A ready-to-run activity hour for your residents, every week
Every Thursday you get a 9-page pack for the week ahead: a timed session plan, a quiz, a story to read aloud, talking cards and puzzles. Print it, read the plan once and run it. If you’re pulled onto the floor, a colleague can run it instead.
The sample is free and needs no card. Subscriptions are £19 a month per home, and you can cancel any time.
Look inside the sample issue
These are the real pages. Tap one to read it full size.
How the hour runs
Every pack starts with a plan like this one, taken from the sample issue.
Covering for the coordinator? Everything you need is here. Print pages 2 to 9, read this plan once, and follow the timings.
Why we make it
Activity coordinators are often the first to be pulled onto the floor when a shift is short, and the planning is what gets squeezed. Fireside Weekly is that planning done for you: one complete hour, every week, that anyone on the team can pick up and run.
It’s written for adults who have lived full lives, so there’s nothing childish in it. Every quiz question has easier choices in brackets so everyone can join in. Every answer is checked against a named source before the pack goes out.
The pages are set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface the Braille Institute designed for readers with low vision. Enlarge them to A3 for the group table.
There are good free resources out there, and you should keep using them. This is for the weeks when there’s no time to pull them together. At £19 a month it works out at about £4.40 a week, less than half an hour of staff time.
Fireside Weekly
Coming up
Themes for people who grew up in Britain between the 1930s and the 1960s. Each pack arrives the Thursday before its week. Plans may change.
- Bonfire Night & Britain in the FiftiesThe free sample
- Remembrance & the Home FrontFree quiz
- Puddings, Pies & Sunday Dinners
- St Andrew’s Day & Around the British Isles
- Getting Ready for Christmas
- The Big Freeze of 1963
Prices
Per care home. There’s no VAT to add.
- One care home
- £19 a month
- Groups of five or more homes
- £15 a home, a month
- A whole year, by invoice
- £190 a home
One subscription covers everyone in the home, and you can print as many copies as you need. Monthly plans are paid by card, with no contract, and you can cancel any time. The annual plan is paid by invoice (bank transfer), with a full refund within 14 days.
Founding homes. Subscriptions open in November 2026. The first 20 homes to join get their first month free and keep the £19 price for as long as they subscribe. Reserving a place is free and commits you to nothing.
Questions
Anything else? Email team@firesideweekly.com
What arrives each week?
A 9-page PDF by email every Thursday, ready for the following week. It has a session plan, a two-round quiz, a themed feature, a short story to read aloud, conversation prompts, puzzles, talking cards, an activity record and the answers.
Print one copy for whoever runs the session, plus puzzle sheets for anyone who’d like one. The talking cards need cutting out.
Is it suitable for residents living with dementia?
Many parts suit people in the earlier stages, especially the talking cards, conversation prompts and read-aloud story. Every quiz question has an easier version with two choices. Every pack also has a note on adapting the session, including a quieter one-to-one option. You know your residents best, so use the parts that suit them.
How is each pack made?
We use AI tools to help draft each pack. Every fact is then checked against a reliable source, and a person reads the whole pack before it goes out. The stories are original and written for the pack. We never use song lyrics, famous characters or anyone else’s artwork.
Can’t we just use ChatGPT?
You can, and it’s handy for ideas. But it won’t tell you which answers it made up, and it won’t plan and time an hour that a colleague could run. We use AI for first drafts too. What you’re paying for is the checking, the planning and a print-ready pack, every week.
Can we share it with our other homes?
A subscription covers one home, and that home can print as many copies as it needs. Groups of five or more homes pay £15 per home.
How do payment and cancelling work?
Monthly subscriptions are paid by card. Annual subscriptions are paid by invoice. If your home needs an invoice or purchase order for monthly billing, just ask. A monthly subscription can be cancelled at any time, and it stops at the end of the month you’ve paid for. There’s no contract and no cancellation fee.
Who makes Fireside Weekly?
A small, independent UK publisher, just starting out. If you spot a mistake, email us and we’ll fix it. Subscribers can ask for any back issue.
What do you do with our details?
We keep only what you give us, use it to send what you asked for, and never sell or share it. The activity record in each pack is for your own files, so please don’t send us residents’ details. Read our privacy notice.
Send for the free sample issue
All nine pages of Bonfire Night & Britain in the Fifties, ready to print. Fill this in and it opens straight away.
There’s no card to enter. We’ll email once, about a week later, to ask how it went.
Thank you. Your sample is ready.
Open the sample (PDF, 9 pages)Print the pack, read the session plan once, and you’re set. We’ll email you in about a week to ask how it went. Honest answers help us most.