Events

December 2011 – A Creative Christmas

All the Bradbury House homes got creative this Christmas, sending in many glittering entries to the Day Care Christmas Card Competition. After much deliberation, a winner was selected: congratulations to Tracey of Bradbury House who won the competition with her lovely Christmas Angel entry.

Tracey’s design and four others were chosen for the Bradbury House Christmas cards, which were sent out to family and friends. The Christmas card designers also included Christine in 2^nd place (Bradbury House), Rosie in 3^rd place (Cypress Lodge), Kim in 4^th place (Bradbury House ) and Philip in 5^th place (Cypress Lodge).

Tracey was awarded with a delightful arts and crafts material pack and the runners up also received crafty prizes – we’re sure the prizes will inspire even more glittering creativity.

Overall the effort and quality of the artwork was so impressive that a special award was introduced for those who put in an excellent effort. An additional 15 runners up were selected and awarded with certificates and festive chocolates.

Well done to all the talented designers and artists who inspired us with their delightful Christmas card designs.

December 2011 – Another accomplishment for The Craftshed

Bendalls Farm Day Care have set up their own enterprising craft group called The Craftshed, which made a successful appearance at a recent two-day event hosted by the Priddy Good Farm Shop.

The Craftshed is a not for profit concern within the Bradbury House organisation whereby our services users make a variety of rural crafts and produce from scratch and then sell them locally. The unique crafts include bird boxes, hand blown glass, beeswax candles, willow craft and homemade preserves.

The Craftshed hosted a stall at the two-day event, organised by and held at Priddy Good Farm Shop. A number of people from Bendalls Farm and The Old Rectory attended the event to sell produce they had made and assist in running the stall. The Farm Shop made it an especially festive event with offerings of mince pie and mulled wine.

Customers and stallholders alike were in high spirits during the festive wintery event. Our stallholders worked especially hard. Lacel added up the stall’s sales on his calculator and Dan proved to be a natural, with the stall up and running like clockwork within minutes. Leon and Richard chatted to customers about the handmade crafts and handed out the free mince pies.

At lunchtime, our enterprising Craftshed stallholders decided to treat themselves to a break with a lovely pub lunch enjoyed by the warm log fire. Feeling refreshed, they returned again to the wintery cold to enjoy the festivities and sell more of their lovely handmade crafts and produce.

The Craftshed has made a great success of its stalls this year and we hope to plan more for the new year – watch this space!

“I really enjoyed talking to all the people about the things that I made and felt very proud that they were so impressed and wanted to buy things off me.” – Lacel  

 “I love working on market stalls as I used to help my family out on the weekends doing something similar, I really enjoyed getting out for the day and mingling with new people.” – Dan

“Can we do another one next week? I really enjoyed it! I felt really proud!” – Richard

December 2011 – Bradbury House Christmas Party

The annual Christmas party was a resounding success again this year. Father Christmas (looking remarkably like support worker Jerry Hale) found time from his busy schedule to sit in our grotto and hand out presents to one and all.

Christmas party attendants first had to follow a trail of muddy clues to find Father Christmas’s location, causing much excited anticipation. Even two of Santa’s reindeer put in an appearance: Donner (played by Sally) and Blitzen (played by Alice).

While feasting on party food and pop, the partygoers enjoyed fun Christmas games like pass the parcel, pin the nose on Rudolf and the Christmas quiz. Richard from Bradbury House treated everyone to a moving rendition of Jingle Bells and Catherine impressed by naming all of Santa’s reindeer.

December 2011 – Ideas flow at the Bendalls Farm end of term meeting

At the end of each term, Bendalls Farm daycare gather round with tea and snacks to reflect on the activities and events held over the last three months. Ideas for the next term flow and plans start to take shape.

At the latest end of term Christmas meeting there was much nodding and agreement that animal care is the leading favourite of the farm jobs. Attendants requested more animal care work in the next term, which luckily there will be plenty of! The animals will be bedded up inside for the winter and will need to be fed and cared for.

