s eight years ago?

Catherine Wood

I was in the process of changing my job at the time, and I was coming out of having worked for 20-something years in the hospice movement as a nurse, and wanted to do something different, and the opportunity came up to be involved with the Friends of Oaklands. I thought this would be a good thing to do, and a different thing to do, because I hadn’t really worked in that area before. So, I decided to take on the challenge of working with the Friends of Oaklands, getting it set up, getting some volunteers into the home, and being able to make a difference, and starting to make a difference with the residents there. Since we’ve been there, a lot of stuff has changed. So they’ve had a lot of change in management, a lot of change in staff. But essentially, the residents have carried on all throughout that, and have really benefited from the support of the Friends of Oakland’s through our fundraising, and through the events that we’ve put on, and through some of the projects that we’ve done as well. Not only the Dementia Cafe, but also we have a challenge group: a challenge team for Oaklands who go on a regular basis, and do things like the gardening, and other bits and pieces.

Interviewer

Awesome. And could you talk a little bit about what the Dementia Cafe is and how it helps the residents?

Catherine Wood

So the Dementia Cafe is great, and it originally started to encourage people from the local community who live with Dementia to come into the home, get to understand it as it was big part of the local community. Oakland’s is right in the middle of a modern housing estate, and people often walk through the car park, but they never actually stop, and find out what is going on in the home. It’s a cut-through to the local school. So we wanted to get more people involved in volunteering, and we thought if we run a Dementia cafe, and people from the community come in, perhaps we can get some volunteers that way as well. But we’ll also be able to support people living with Dementia in the local community as well. As well as giving something for the residents to look forward to and enjoy. So we hold it once a month from the first Wednesday of every month from 10:30 to 11:30. We occasionally have a speaker or some sort of activity that goes on, but really the residents really enjoy talking to the volunteers. So they like to hear stories from the outside world, what’s going on. We have music playing, sometimes we have a bit of a sing along, but they really look forward to the tea and cakes. So we have cakes that we present on a proper old fashioned cake plate. And they love to choose the cakes. We have one lady who loves mince pies, so we even have mince pies outside of Christmas time. We try and make them themed. So, if it’s coming up to Easter as it is now, the Easter one will have Easter napkins and we’ll have little eggs on the cake plates as well. It’s just something that they really look forward to because it’s other people coming into the home that are not part of the home. So, it’s like they’re having visitors. They’re enjoying having visitors in their home, like you would in your own home. And they love the social interaction. They love having a chat about what’s happened in your life. It’s just a lovely event.

Interviewer

Awesome. Do you have a favourite memory of being at Oaklands or a story or a time that really sticks out to you a lot?

Catherine Wood

Oh, I’ve got a few. There was a time when we were actually running the Dementia Cafe, and we had a visit from a local small zoo. They brought in some animals, so they brought in rats, and rabbits. But but they also brought in a tree frog. Oh wow. And an albino baby hedgehog. And just seeing the sheer delight on the faces of the residents as they saw these little animals, and there were some little chicks as well that they were allowed to hold, and they were allowed to stroke. It was just so special and it was a lovely thing.

Interviewer

That’s awesome. Since the years that you’ve been at Oaklands, how have you seen the friends group change over time, especially with Covid, and just kind of over time, how has it developed?

 

Catherine Wood

I think we have a very special friends group at Oakland’s, and that we have some really lovely volunteers for a start who are very committed, and have been committed throughout the whole of the time we’ve been involved there, including during lockdown. During lockdown, we ran the Dementia Cafe on Zoom, and I was the first person to think, “This is never going to work.” How do you get people with dementia to log in, and have conversations on an online platform? It worked really well. We made sure that they all had ability to access some form of device. So it was either a phone or a tablet or a laptop. We showed them how to log in. They logged in each time. I sent them a link every month. They all logged in. Sometimes we looked at the ceiling in some people’s houses, and the floor because they couldn’t quite get their cameras worked out, but it didn’t matter. We had some really wonderful supportive conversations during that time as well about what people were doing, and how they were feeling, how we could support them better. We did things like, we sent them, for Easter, a hamper with cream tea in it, and we enjoyed our cream tea together on Zoom. So it was making those really special memories during a time when we couldn’t actually meet each other.

