Keep Letting us Know Your Ideas For the Bright Ideas Grant
B.I.G is a £50K fund aimed at helping unlock the potential of those hundreds of small ideas and giving people the helping hand they need to prove their idea works and share it widely.
So far we have had over 25 ideas put forward for the grant and this number in fast growing. Please submitt your idea on the site to be in the running for a B.I.G. Once you have submitted your idea you can look through other ideas and vote for any you feel deserve a part of this fantastic grant that will help these ideas become a reality.
Here are just a few of the ideas that have been put forward:
Memory and Sensory Garden: Provision of a memory and sensory garden suitable for use all year round to benefit the 53 service users at The Old Rectory made up of permanent residents and respite care placements as well as their families in their residential care home. Many of the service users have mental and physical disabilities so a safe enclosed garden is paramount, this project would promote their dignity allowing them to create friendships, maintain their identity and allow them to work alongside care staff and activity coordinators in the garden if they so wish as well as creating the opportunity to enable service users to reminisce and relax. The benefits of this would be substantial from a holistic viewpoint.
Personalized Portfolios: Our idea is to produce a booklet that is given to service user's family or next of kin before care service commences. The booklet will contain a few questions and space for the family members or next of kin to fill in and provide details of the service user's personal history, information and likes and dislikes.
The Sound of Music: The hills are alive with the sound of music Our bright idea is to create a choir involving residents, families and members of the community filling the home with music and bringing our home firmly into the community. Thus learning from one another The money will be used for the Choir Master/Music Instructor, music equipment; song books and ultimately travel to and from the home. We hope to perform! Music is proven to be fantastic therapy for everyone particularly residents with Dementia.
Sail Away: Daily 'Sail Away'invitation to Residents detailing different activities available for that day in different areas of the Centre. Assistance and encouragement to residents in choosing what they would like to do and where. Inspired by a Cruise holiday which demonstrated a clear comunication tool aimed at a large number of people with different ideas and past times. essentially the idea is to personalise the residents experience of the service to meet their needs. We are requesting £7.500.00 to complete the current works underway and to create a home Cinema. A DVD would be devised which outlined the service provided and this would be distributed within brochure.
The competition closes on 18th March 2010. We will award funding to a total value of £50K to those projects with most votes at 12 noon 18 March. We will transfer money to the winning projects by April 2010.
Please continue this surge of ideas by submitting your Bright Idea using the link below.