Gold Prices Entice Seniors

Cha cha ching! Can you hear the sound of cash in your resident's pockets? At my "sister-community" they held a Gold Rush Party, and residents brought their unwanted gold in and walked away with money. They will be hosting another party in October and those interested from my community will attend. The portion of revenue that goes to the community has been earmarked for a tree project that will impact both communities. Read all about it in the Sun Sentinel newspaper article "High gold prices tempt selling."

Update: we have had the event with a local gold buying company http://www.atlanticgoldnow.com/Home.html at our community twice now. It is worth doing in your community as a fund raiser. Find the right person to come to your community and it will feel good to the residents who are interested in selling their gold and silver. 

Movie Scheduling

　

In my original article about showing movies in your retirement community, I spoke about the basics of planning your movie schedule and offered movie suggestions to show in your retirement community. In this article, I will address the rest of the movie story.

As the activities director my goal is to get the residents OUT of their apartment! I don't remember who it was that talked me into showing the movies in their apartments to start with.... but I wish that I never started it. It has been years now since Fridays have been movie nights and residents have the choice of watching from their home or from their apartment. But, after Labor Day, that is about to change! Yeah!!

I started a Monday Movie Matinee feature on my calendar during the summer months last year. This year, it really caught on in the community and they were well attended. I offered free popcorn and punch to those who came to the show. I also showed movies that I felt were the "cream of the crop" for the season.

At my last activities committee meeting, we discussed the movies and my feelings about trying to get residents out of their homes instead of giving them a reason to stay at home.... and the committee agreed. They really liked the idea of having popcorn and punch at the shows, and realized that it was not as inciting after dinner on a Friday night as it would be in the middle of the afternoon.... so it was decided that we would go to Monday matinees. I also had a request to use the closed caption feature on the shows. I think that I will try that and see what the opinion is after a few weeks.

I would love to see the idea of having the movies during the day work out instead of having them in the evening! It will help me also when I can assure that the movie gets started and stopped at the correct time. (I had to rely on our security guard to do it in the past, but now it will be up to me... and I have a new secret weapon that I have to learn how to use.... it is part of the new TouchTown system that I got. The movie can be scheduled into the in-house TV system to run at the right time.)

I found a good and legal website to watch classic movies and documentaries on your computer, IPad, Iphone or Android device. Check out Fullmovies.com This would be great to have on a community Ipad that you can take from room to room for those needing that service

Coney Island Theme Party

As we say goodbye to summer we will be having a Coney Island Theme Party in my retirement community. My thoughts about this have been buzzing around for a few months now, but in the end I've decided to go with the KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid, or Silly as I like to say, since I don't think simplicity is stupid or anyone who chooses to do things simply is stupid.

That being said, let me share with you what I'll be doing in the community for our Coney Island night. First, of course is that I went on-line to see what the place is all about since I've never been there. I did find a few websites that were helpful. I believe that what the residents would remember about Coney Island and what it is now are different. So I read about the history of the theme park also. From the websites, I was able to "grab" a few pictures that I will enlarge and post around at the event.

In my community, we have booths that are three sided that our maintenance department made for the activities department long ago. Some people call them store fronts also I think. I will have about a half-dozen of these placed around the lobby of our community. We will have 3 food booths and 3 game booths. These booths will be decorated to look like carnival station areas. (Check back next week for pictures.)

The menu will be a salad bar, fresh pop corn, Nathan's Hot dogs, sausage and peppers, and baked beans, corn on the cob, french fries, and more goodies that I can not recall right now. For dessert there will be root beer floats, snow cones, ice cream cones and novelty sandwiches. (Funny how I can remember all of those!)

In the game booths we will have a bean bag toss, spinning wheel, and either a dart/balloon game or knocking over bowling pins game. Residents who play can earn raffle tickets based upon their performance. A drawing will be held after dinner at the show in the auditorium.

Decorations for the party will include balloons, pendant banners, the pictures of Coney  Island and some beach items. I'm also making costume banners (with PrintShop) that I will use for identifying what is in each booth. Oh, and I can not forget, I will bring down the "turn stile" that I had made a few year's ago, that I will put out. I usually label it an "exit" with signs pointing to the "parking areas." I also found some wonderful items on Amazon for Coney Island.

Residents will be served their dinner from the booths and then will take them into the dining room where it is "open seating." The servers will serve any resident who can not handle the booths in the lobby. They will be served the same items as if they went to the booth.

After dinner prizes will be award for those who played the games and we will have a great show. It will be a fun night. You might even show one of the DVDs or VHS that I found on-line after dinner. I hope you'll check back and see the pictures and hear what worked and what didn't. If you have any experiences that you want to share about a fair type of theme party, please do so.

ps. Take a look at my other theme ideas listed in the category listed on the left or start at Thinking About Themes.

New Year's Eve Again!?!

This week, I started making the final plans for my New Year's Eve party for the independent living residents in my CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community). The residents like to have a dance, so that is what I do each year. The trick is to make it a bit different each year.

Depending on the residents in the community, sometimes our dance is right after dinner, from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. and sometimes it is 9:30 p.m. until 12:30 p.m. Check out one of my first blog postings ever when I talked about New Year's Eve last year.

This week I spoke with a talent agent that I use from time to time to arrange my musical entertainment. I like to use an agent for New Year's Eve because I want to be assured that I will have someone there that night. It has happened before that I book a performer and he or she finds a better paying job and comes up with an excuse to cancel our arrangement (even with a contract in hand!).  I know that with the agent that I pay a bit more, but the piece of mind is worth it to me.

The agent sent a contract to me that said "one man band" for New Year's Eve. I called to ask what the person's name was and when I was told, I went to my list of performers and found that I did not want him. (Please see my posting on this important tool for scheduling entertainers.) After that conversation, the agent called me to say that they wanted to check a man's name to see if he was on my approved list before they called him to see if he was available. I thought that was great.

My next step is to finalize my dance hosts. With all the single ladies in the community, it is hard to imagine a dance without them! Check out my blog and the articles there about dance hosts in retirement communities! After that, I will be getting my New Year's Eve Party supplies.

Don't wait to the last minute to make a plan for this special night. Your residents will thank you for it!

Dog show and Technology

It is August and in my retirement community, that means a dog show. (See the article on Dog Days of Summer on this blog for the details.) I was trying to figure out how I could involve the audience that will be at the dog show in the voting process, when it dawned on me... technology!

One of the cool things about the company that I work for is that I have other communities, a regional office, and a corporate office to get resources from for my programs. I saw that our corporate culinary department purchased a voting system. It is called Turning Point System. The system provides each resident with a hand held device that responds to a laptop that is loaded with the proper software.

For the dog show, I will give each audience member a list of possible awards to be given out at the end of the show. (I will have more titles to win then there will be dogs in the show so that the dogs have a chance of fitting into an appropriate category.)  Using the system, the residents in the audience will vote for each category and prizes will be given out!

I'm very excited about adding this new twist to a community favorite! I'll let you know how it goes after the program! (Pictures too)