The Quantock group eagerly requested more day trip adventures to explore the local area. Suggestions included Cheddar Gorge and a day trip to the seaside. Organising begins with the new year, though we may have to wait for the weather to warm up before we brave the seaside (unless of course we can dive in to a cheerful seaside café after to warm up).

Music was also high on the list. Rob is very keen to try out some relaxation sessions and would like to attend more music and dance workshops. Craig asked if he could organise a night club party in the Quantock group room and invite everyone along for a bit of fun.

The Mendip group said they have really enjoyed making produce for the craft stalls. Favourite activities include melting and rolling candles and cooking up jam and chutney in the farmhouse kitchen.

Thinking ahead, Lacel recommended planting some bulbs in pots so they’ll be ready to sell at the stalls in spring. With many keen gardeners in attendance, the idea was a firm favourite. The group said though that they had got a bit fed up with all the mulching done for the vegetable plot. (Pushing wheelbarrows up a hill is indeed hard work!) It’s been agreed to take a break and begin again with vegetable planting for spring.

The Blackdown group are very keen to continue walking the pygmy goats and making bird tables. The group is also ready to take on the task of mucking out the pigs but would like to share the load with another group. Neal requested a trip to the garden centre to buy new seeds for his square foot garden. Phillip said that he would like to do more art activities as he really enjoys being indoors in the warmth through the winter months.

With such great feedback and so many good ideas, our group leaders have plenty of inspiration to start planning activities for the new term and new year. 

“I love working on the veg plot and doing the mulching. And the new thing I learnt this term was how to make candles.” – Jamie

“I really liked being praised by people who bought their produce on the stall.” – Lacel

“My favourite jobs to do on the farm is the fencing and banging in all those posts with the tools we get to use.” – Martin

“Next term I would like to start doing my strimming again around the footpaths if it ever stops raining!” – Lee

“I just love coming to day care to see the rabbits in our barn, they have grown so much. I always save time at the end of the day to cuddle them and read them stories from my book, I wish I could take them home!” – Catherine

“At day care I like walking the goats around the farm on leads and feeding them treats. My favourite goat is called Nelson. Next term can we make things with papier-mâché?” – Phillip

“I want to get more involved with running the market stalls, I really enjoyed running our festive stall and I want to get on the committee and be able to make more decisions about what we do and how we do it.” – Daniel

November 2011 – Bendalls Bonfire 2011

The Bendalls Bonfire night was held at the Mendip Group Barn and gave everyone the opportunity to participate in a range of games and activities, to sample homemade produce and purchase handmade crafts produced on the farm.

The menu for the evening included a hog roast and burgers, kindly provided by Priddy Good Farm Shop, as well as meat provided by Bendalls Farm. Will and Jo worked especially hard all night to make sure that everyone had their fill of hot food, trying to keep the queue as short as possible at all times.

Our arts and crafts activity was among the most popular for the evening and was held around our new indoor art table. Here everyone had a go at creating their own homage to the dazzling fireworks using chalks, glitter, sticky stars and lots of glue! It was certainly a very sociable place to sit and catch up with friends whilst sampling the homemade non-alcoholic mulled wine on offer and watching the buzz of the evening.

The fireworks display held at the Mendip Barn proved to be a spectacular finale to a great evening. Everyone went home with stars in their eyes, full bellies and bags full of wonderful produce and crafts. Certificates were also handed out to Bendalls Farm residents and staff in recognition of all their hard work on the farm during the year. Well done to our very own Kim for getting her special certificate for hard work in health and safety.

There was also a raffle and tombola on offer for those that were feeling lucky. The top prize was a delectable, luxury hamper of farm shop food, which was won by Mrs. Longman. Congratulations for buying the winning ticket, we hope you enjoyed your winnings!

We would like to thank everyone for attending and particularly those whose enthusiasm and hard work made the evening such a great success.