A Visit to the STEAM Museum

At Ridgeway Rise Care Home in Swindon, every first Friday of the month we have our residents meeting and one of the points of discussion has been surrounding plans for our regular trips.

It is important to us that we support residents with a life outside of our care home as well as activities and social opportunities within our home. We encourage our residents to be active members of our local community of Blunsdon St Andrew, which is why we make a great effort to go on trips together once a week in our own minibus.

Our trips have included visits to local farms, garden centres, shopping centres, and duck feeding at Peatmoor Lagoon. This month, we attended the Railway Memories Morning at Swindon's STEAM Museum. Our resident Marie attended with Colin, our Activity Coordinator.

Swindon’s STEAM Museum hosted the Railway Memories Morning for people living with dementia and their carers. The event was free and supported by Swindon Borough Council, STEAM Museum and the Friends of the Museum, who all share the same mission to encourage people to reminisce about the Great Western Railway.

The organiser's aim for this event was to rekindle memories of a bygone age, celebrate Swindon’s railway industrial history and form part of the festivities to mark 100 years of the legendary Castle Class locomotives. 

Attendees were invited to see the locomotives up close and personal as well as got the opportunity to walk underneath the engine in the specially designed area.  It was a fully immersive experience and attendees were able to handle artefacts from the museum's collection as well as take a guided tour of the Museum.

This trip took place as part of our 'Dream Catcher' initiative, whereby we go above and beyond to make the dreams of our residents come true. Marie's dad used to work for the railway and it was her wish to participate in this event.

Marie had a wonderful time looking at engines, reminiscing about old times, and testing her memories on old artefacts related to trains and the railway network. Colin also had a wonderful time, and the team and residents enjoyed hearing all about the event on their return. The town has a long railway network history and it was fantastic to see that Borough Council used it to offer this great event to the community. 

We are very fortunate that our care home is located within easy access to many attractions, parks, and garden centres which makes planning a wonderful afternoon off-site so much easier. We value every opportunity we get to take our residents out in the local community and we look forward to making many more of our resident's wishes come true.