Let's Dream!
This section is quite long, and mainly for the ‘dreamers’ among us, like me.
If you read the ‘About Us’ information, you would have noticed that, after my beautiful wife Jackie died in February 2022, I said I decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to improve the quality of life of older people. Given my age, my experience, my skills and my situation, and the fact that I’m now there myself, it would seem to make good sense on a number of fronts, for me to spend my time productively on things I can still do.
On the face of it, it's a pretty bold and noble claim I know, but what people think of me, and how I view challenges have never stopped me in the past, especially when I have a mind to try something. Losing $50,000 plus trying my Seniors Happy Life magazines prove that. Every time one of my ideas fails, I just see it as gaining experience or learning how not to do something next time.
To demonstrate that I’m not just talk, let me share with you some of the ideas that I have on my “Let’s Dream” try and do list. I won’t go into a lot of detail about each project here, but you’ll find links to more detailed explanations, if you’d like to know more.
I just want to show you that I’m more than just talk. Of course, many will never happen for one reason or another, but for now at least, they are all “alive” ideas.
Finally, don’t be afraid to use my ideas to come up with your own variations or, if you have contacts or resources who may be able to help kick them along, go for it. There are some really good concepts among them, and my hope is that one day they’ll each be given a chance.
Feel free to contact me with any questions, suggestions or thoughts you may have.
Let’s start with some of the things that I’ve already achieved…
Seniors Happy Life Magazines
Throughout 2023 I produced 12 issues of Seniors Happy Life Magazine. Its purpose was simply to provide older people with a variety of reading and other material that would bring them a unique collection of enjoyment and amusement. I felt it was the best thing I had ever done but history will tell otherwise. I completely under-estimated my ability to get the necessary publicity I needed.
The result of this saw me lose more than $50,000 over 12 months and probably 95% of those who would have responded favourably to the magazine never hearing about it. It’s still a great concept but would require a major media player, who could give it the national publicity it needed, to embrace it. Copies of all 12 issues of the magazine are still available at greatly reduced cost. Read more here.
Good Company Table Mates
This is a simpler and much reduced version of my Seniors Happy Life Magazine. It is available in digital format, ready for photocopying, and designed purely for aged care facilities. Three issues are currently available.
Blokes Breakfasts
I host these fortnightly from 8am on a Saturday in my local area. Put simply, I have about 16 blokes on my list, and I invite 6 of them each fortnight to my home to enjoy breakfast and an informal time of fellowship. It started off with blokes who had lost their partners like me, but has since expanded on that.
There is no cost for my guests, and I’ve been doing this for over 2 years. The blokes keep coming back and appear to thoroughly enjoy their time together.
My purpose with this project is simply to connect people face to face, something I believe can be done better on many fronts, and especially where old people (particularly those who battle loneliness) are involved.
Dinner Gatherings
Over the last 2 years I have organised several dinner gatherings for between 12 and 30 people, some for blokes only, others mixed. The concept I choose is that I arrange everything, people just have to come along. Sometimes I held them at my home, others I arranged at a restaurant. In some cases I covered the costs, for others, people were asked to pay something.
My experience has been that most people will often come to something that has been organised and that is appealing, but against that, some of those same people prefer not to organise such events themselves.
These gatherings have also proven to be very popular and are another great way to connect people face to face.
The Grey Board
This is just a variation of an existing practice. I have arranged to install a Community Notice Board (mine is called The Grey Board) in a local shopping centre, but this one has been designed to provide ‘Seniors’ with something more interesting and useful.
I personally service it regularly to ensure that the information displayed is current, relevant, neat and tidy and also entertaining.
Click here if you’d like to read more about my Grey Board idea.
Table Tennis Robot
I have a friend who is Japanese and is a high-class table tennis player and coach. One of the things he does is work with and teach elderly people how to play. He has told me of the benefits that table tennis offers older people in the areas of gentle activity and concentration.
This led me to arrange and donate a table tennis set up, complete with a ball throwing robot to a local aged care facility. I also go along regularly to spend some time with those residents who like to have a go.
Now to the works or ideas that are in progress…
Seniors Happy Life Café
The thinking behind this idea is to provide a low-cost café/coffee shop experience for seniors who can’t otherwise afford normal shop prices. Read more here.
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Seniors Song or Anthem
Imagine a song that captured our imagination like “I am woman” and “We are Australian” has, a song that highlighted the challenges of reaching old age, and encouraged us all to be more mindful of the needs of our ageing loved ones. This is just an idea at this stage, but one possible theme could be something along the lines of “helping our seniors finish well”.
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Connect2day
This is a very simple concept designed to encourage everyone to “connect” occasionally with someone they know or care about. It would have huge implications if it caught on, but would need the Federal Government to embrace it for that to happen. You can get the general idea of what I have in mind here.
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New Friends Network (NFN)
This is an idea I had a few years back and it’s along similar lines to some of my other ideas for ‘connecting’ people. However….Surprise! Surprise! I recently discovered the Federal Government has a grant program where they fund groups and organisations right across Australia to do very similar to what my NFN concept talks about. It’s called the Aged Care Volunteer Visitor Scheme and the Government currently has issued grants of $92 million across nearly 200 auspices across Australia. Other similar visitation services are also provided by home care providers etc. That’s really quite wonderful, but in my judgement I think more could be done in a less “clinical” fashion. How people “feel” and not just how they are “serviced” is important, that’s where I want to come from.
See quite a detailed explanation of my thinking here.
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Golden Girls
This Golden Girls idea comes from something I did many years ago. At the time I owned a local community newspaper and we arranged for a local hairdresser and a local beautician to partner with to “spoil” about 12 ladies in an aged care facility nearby. It was an outstanding success on all fronts, and I’ve always wanted to do something similar, given the opportunity. My interest in helping seniors now gives me that opportunity and like my other ideas, it will take a bit of organising. That’s never stopped me yet. You can read more about this idea here.
Seniors Games Tablet
Games that can be played online or on a device are out there in their thousands. Many older people play them, and they offer great benefits for passing the time and keeping the mind active. However, I wondered about those older people who have almost no idea whatsoever about negotiating technology, and I have this idea for a very simple tablet for this group, one with only a handful of popular and easy to play games. In my research I did find a Seniors Games Tablet that is very good but far too complicated for what I’m looking for.
I purchased it from Hawaii and it cost around $600. It’s probably a stretch for me at this stage, but none-the-less, it’s on my to do list just in case a way to do it comes up. I think such a product would be a great addition to the mix of activities aged care facilities provide for their residents.
Radio Serials
Nostalgia in all its forms has great appeal to people in their later years. That led me to think about the possibilities of providing a means whereby residents in aged care facilities could listen to a radio serial each day.
I haven’t worked out the means or logistics yet but my idea is that at a regular time each day, in a particular place, residents can sit and listen to an old radio serial, one like the Castlereagh Line for example.
Maybe, each episode plays several times a day to enable all residents to keep up.
At this stage, this too is just an idea that I’m working on.
Helping Hands
This idea is for an entire community and would require considerable involvement and enthusiasm by a local Council, and possibly driven by people from the local Community.
Not impossible, but it would take a Council with serious entrepreneurial flare to implement it.
For those interested, there’s more details here (link coming soon!).