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

 

Ambleside By The Sea

 

The District would like to revitalize our village to create a more vibrant high street. From this corner of 13th and Marine, the downtown core of the village would extend up to 18th and include both Bellevue and Clyde within its boundaries. To establish this walkable, exciting shopping and entertainment area, the District needs to gently increase density in Ambleside in order to create enough patronage for new downtown businesses. One way to achieve this is by re-zoning single family property so that more townhouse complexes and mid rise apartments could be built over time. This, however, may result in driving low income seniors out of the area.   

The statistics on the surface look alarming. According to the last  census Ambleside had 7,500 residents with over half living in single person households.  

About half of the people in Ambleside are over sixty-five years of age and about one quarter of the people in Ambleside make less than $30,000, three-quarters of the people make less than $50,000. 

We are often accused of being the richest postal code in Canada. Many of the seniors may have annuities and other tax havens. The income that shows up on their tax returns may be only a portion of their actual income. However there may be many seniors renting homes (almost 50% of Ambleside residents are renters), who may be forced out of the area due to new higher rents. 

I believe that Ambleside could create an attractive business area and Seniors could remain in their homes. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation. The District needs to take care of rezoning Ambleside and the Provincial Government needs to protect low income Senior Citizens. This could be done through the existing rental subsidy. Using both an income and a means test, people who need this support could age in place comfortably knowing that rent increases would not force them to move.

If there were a number of NORC committees established in those apartment buildings in Ambleside with a majority of older people, they could come together and approach the Provincial Government to make this possible. We are fast becoming a very large demographic. 

Park Bench Pensioner

 

Many years ago, a Vancouver Sun article presented a study of retirees based on their income. I think there were five categories from the very rich who had yachts and country clubs to entertain themselves to the other end where people barely survived on government pensions and subsidies. 

In the middle were three categories, with the lower one having just a little discretionary income compared to the upper category who were those who could afford to travel extensively and live as lavishly as they did before retirement. 

I fall squarely into the lower category which the piece called a Park Bench Pensioner. Often, when I am sitting on one of the many park benches in Ambleside, I think back to this article; the purpose of which was to offer suggestions of how to make the most of whatever situation applied to you.

As I was about to be laid off from my last permanent job, I took these suggestions to heart. Eighteen years later I am still applying those ideas. Basically, I need to find inexpensive ways to socialize and entertain myself so that I can save money for the odd luxury which for me often means travel. Next week, I am embarking on my first major trip in a very long time.

I know, of course, when I get back home, I will need to find inexpensive ways to keep myself amused over the summer and fall. Luckily for me, there are many options which I hope to explore in this blog over the next few months.  

Why I Like Costco

 A few weeks ago, the computer on my car showed that my tires needed air. As I no longer have snow tires to swap out and it is not yet time to have the tires rotated, I thought I could find someone at one of our service stations in Ambleside to help me out. We have four stations within a four block radius of my apartment. 

No luck with that! 

Then, I spoke to the car dealership who suggested that Shell might help me. When I called to find a time convenient to them, I was told they would only help me out if I purchased a full tank of gas at the full serve pump and let me know that a good tip might be in order. When I told him my car was electric, he made it quite clear that they did not deal with electric cars in any way! 

I am no longer able to sit on my haunches long enough to put air in my tires and I find it difficult to read the little air pressure gauge. I suspect there are many seniors that find this task difficult to do. Given the high number of older people in this area, you would think at least one of the service stations would see that as an opportunity to make this service available. 

In any event, on the weekend I went to Costco in Vancouver. The tire shop told me to pull up parallel to their open bays where an employee cheerfully checked and filled all four tires to the correct psi in less than two minutes.  It is a free service. 

Then, the employee refused to accept my gratuity!

Planning For the Future

 

 “Who looks not before finds himself behind.” 

This is a quote from Pubilius Syrus in the First Century BC. I learned this from a February 8th editorial in the North Shore News about Ambleside. The author thinks that the residents of Ambleside are averse to change possibly because almost half of the residents of Ambleside are over the age of sixty-five. 

However, I think we can all agree as the writer points out that our "neighbourhood is more than deserving of some rejuvenation”.

Some benefits to revitalization, as pointed out in the article, are:

• Housing options to match current/future needs

• Greater walkability

• Public amenities

• Beautiful public spaces

• Lower carbon emissions

• Commercial vibrancy 

• Renewed infrastructure

• Diversified tax base

• A place for our workforce to bed down at night.  

You can hear this article by clicking the link below:

https://www.nsnews.com/opinion/editorial-west-vancouverites-should-not-fear-change-in-ambleside-6499482

There are workshops planned this week to discuss possible options to rejuvenate Ambleside at the Seniors' Activity Centre.  All eight in-person and virtual workshop dates are full, with registration closed. Maybe Ambleside residents are not all that 'averse to change'.

https://www.westvancouverite.ca/plan-ambleside

Flowers in the Morning

A good morning...

This is my view from my bedroom window each morning. The magnolia tree is almost in full bloom.

Few things enrich my life more than flowers. They are a continuing source of satisfaction for me. If I can wake up to see flowers outside my window, my day is off to a good start. 

When that is not possible, I try to have flowering plants inside my apartment. Lately this has been the second bloom on an orchid plant which a friend gave me last summer. This is what I see first each day as I approach my kitchen to make breakfast. The flowering cherry tree just beyond the window lifts my mood as well.

Happy Spring!

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.