It's official -We're a (seasonally) crafty lot at Oaklea

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Profile: Oaklea, 15th Dec, 2020

This year we held a highly successful Christmas craft making competition across all our settings open to all customers as a group or individuals. It proved a great way to motivate and get busy in these challenging times and lets face it - just have some seasonal fun!

Here you can see Martin & David from our Balmoral House in Ferryhill working on their entry…

Judge and Jury - tis never easy…

There was a really good response and the judges had hard decisions to make! The baton was passed across the Pennines several times from Oaklea Head of Care Stella Crennell and Deputy Head of Care Liz Lomas for Oaklea Director Sue Green to have the ultimate say….no pressure then Sue!

The Categories were

• Best Christmas Picture
• Best Homemade Christmas Cracker
• Best Homemade Christmas Hat
• Best decorated Christmas cake
• Best homemade elf
• Best decorated window
• Best Homemade decorated wreath

Drum roll please -The winners:

Hat’s off please to…..Best Christmas Hat…Kenneth, Morpeth, Northumberland

Picture this: Best picture…Martyn and David, Balmoral in Ferryhill Durham

Hanging around: Emily Mason from Right2Work - Best homemade Christmas wreath

If you look through the…..Best Window -The gang at 34 Wattsfield, Kendal

It’s a cracker - Yes the Best cracker…went to 3 top ladies at Walby Hill, Rothbury, Northumberland! So give an extra big cracker bang for Agnes, Mary and Sheila!

Ken “does the double” -Best Christmas Cake (nom nom!) goes to Northumberland and our man Kenneth - a double winner today (also won best hat remember!)

And……Elf on the wall…..Kevin & Kit from Barnard Castle with Best home made Elf

But everyone’s a winner really -as we all got super crafty and super busy

And as we got lots of entries across the north -so here’s a selection of some of the rest of our fab entries - Mary (“MLT” as she’s known to close friends!) in Spennymoor, Co Durham took a relaxed approach after her creative endeavours…

Pauline from Barnard Castle - she made a Reindeer….she became a Reindeer!

Emily from Riversiders with a cheery festive message for us all with her entry!

Window on our world: The team at 34 Wattsfield in Kendal even re created our new look ‘working behaviours’….

Well dressed: This was a “Proper Chrimbo” wreath display from The Furniture Warehouse at R2W

Here’s looking up at you -Exterior of The Furniture Warehouse

So here’s to next year…we’ll be back!

Big shout out to:

We should also put on record the legwork done by our employees and teams to make this happen - a special round of seasonal applause to Emma Rowley in Barnard Castle, Bev Hutchinson in Spennymoor, Alex Corrie-Williams in Kendal, Nichola Bainbridge in Barnard Castle, Karen Kidd in South Lakes and Sara Wellock at R2W…and many more too numerous to mention…we love ya!