There's nothing like a festive gathering, cake AND raising money for a good cause - and that's exactly what teams at the Newham Centre for 
Mental Health did. Staff and service users congregated in the conference room on Wednesday 17 December to view and sample all the baked goods.
All entries for the bake-off included service users from the six wards and included a wide range of flavours: chocolate cakes, victoria sponge, cake balls, lemon drizzle, red velvet cake, biscoff cheesecake and much more. There was even a Grinch cake! (See below.) More cakes were supplied by staff from all over the unit and from Newham community teams. So there were a lot of yummy calories all in one place!
This was serious baking with serious judging. The judges were Chief Nurse Claire McKenna (Prue Leith) and Chief Finance Officer, Kevin Kernow, (Paul Hollywood), never ones to shy away from a Victoria Sponge. Joined by local judging leads, Georgia (Gina) Ntzimani, Directorate Lead for Occupational Therapy, Gavin Taylor, Clinical/Counselling Psychologist and Lorraine Greene, Deputy Borough Lead Nurse. The winners were Topaz Ward first, then Sapphire Ward, and thirdly, Emerald Ward. Congratulations to all.
Occupational Therapy Technician, Aida Mumtaz, was one of the organisers. She said, "Thank you to everyone who took part and made this such a fun event. There was fierce competition between wards which was amazing to see, but it brought out the Christmas spirit! The bakers were so creative. Well done to Topaz Ward who won with their delicious Chocolate cake."
Big thanks to Occupational Therapist Project Lead Simone Fritz for providing a fun afternoon for everyone.
Photograph 1: Kevin and Claire taking their judging duties seriously
Photograph 2: The Grinch cake
