From care and kitchen assistant to first class honours, two members of the team at Pinewood Residential Home have recently graduated from university with the highest of degrees.
Over the last 4 years, both Christina Ward and Sam Pester have worked long and hard to achieve their degrees, juggling the demands of college work and the difficulties faced in care homes during the covid pandemic.
Christina has worked at Pinewood for a number of years, whilst also undertaking a degree in Adult Nursing. Starting as a care assistant when Pinewood was a nursing home, progressed on to become a senior and now, following her first class degree success, will continue her career as a District Nurse. As a part of her new job, she will be running a pain clinic in Exeter.
Similarly, Sam started working for Pinewood when he was 17 years old in our kitchen. In fact, he used to visit the Home with his primary school choir to sing to the residents! He eventually went off to university to study French and German and has worked for Pinewood as bank staff during the holidays. Sam will for the moment continue to work for Pinewood full time whilst he considers what he is going to do with his degree.
Philip Sadeghi, Managing Director at Pinewood Residential Home said “We are immensely proud of both of them. We will be sad to see Christina leave but wish her all the best in her new role, we know she will be fantastic. We are pleased Sam will continue to work with us for the time being as a valued member of the team.”
“Over the weekend, we decorated the lounge in a fun graduation theme and held a little celebration for them both alongside other members of the team who they have worked with over the years. We had a number of special gifts for them including a professional stethoscope marked with the Pinewood logo for Christina and a bottle of his favourite vodka for Sam.
“Huge congratulations Christina and Sam. We are very proud of you and all of your hard work”.
Whenever we could, we took the opportunity to enjoy the warmer weather and the sunshine at Pinewood, and if that meant taking the board games outside, that’s just what we did! The lure of ice cream was just the ticket for enjoyable times too.
Friday’s are all about film club. We love to choose and watch a different film each week over a cuppa and a piece of cake.
‘Just Bowl’ is a Sports England funded project to research ‘Active Aging’. By offering regular ‘Just Bowl’ activities within care homes settings, they have found significant improvements in physical, mental and social well-being. 
We are very pleased that 5 members of our team will be delivering this 12 week program within Pinewood Residential Home. They will commence their training in early June. The activities will run for 12 weeks, with at least two 30 minute sessions per week. 
At 2 p.m. on Saturday 16th May, we are having a Spring Fête. Sharandy’s Birds Of Prey will be coming over to feature as one of the main attractions, along with a BBQ combined with a cake stall, cream tea with scones and jam, a bring and buy sale and let’s not to forget the obligatory raffle!