Second Meeting - Aging Gracefully

The second meeting of Aging Gracefully was held on Tuesday, May 2nd at the Senior Activity Centre in West Vancouver, BC.

Paula Cline opened the meeting with a synopsis of the previous meeting and the purpose of Aging Gracefully. She then introduced our speaker – Jeff Palmer – former WVPD Member, now retired, and current Block Watch Coordinator, emphasizing his breadth of knowledge and wealth of experience in dealing with all kinds of fraud and scams.

Although the attendance numbers were low (5 total), Jeff was very gracious and proceeded to give an excellent and comprehensive presentation, which we all appreciated. This also gave us the opportunity to discuss matters in depth, and all attendees had many questions and input.

Given the proliferation and scope of scams, particularly targeting the elderly, there are too many to go into specifics here.  Jeff said he would send a link to Paula (posted below), which he highly recommended, as it would cover many specifics.

General themes in the presentation were:

• After retirement many people lose touch with resources they had through work. As well,  in general, many older people can become more isolated, leaving them at higher risk of becoming targets of scams.
• Ways to counteract:  Connection with community; knowledge-sharing,  and being proactive. Be aware that at some point some retirees may need support in decision-making.
• Today, scammers are more callous, sophisticated and opportunistic than ever.  If you are in doubt about any situation, take that extra step and consult a friend,  a neighbour, your bank, or take time to do some research BEFORE ACTING. Don’t let anyone rush you into a decision.
• Knowledge and support are key to avoiding getting caught up in these scams. 

…

Below is the link to the Booklet entitled “The Little Black Book of Scams” 

https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/competition-bureau-canada/sites/default/files/attachments/2022/CB-LBBS2-EN.pdf

This is a fascinating quick read which covers everything from identity theft to romance scams. It shows you how to recognize scams so that you can avoid them and emphasizes that you can and should report any suspected scams you encounter. 

 

If you want more information, Jeff can be reached at t: 604-925-7363 | c: 604-785-2446 

www.westvancouverblockwatch.com.

The topic for the  next meeting on June 6th at the Senior Activity Centre will  be - MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying). We have experts who will explain how this process works in British Columbia. 

When Aging Successfully starts back up in September, we have a Financial Advisor from VanCity who will talk us about how our financial strategies may evolve through various stages of retirement.

What's Happening in Ambleside

If you would like to hear a choir...

St Stephen's Community Singers

Director Annabelle Paetsch

Presents

Music of the British Isles

With Harpist Bess Lu

And Flutist Nancy Riecken

Sunday, April 23rd at 2:00 p.m. 

St Stephen's Anglican Church 

885-22nd Street, West Vancouver

Admission By Donation

If you would like to see a play....

APR.

20

8:00 P.M.

THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP

• Thursday, April 20, 2023
• 8:00 p.m.  10:00 p.m.
• McEwen Theatre - Kay Meek Arts Centre (map)

Presented by Theatre West Van
McEwen Theatre

Cost of Admission - $30.00 for Seniors

Or are you thinking ahead to Mother's Day

Mother's Day Market By Portobello West

 

 

Sat, May 13 2023 - 10am to 5pm

 

Lalji Family Atrium, West Vancouver Community Centre

Just in time for Mother's Day!
Shop a curated selection of gifts and find something as special as your mom—from jewelry and art to home décor, skincare, and more!
This event is presented in partnership with Portobello 

West
Free admission

 

NORCs Everywhere

When I started blogging a while back, my aim was to find people in my neighbourhood who were seniors like myself who live alone in an apartment building.  My interest was two-fold:  to make all of our lives more interesting and fulfilling by creating a network of ‘seniors helping seniors’ and to provide local information about our little village, the kind that might have been available in the past from a local radio station - weather, tides, upcoming events, etc.

I live in a building and a village both of which can be described as a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community or, NORC, for short. Statisticians in Ontario coined this term when they discovered pockets of older adults living within a short radius of each other who were actually aging very successfully in place. Like my neighbours in Ambleside, when people find a place with good amenities and services, they very rarely leave. My next door neighbour who is in his nineties has lived in his suite for over fifty years. 

Then, the University Health Network in Ontario promoted the formation of NORC Committees which is a group of people within a building dedicated to improve the lives of seniors. They have been successful in establishing a network of these groups in Ontario. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find something similar happening in British Columbia. 

