Thanksgiving Gratitude

An Activities Director’s Thanksgiving Gratitude
 

Thanksgiving is in the air! A time to give thanks and show your gratitude. Melody Beattie, Author of  Codependent No More said

 "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."

As an activities director of 27 years, and the author of the Recharging Retirees blog for 3 years, I have so much to be thankful for. For those who have been in the field as long as I have, you know that there are good times and bad times - as there is with any profession. The quote from Melody Beattie speaks of unlocking the fullness of life. At first I thought that my profession allows me to do that for the residents…. Make their life fuller and to make their house more of a home. But then, I realized that it is my job that has allowed me to live a fuller life. Below are a few things that I am grateful for this Thanksgiving when it comes to my job as Activities Director.

• This job is not a 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. kind of job. I appreciate those around me for understanding that I have to work on weekends, holidays, nights and for the Super Bowl.

• A good company to work for

• A great community of resident volunteers who create opportunities for others to enjoy

• A network of local activity directors to borrow ideas and supplies from, and to share the work load at times with

• The adventures, educational opportunities,and leisure experiences that I've been exposed to

• The relationships that I've had with the residents and the lessons they've shared with me

• The ability to find inspiration on-line. (On my blog there is a survey that asks where you get your inspiration from. The results are that most people find them on the Internet!) 

Here are a few websites, in no particular order, for which I am thankful for. I encourage you to click the links below and see what they are about. Each one has more to it than I could mention in the write-ups below. I hope they inspire you as they have at times when I needed it most!

• The Activity Director's Office is a complete resource for Activity Directors. It has the best pages for monthly ideas I've seen on-line. Here is an example of their November information which features dates to celebrate, famous birthdays and more. It has been online for 10 years now!

• Activity Directors Network includes links to many creative and supportive websites and offers a FREE monthly newsletter once you subscribe (no cost). There is also a chat forum  and Twitter page so you can connect with others who are experiencing the same issues you may be. And, if none of that gets you going at your current job, you can find a different job in the field at their job page.

• Yahoo has a few Groups that I find helpful. They are AD_Community and ActivityChat . 

• Not Just Bingo is especially helpful for new activity professionals working with assisted living or nursing home/health center residents. There is a fee to become a member, but you can access a wealth of information as a non-member for free. 

• Pinterest!! Check out Ideas for directors at retirement communities or find specific ideas about a theme party you have in mind... or might not have in mind yet. Plus soooo many more are on Pinterest! Just type in a keyword into the search box and see what others have to offer.

• Easy Party Ideas and Games The link is for adult games, but you will see many different topics, such as holidays, decorations, etc. on this site also.

• And of course, you can always Google for inspiration!

Being an Activities Director is something I am thankful for every day. Some would say it was my calling. As the holidays begin and the craziness of this awesome job elevates to another level, I encourage you to use the support resources offered above so that you can ride out the rough days.  I assume you care about your job, and the residents you serve. You want to be the best that you can be, that is why you are here reading this now! For that too, I am thankful.

"Do not get tired of doing what is good. Don't get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time."  Galatians 6:9

Decorations: Peel and Stick

A new statement  for Halloween in our Lobby

I found these in Target. They were easy to do and cover a lot of space!

Amazon has a bunch of these wall art stickers.There are some for Halloween and and other holidays and seasons.

Library Programs for Senior Adults

Let's go to the library! Boring you think? Maybe not these days! 

The retirement community where I work has a wonderful relationship with our city library. They provide us with a few programs to assist the residents get the books or other material they want from the library. Let me share with you what the library does for us first, and then I will share what the library does for the community that we are able to take part in.

Once a month, we have a speaker from the library come to the community and talk about books that he thinks that the residents will enjoy. He also brings books for the residents to check out if they want to. There is a system with the library and our community where residents can check-out the books from this once a month program, in addition to ordering them over the phone, or order them on-line. The books, no matter which way a resident requests them, are returned to our front desk when the resident is finished, and are picked up once a week by the library's representative. Books being ordered are also brought to the front desk on a weekly basis.

