As the chills of winter descend upon us again, I hope everyone has their firewood stacked and their rugs and uggs ready!
There was a bit of a hiccup with our kitchen staff in March when our Chef left us at short notice. We did manage to get our meals prepared and delivered with some assistance from our previous chef Kellie and a fantastic team effort from everyone here.
We are delighted to welcome Rachael Morley to Meals on Wheels as our new permanent Chef. She has moved to us from another local business who I am sure are missing her as much as we are enjoying having her here.
Thank you all for your patience through this period (customers and drivers) as there were a few days where meals were later than planned but we are glad that we still got them cooked and delivered!
We average about 3,000 meal units every month—including sandwiches, smoothies and desserts. Our service numbers remain steady with a few new clients coming on board in the last few months.
We have just received the very welcome news that our current federal fund-ing contract has been extended to 2020. We receive funding from the De-partment of Health (Commonwealth Home Support Program or CHSP) to sub-sidise the cost of producing and delivering your meals each day.
While the federal government is undertaking (yet another) review of the Aged Care System and seek to review the current funding structure, they have al-lowed us to continue as we are for the next 2 years. The Department has stipu-lated the need for all aged care service providers to conduct annual reviews of their clients to ensure they are providing the right type and level of services, as required by the client. Most likely this will mean a brief chat and check-in with each client.
We have just changed to our winter menu which has many favourites and we have added a few reliable winter-warmers plus some new meals which we are excited to offer you.
We were recently the recipients of a most generous donation of a Petrof up-right piano which has found a happy home in our dining room. It has been gifted to Meals on Wheels by the family of client Netta whose hus-band purchased the piano and hand-made the piano stool for their grand-daughter.
Allinghams were kind enough to halve the deliv-ery fee and local tuner John Hatfield has subsi-dised the cost of tuning the piano and a few mi-nor repairs.—lovely gestures from both busi-nesses.
We hope that some of our future function bookings will break into spontaneous song!
All the best, Kerryn Williams