My building is a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community as are several others within a few blocks from where I live. My thought was that I could encourage a few people to form a NORC committee within their building, and of couse our building, based on guidelines presented by UHN (University Health Network). 

https://norcambassadors.ca/about/

At the same time, however, I am just discovering the many secrets of successful of blogging in 2023. Due to the high volume of bloggers like me, search engine companies like GOOGLE are overwhelmed with us and have had to set criteria on what becomes searchable. I have also found that I need to engage with social media - facebook, instagram, pinterest, etc., - and to learn about search engine optimization. It may be as much as ninety days before I can expect this blog to become searchable online. The only way to see my blog at present is by knowing my blog address (URL).

While I am waiting for people on the internet either here in Ambleside or from anywhere to find me on a search of keywords like ‘Aging in Place’, ‘Aging in Ambleside’ or ‘NORC’, I have a couple of months to get involved with other social networks and to learn more about blogging in general. In the meantime, I intend to keep blogging and hoping that my small circle of friends and family will help me promote this blog one person at a time. 

As I write this, it occurs to me that this network does not need to be just in my small community, it can be anywhere the internet takes it. NORC committees could be set up and associated with others in all parts of Canada where there are pockets of retirees. Although it would be nice to have a few close enough that we could meet for coffee from time to time.

First Official Meeting of Aging Gracefully

On Tuesday April 4th, we had our first official meeting of the Aging Gracefully group at the Senior Center. There were 17 people in attendance. 

Paula Cline opened the meeting with a delightful overview of what we hope to accomplish and introduced our speaker, Dr. Deborah O'Conner, 

Deborah O’Conner, who is a Professor at the School of Social Work at UBC, presented our group with her modified version of Palmore’s Facts on Aging Quiz. This sparked a lively discussion around how the normal aging process affects our daily lives. Once we have a basic understanding of what normally happens to our bodies and minds as we age, we can more readily determine when we need additional help or services before a crisis emerges. 

Three main themes of the afternoon were:

• Advocacy - we need to advocate for ourselves and/or have someone advocate on our behalf
• Ageism - we need to be aware of myths perpetrated by ageism which may stop older adults from seeking help
• Social Isolation - we all need to be more aware of a drift towards social isolation and its dangers.

In future sessions, Aging Gracefully hopes to delve deeper into many of these ideas. In May, we will hear from Sgt. Mark McLean, WVPD, and Jeff Palmer, Block Watch Coordinator, on how to recognize and thwart scams. In June we will hear from experts on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

We're The Best

 

Ambleside may be the very best place to retire in Canada and possibly in the world. We have the perfect mix of urban/country living. As well, we have just about everything a retiree could want - a temperate climate, a picturesque location, an accessible, walkable village, fairly good public transportation, and an exceptional library and senior center. 

Our senior center, in addition to a wide variety of programs that can entertain and enlighten you, has a cafeteria that offers healthy, hot, delicious lunches seven days a week. The chef is outstanding and food selection is interesting and varied. Soon, special evening meals served twice a week will be available again. Through the shuttle bus service and special programs, the center is accessible to all seniors in the area. 

Our library is just as accessible and welcoming. Along with a world class book selection and wonderful tech services, it offers a variety of both free courses and free entertainment. Tonight, at 7:30 there is a free concert featuring The Slocan Ramblers. Here is the link 

https://westvanlibrary.ca/event/friday-night-concert-the-slocan-ramblers/

Where Are We Going?

First of all we had our parents and family, then possibly our teachers and later maybe mentors to guide us. Now, we have retired and all of those influences/influencers are gone; often, we have suddenly lost partners and good friends. Covid emphasized just how isolated we can become. 

Many of us will spend around thirty years in retirement. While we may have squirreled away a little money and dreamt of travel and golf and escape from winter to ready ourselves for this freedom-55 ideal, many of us find the reality quite different.

While we may be traveling a bit and playing golf occasionally, the reality is that we are often  spending more and more time with basic health and happiness concerns. Doctors and lab visits along with physiotherapy/chiropractors, massage therapists and exercise programs fill our calendars. We often do this just to maintain our current health. At the same time, our social networks are diminishing as people move on or pass away. 

