A Heart for Seniors - a care community in Nottinghamshire

About Us

The Wainman Trust is a charity founded in 2013 by our Chair Person Olwen Davis, with a primary long-term vision to develop a not-for-profit Care Community with a Christian ethos in Nottinghamshire for older people. Our mission is to promote the wellbeing of all older people whilst upholding the Christian values of loving and serving one another.

The emphasis is on creating a warm, loving and homely environment throughout with ‘person centred care’ specifically tailored to residents needs and delivered by expertly trained and dedicated staff. It will include a residential home and ‘close care’ apartments. It will be a place where residents can live life to the full, whatever their health issues and will create opportunities to make new friends and enable participation in events in the wider community.

Our focus is on building community among older people, those living within the boundaries of a care facility but also across the wider community.

The demographics of an ageing society identify the need for a wide range of social care for older people. It is well known that there are increasing numbers of people experiencing loneliness or isolation because of mobility issues or the death of a partner. It is recognised that they often struggle with the detrimental impact this has on their physical and mental wellbeing. As the number of older people needing care increases, we believe that affordable, not-for-profit care homes should be an essential part of planning for the future.

Our Christian ethos enables us to draw on the wealth of volunteer help available in faith communities, which has the benefits of improving our sustainability, affordability and community engagement. Volunteers can provide many of the 'extras' that make a significant difference to the ongoing running of the care centre.

Developing a Care Community is a massive challenge. The work on seeking investors and fundraising for the Care Community and realising this dream is on-going.

In the meantime, we have made a successful start by opening two excellent 'over 60's' friendship groups in the city called 'Together' to help address some of the issues raised by loneliness and isolation. They are run in association with local churches and people of any and no faith are welcome. The club in Clifton runs once a week and the other in Arnold twice a week. There are hopes and plans for more!

Together

In 2019 around 2,500 member sessions took place in total and we welcomed over 60 individuals to our clubs. These are fun and welcoming places to be and they run in the day time at a cost of £10 per day (not including trips) which includes fabulous freshly cooked food provided by our onsite staff. Regular activities take place along with day trips out to varied locations such as river cruises, the zoo, theatre and shopping trips, outings to Chatsworth House and garden centres. These are run by our wonderful team of staff and our fabulous volunteers who supplied an amazing 2,522 of volunteer hours in 2019!

Comments from our members about the clubs include: “It’s a great place to make new friends”

“Everyone is very friendly and made me feel very welcome”

“It’s the highlight of my week!”

“I love the trips out. Particularly the Boat trip we went on”

“I love coming here. I bless my daughter for making the phone call to talk to you about me coming along at the start.”

Another lady said. ” You never stop giving at this club.”

The groups are clearly helping deal with loneliness and isolation. One example is Dennis (name changed) who sadly passed away last year. His story –

Dennis was an RAF veteran and had spent a lot of his life in the forces. When he first started to come to the Together group, he was very withdrawn and reluctant to join in with anything, a very private man. After some months of attending the club he began to relax and join in and even came on some of the day trips. One day he said to one of the staff “I can never remember what you call this place but I call it the Happy Club".

The groups offer an opportunity for carers to come along too and can provide some carer respite.

We are funded through the daily fee, donations from churches, groups and individuals; and by grant and trust funds which we regularly apply to.

If you are interested in supporting us or doing more for Seniors in your community here are a few ways you can do this:

Pray - we really welcome your prayers and have a prayer letter which we send out regularly which you can receive

Volunteer! - We need 5 more volunteers to help us in the day time Together groups. Our volunteers have as much fun as the members.

Partner with us - to have a group in your church or community, we would love to talk to you about this possibility.

Donate – you can do this by visiting our website and using the “donate “button www.wainmantrust.co.uk

Care Community - if you would like to be part of the long-term vision for the care community and / or may be interested in hearing more about how to invest in this get in touch.

For all the above -

Contact: Olwen Davis on olwendavis@wainmantrust.co.uk or via our website www: wainmantrust.co.uk

You can check us out on Facebook too!