This year, Saltwood Care Centre has been lucky to have attained a float for this year’s Venetian Fete on Wednesday 21^st August 2024.

This has been an ongoing project for the last four or five months. The staff and residents have been busy putting it all together and coming up with a stunning design that best showcased the home.

The chosen theme was ‘’life in the home’’ with the design being based on the stunning architectural features the home has to offer: the fountain, garden and the large arched windows of the conservatory.

The management and maintenance team did an excellent job sourcing materials and building the framework and structure of the float. Kim from activities helped to make the fountain and painted the mural on the float depicting some of the care staff standing in the garden waving with a banner thanking all care staff, everywhere. As well as that, some of the residents and friends of Saltwood helped to make felt flower, bees and butterflies to add lots of colour to the float.

On the day of the fete staff arrived from 6am to work on the final build of the float, finishing touches and lights were also added. Managers Sophie, Tash and maintenance Carrie and Ant dressed up as elderly people and the other staff on the float: Sophie C, Caroline B, Lilly, Kim, Dylan, and Steven wore their uniforms to represent all the staff at Saltwood. They sang songs, threw out sweets and squirted the crowds with water pistols!

There was also a stall to showcase the company giving out goody bags with information and biscuits made by the kitchen and cupcakes made by Sophie C to the public to gain interest in the business and explain what we have to offer at Saltwood Care Centre. Caroline S, Mary, Linda and Hayley helped with the running of this stall.

It was a very long day, but very rewarding with our float coming 3^rd in our category and 1^st for the best floral display which makes the resident’s creative efforts worth it in the end. The staff had a really good time, and nobody fell in…not from our float anyway!!!