Melbourne Cup Celebrations in Aged Care
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When is it?
The race that stops a nation will still be run on the first Tuesday in November, starting at 3pm local Melbourne time.
A great event for Aged Care!
For many seniors the Melbourne Cup has been part of their life growing up in Australia and hosting a special event in aged care can help bring feelings of joy and celebration into their day.
Tips for running a successful Melbourne Cup event in Aged Care
Decorate
Decorate the activity room with horse memorabilia and posters. You can google search horse racing to find some attractive photos to print.
Decorate the dining tables with any horse-related ornaments, flowers, and balloons.
Dress up
Encourage the staff to dress up as Jockeys, Bookies, or just wear a special outfit complete with a fascinator or hat.
Enjoy a roast chicken lunch with some light champagne.
Run some Games
Have a horse racing quiz, play fun racing games like Pool Noodle Horse Race and have sweeps where the residents & staff have a chance of winning some money for a small outlay.
Fashions of the field, best hats and lucky spot prizes.
How to run a Melbourne Cup Sweep
The Melbourne Cup is a long race 3200 meters (2 miles) and the prize money is worth $8,000,000.
1. Cut out the names of the 24 horses running in the Melbourne Cup,
2. fold the names and place in a bucket.
3. Allow 24 people to be in each sweep.
4. Make a list of all 24 participants, then draw out a horse for each person from the bucket one by one.
5. Write each persons name clearly on a whiteboard with the name of the horse that was drawn for each person next to their name.
6. If the tickets were $2 each you will have a prize pool of $48.
7. Have 4 prizes. The winning horse receives $20, second place $15, third place $10 and the horse that runs last gets $3.
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