Wayne Clinton, the People’s Council chairman put forward the idea after some inspiration from a documentary, saying:
“The idea for the Evergreen Café came about after I watched a documentary on BBC1 called ‘Our World’, it was a piece on socialising in care and the way rooms were being adapted into games rooms pubs etc. I raised the idea with management and proposed a café.”
There were several meetings of the People’s Council to decide what they would like to include. They were keen to incorporate the tuck shop that they had created during lockdown, which was an idea to give the residents the experience of visiting the shops when they weren’t able to. Once all the ideas were put forward they then worked on the design with the estates team until it began to take shape. The café has a large seating area, drinks fridge and, the residents favourite, a new coffee machine.
The grand opening was held on Thursday 29th April, with an official ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the occasion. Daniel, a resident at the service, had the honour of cutting the ribbon after proposing the chosen name. The residents are currently working together on a new arts and crafts project to make a sign for the café.
The team at The Fields are hoping that the new café will give the residents a friendly and comfortable environment to get together and socialise after a tricky year navigating the pandemic.
“It is lovely to see all the service users back together and socialising after a very difficult 13 months. The idea for a Café was born out of our People’s Council Meetings, these meetings give our service users a voice and a choice to pick things they want or changes they would like to see with their care or their home. I’m sure over the coming months and years we will all share many happy coffees and chats together.” Lorraine Bostock, Deputy Manager