Just over one year ago, residents moved into our new Audrey Rainsford housing in Carlton!
As part of the 1st birthday celebrations, the Recreation team at Audrey Rainsford Carlton encouraged interested residents to help plan, prepare and host the birthday celebrations.
The Recreation team took some time to learn more about the living legend that is Audrey herself, including her favourite foods, colours, and music. They also learned about Audrey’s life and her journey into Wintringham care. With this information, a theme was developed which included the colour blue and a playlist of music that Audrey loves to listen to.
One of our residents designed the invitations, and then modified and performed a song. “We dropped invitations off to every resident in the hope that they would join us. About 80 per cent of residents joined us for the party, it was an outstanding success, with everyone singing along to the chorus with great enthusiasm,” said Natalie Rowe Recreation Officer.
Resident Krikor contributed to the lunch by providing the finger food. Natalie explains, “His dishes were the most popular food served, by far! So good in fact that he was asked to repeat the dishes for a later gathering. It was a fantastic opportunity for him to contribute in a way that allowed him to show off his skills,” Natalie said.
To finish the celebration, the recreation team organised a raffle with winners drawn by our CEO and Founder Bryan Lipmann AM. Bryan also gave a speech introducing a video message from Audrey herself. “Many of the residents were unaware that the building bore the name of an actual living person. Once they realised, everyone was easily encouraged to sing happy birthday to both the building, and Audrey herself,” says Natalie.
“It was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the first year of the community we are building here at Audrey Rainsford,” Bryan said of the birthday event. “To reminisce on how far we have come, and the part every one of our spectacularly unique residents play in writing the story of our Audrey Rainsford housing.”
This event was not only a great event for our residents, but it was an also an excellent example of the positivity and inclusion that our unique recreation programs offer our clients. The Audrey Rainsford recreation team received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with some residents staying after the party to assist with the clean up! “I’m looking forward to our second birthday already and am excited to see how much more we can achieve by working together through our second year”, Bryan said.