2012 Winter Conference is quickly approaching

Where does the time go when you’re having this much fun!?

This past year has been a fast paced one.  We’ve welcomed new faces to the organization and have had a great time getting to know them.  These new faces are getting ready to attend their first Winter Conference this week at Welcome Home.  It’s not only a great time to learn new things, but also an excellent time to network with other team members from our communities.

This year’s conference is packed and should offer great learning opportunities.

We’ve been planning this conference for almost two months, and this week, we see those efforts come to life!  With the opening session seemingly hours away, we are putting the finishing touches on the last minute details.

As with years past, this year’s awards program is going to be fantastic!  We will be awarding Best Community Award, Resident Choice Award, Employee Choice Award, and the North Star Leadership Award at the awards program.  The program will air live via our Welcome Home LIVE channel on Thursday at 2:30pm.

Can’t wait to see the whole team on Wednesday and Thursday!

For the love of food

In an older adults life, food plays a vital role.  How it looks, how it tastes, the texture, to how it is perceived.  Every year, we bring our Food Service Director’s together for workshops where we cover topics that are useful to them and their staff in their communities.  These workshops are designed to provide great quality, and a fantastic experience on a daily basis.

Today was our first workshop of the year and we had a great day here in our office.  Along with our food distributor, we welcomed all of the Food Service Director’s along with their Director’s of Resident Services here at Welcome Home for ongoing education.

The room was buzzing as Chef Scott was already preparing food in our training kitchen as our first session began.  Customer service plays such a large role in the overall experience someone gets when they eat food.  From the atmosphere, to the way plates are served and cleared are important.  When we talk about that experience there are four basic needs of our residents: to be understood; to feel welcome; to feel important; and an overall comfortable environment in which to eat.

We spent the next part of the day sampling different varieties of meat, poultry, and fish.  It turned out to be a diet buster for many, but the food was amazing – especially when they brought out the desserts!

The day wrapped up with an excellent presentation on plate garnishing.

We’ve included some pictures below of today’s event.  We want to thank Christine, Terry, and Chef Scott for coming today and for the presentation they gave to our team members.

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Tons of stuff going on!

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who came out to see me speak with a good friend of mine at the Assisted Living Federation of America conference and expo last week in Orlando.  I was incredibly nervous, but I calmed once I saw a few familiar faces out there.  A quick thanks to my friend Traci for inviting me along to speak at such an awesome event!

Also, thank you to everyone who tuned in for our most recent Welcome Home LIVE web-broadcast!  It was great to see so many people engaged in great discussion.

I just wanted to take a quick minute and update all

Welcome Home LIVE: Managing the Stress of Being a Supervisor

This month’s leadership webcast is coming up tomorrow!  This month, we tackle “Managing the Stress of Being a Supervisor.”  Program starts at 1pm and will run approximately 45 minutes.

Welcome Home LIVE is hosted by Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations at Welcome Home Health Care.

This is the 10th installment in our Leadership webinars intended for the staff in our communities.  Even though it is intended for those who work in our communities, we invite everyone to tune in!