A Look at Calendars

I work for a wonderful company. They are the largest non-profit company in the US, I believe. They have 23 CCRCs (continuing care retirement community) in 8 states and serves over 9,000 seniors.

Check out the link below to see the calendars. My community is called St. Andrews Estates South.

http://www.actsretirement.org/club-members/august-2012-calendars/

Veterans Day Service

In our retirement community, Veterans Day is a very special event. This holiday honors the living veterans who served and are serving our great country. In our independent living community, we have Veterans from WWII, the Koren War and Vietnam War. Veterans Day is always celebrated on November 11 at 11:00 a.m. (I think really it is suppose to be 11:11 am, but that might look funny on your calendar.)
Our program usually involves a few key elements. The first is that we ask the men in the community to make sure that we have the service stats so that we can announce their branch and length of service. This information may be printed on the day's program, used as part of a slide show or shared by the speaker leading the program. We like to give our veterans a chance to stand out on this day. We ask them to gather together and proceed into the auditorium to sit in a reserved section for them. Sometimes I order a boutonniere or corsage for them to wear into the service, or give them a…

Brain Games

Recently we hosted our senior Olympics program. This year we added a new event called Brain Games. I found a really good link for brain games that you should look at to understand the definition.
After looking at that link and reading through some other online material, I realized that there is a difference between training your brain and brain games. Be mindful (pun intended) that you are not qualified to train resident's brains unless you have gone to training for it. We, as activities professionals however, are very capable of playing brain games with those who are interested in our communities.
Recently, I introduced Scattergories, Apples to Apples,Wii Jeopardy,Wii Wheel of Fortune and a Name that Tune type of game. They are fun games that required your brain, so I thought that they were Brain Games. This last game, Name that Tune, I created on my own since I could not find anything that would have been appropriate for this generation to identify with. I downloaded music from t…

Not-So-Newlywed Game

One of the fun evenings in our community is when I host the Not-so-Newlywed Game. I’ve done this a few times and the residents really enjoy getting to know some of our couples better. It is not a program that I do every year. I like to mix it in to the calendar so that it stays fresh. I also have it based on when there are enough fun and interesting couples to participate. It is very important that those who are participating are quick witted, up-beat people, who the community knows and likes. The residents remember the real Newlywed Game with Bob Eubanks, so I make sure to speak to the couples independently and assure them that the questions will not be anything inappropriate. I explain to them that I do realize that unlike a cruise ship, that I know that they have to see the people in the audience for the rest of their lives and that I would not embarrass them.

I find that having four or five couples is perfect in order to make the program move along and stay within the one hour ti…

Recharging Retirees in Retirement Communities

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