In addition to that, our volunteers have been going in, and have been taking communion services – so church services – with some of the residents.

We also have a Lego project going at the moment. There’s a lot of research done around something called Serious Play using Lego. It’s not actually Lego, but it’s bricks which are in between the size of Lego and Duplo. And one of our volunteers goes in and builds models with residents because that is a very therapeutic thing to do. So we’ve really seen the friends at Oakland’s grow in number of volunteers, but also in innovation. I think it’s an amazing Friends Group. It’s really good.

Interviewer

Have you been volunteering for most of your life?

Catherine Wood

Yes. So I’ve always been a nurse since I was 18. So a long time. I came out of the NHS when I had my son and went to work in the local hospice where volunteering is very much a big thing. Hospices couldn’t run without volunteers.

Interviewer

So how is a hospice different from a hospital?

Catherine Wood

So a hospital cares for people in an acute setting. So people are taken suddenly ill, or they’re having surgery or something like that. A hospice cares for people at the end of life .

Interviewer

Okay.

Catherine Wood

And it’s about getting the best quality of life possible for that person as they approach the end of their life. So I worked paid in the hospice, but worked with a lot of volunteers, and did volunteer stuff with the hospice. So you know, I did some fundraising, and that sort of type of event with them. Then I did some volunteer work for Attend as well, so a lot around quality, and policy setting. But I’m now employed as a consultant. As part of that, I also volunteered for a local homeless charity for a few years. Volunteering has always been part of my life, as well as the Friends of Oakland’s.

 

Interviewer

So, for someone who has had a lot of experience in volunteering, do you have any advice or words of wisdom to say to people who would like to start volunteering or who are very new in their volunteering journeys?

Catherine Wood

I would say if it’s somebody who’s considering volunteering, then do it because it really gives you back what you put into it. So it’s very satisfying. It gives you a different outlook. It definitely fulfills a need in people I think. If you are already a volunteer, I would say to keep going with it. If you feel like you want to change from where you are volunteering, go and find somewhere else to volunteer because it’s just something which helps you develop as a person as well. Apart from it being really good for your CV as well. So I would always encourage younger people to volunteer because it’s a really good thing to have down on your CV.

Interviewer

Do you have anything else you would like to say about Friends of Oaklands or volunteering in general that you feel that we haven’t touched on that you would like to say?

Catherine Wood

No, I think just to say that the Friends of Oaklands does make a difference to the lives of the people who live at Oakland’s Care Home. You know, if anybody wants to come along and join us or see what a Dementia Cafe is like or take part in one of our challenge days, then to just get in touch because we’ve always got spaces for people whether it’s a long-term volunteering or a one-off. Yes. There are so many opportunities out there for people to volunteer.

Interviewer

Are there any challenge days coming up soon?

Catherine Wood

We will have. We haven’t got a date planned yet, but we will be having a garden challenge day hopefully in about a month or so time I would think, to try and get the garden ready for summer for the residents so that they can use the garden in the summer. So it involves mowing the lawn, digging over some beds, planting, all of that sort of stuff. And just another little story. So, we set up on our challenge day last year, a vegetable trug box. So, it stands on legs and it’s like this. That wasn’t very descriptive for your recording, was it? It’s like this, so it’s like a trug on legs. And one of the ladies at Oakland’s – a resident who’s in her eighties – decided she wanted to take responsibility for it. So, we planted with her lettuces, strawberries, carrots, and something else, which I can’t remember (Tomatoes). But, we had such a huge crop of strawberries to start with that all the residents were able – there’s 56 residents – they were able to have a strawberry each with their pudding. We had a huge crop of carrots that they were able to use for the residents lunches.

Interviewer

Oh wow.

Catherine Wood

We had lettuces that they were able to use for the residents and the most enormous bumper crop of tomatoes that the residents had as well. So, it gave great satisfaction to a lot of people.

Interviewer

Wow. Yeah. Those are all my questions.

Catherine Wood

Brilliant.

Interviewer

So thank you so much for interviewing.

Catherine Wood

No Problem.

Interviewer

That’s awesome.