It can sometimes be difficult to know the best solutions to our changing lives. Media and governments have their own agendas when they address our issues. Often they are founded in reaction to problems. Only when seniors have been scammed out of their life savings or long term care beds become too scarce, does the media and government take note. We need a plan to understand and deal with these issues before they become emergencies. 

Few of us have studied gerontology. We have some vague ideas that our senses will diminish over time and that we will eventually become frail. We become wrinkled and gray-haired or bald. Our short term memory becomes worse over time. Of course we are constantly hearing on the news and through advertisements of how we can avoid all of this or at least diminish the negative effects of aging.  However, it is difficult to know what is real from what is hype. 

To counteract this, a program is being offered at our Senior Centre called ‘Aging Gracefully”. Once a month, qualified people will speak to this group on the best ways to age happily and healthily. Hopefully, we can gain some insight on how to live our best lives.

Weaver of Grass

     

     

Was it Mae West who first said “Old age isn’t for sissies” or  is it Bette Davis who may have first said 'Getting old ain't for sissies.’  Both were fiesty women who had many one-liners.

It is a line that pops into your head when you are struggling. The blogger who writes of “Weaver of Grass” is a woman I have been following for about ten years who has used these lines in her blog and it certainly applies to her life...

https://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/2023/03/age.html

https://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/2023/03/getting-old.html

She, I believe her name is Pat Thistlethwaite, is ninety years old and has been blogging since 2008. She talks about old age creeping up on her. Pat has acquired several hundred followers and gets many responses to her blogs. 

She is my inspiration for ‘Aging in Ambleside’. 

Aging In Place

No one I know wants to move into long term care - not into assisted living or a nursing home. Governments do not want us moving into these facilities whether or not they are subsidized. For individuals it often means that your life and your control over it is diminishing drastically. For governments it means increases in costs and the problems of managing regulations that are never adequate for even the present issues. The answer to both sides of this conundrum is often simply to age in place. 

However… the opportunity to age in place successfully seems to to out of reach for many individuals and couples simply because of a lack of coordination of services along with a misalignment of funding. Often a crisis occurs and decisions need to be made quickly. Individuals have no time to look at a variety of long term solutions. They need immediate help with mobility, medications or diet or a combination of the three. The solution is often to move them to the first available bed in a nearby facility.  

An Ontario group is trying to change this. Their solution appears to be both cost effective and simple.  

A group of medical statisticians while reviewing Canada census information observed that there were many clusters of people over the age of sixty-five in many parts of the province. Often these groups were found in apartment buildings in urban centers. They coined the term NORC to describe these Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities.  As the medical people began to formulate plans to take advantage of the economies of scale these groups might produce, another concept began to emerge. This idea has the potential to transform the opportunities for seniors to keep control of their own destinies and ultimately allow them to stay in their present homes. 

Any building or area where at least seventy percent of the residents are over the age of sixty-five can be identified as a NORC. These groups might be in individual condo buildings or rental buildings or town houses or even clusters of homes in close proximity. Ambleside not only has many buildings that could quality as a NORC but the village itself is one large NORC. 

If a few individuals within one of these clusters were to create a group, or a committee, to formulate plans, they could interact with the seniors within their cluster and with health agencies, stratas, local governments and other businesses to make aging-in-place much more manageable over time. Plans could be put in place to help people who may need help in the future to live comfortably in their present home. Day to day inconveniences could be minimized; information and resources could be shared. Social isolation, especially during times of ill health, could be reduced. A group like this could join with similar groups in our area to let government know how best to support people who want to stay out of long term care. 

Here is a website which will show you how this could work: 

https://norcambassadors.ca/about/

First Day of Spring

It makes no sense to celebrate the start of a New Year in the middle of winter just because of an old Roman calendar. The first of January can be cold and bleak and most of us are hung over from the excesses of Christmas. We have bills to pay and weight to lose. We are expected to celebrate in the dead of winter when it is dark most of the time and travel can be dangerous. Many people are tired of socializing by that time and have no money left for parties or new clothes.

Think of how much better it would be to move this celebration of the arrival of a new year to the first day of Spring. This would put us more in sync with nature. We could make new plans for success without the weight of winter depression to impede us. We have longer days and warmer weather and new growth to celebrate. By March we could have our credit cards from Christmas paid off and be ready to party again.

Happy Spring!