The library also has been a great resource for me as Activities Director. I've had a request for a certain movie or educational video series, and was not able to find it through other avenues. I simply email our community's representative and request it. He then brings it to me when he comes to the community to pick up or drop off books at our front desk. It's a great help and best of all, it is free!

The most exciting part of the library in my city is what they are doing for the city at large. On Sunday afternoons they are offering free concerts, speakers, and meet the author programs. The only things they ask of us is that we go online and reserve a spot for each person attending. They have made it very simple by putting the monthly calendar online. You just go to the event, click on it, and then add your information into the reservation request. I then print out each reservation and give it to the resident attending. 

I also have residents who want to go to the library and spend time there on their own. They want to be among the books, be in the quiet setting, do some research on their own, without having to use the Internet, which might be foreign to them, or for many other reasons. I've tried to schedule trips to the library for this kind of "activity," but seldom get the minimum number of participants necessary to get the bus to go from our community.  With the special programs mentioned above, I am now able to offer the resident who wants to go to the library a better opportunity of having enough people to go. Instead of going to the "show" they simple go to the library and do their own thing. It has been successful.  

While doing research for this article, I was surprised to see that other libraries are not offering programs like the one that is offered in my city. I did find one library who was written up and shares a video of their programs goals. It was in the Gwinnett Daily Post .  

I encourage you to check out the library's website in your community, if for no other reason than being able to borrow DVDs, CDs, etc. to help you do your job better. I also encourage you to go to the library and ask them if there is a way to get your residents more involved with the library. Maybe you invite them to come to your community and do a library card registration program, or a program on how to use the Internet to reserve a book, DVD or CD and then build from there.

Yes, my friend, it is time to go back to the library! Did I mention, it's all for FREE! Don't miss the bus on this one.

Tailgate Party!

Are you ready for some football?!?   Take "time-out" to read the how-to's and suggestions for this fun Tailgate Party that I hosted last week in my retirement community. In our community we host a pre-dinner party with appetizers, then the residents go into dinner and have a special meal based upon the theme of the theme of the evening, followed by a show in the auditorium after dinner, again based upon the theme. 

How-to's:

• Tailgate food is a must. 5-layer taco dip, chips, mozzzerlla sticks, pigs in a blanket, deviled eggs, watermelon wedges, etc.
• Serve food from football theme trays, bowls
• Put drinks in coolers and serve them from there. (no bowl of punch here)
• Decorate with pennants that are general in nature or NFL specific
• Decorate with hanging football theme decorations
• Decorate with Megaphones
• Use a real truck if it will fit into your space to serve off of 
• Decorations with footballs, referees, football players, etc
• Buy themed paper goods 
• Ask residents to wear their favorite team's apparel or colors 
• For entertainment, host a team trivia game
• Invite non-participants of the team trivia game to be the cheerleaders. Give them pom-poms and a team to cheer for.
• Be the cheerleader's leader and stir the audience up after each right answer

Suggestions:

• Plan earlier than the usual time frame for this kind of party if you are going to take it the next level of excitement. This might mean contacting a high school or college at the end of the school year and getting it lined up for the following school year, because this theme night works best in September.... the beginning of football season, and that is the start of school. 
• Contact your local football teams. Start with the pros, then colleges, and then your area's high school.
• Contact your local cheerleaders from the teams as listed above
• Bring the football team's mascot
• Once you know that a certain team is coming, encourage residents who don't have a team to support to wear that team's colors for the night
• Offer the guests a meal if it is possible. You could invite them to eat with the residents so they can interact with each other. This would require pre-planning for success.
• Offer the guests PUBLICITY for them being in your community.
• If the guests are students, offer them community service hours if the students require them for graduation - and you are an eligible business (non-profit, etc.)
• Show a good football movie if you'd rather instead of team trivia
• Host this event before a football game that you take the community to or that you are going to watch on the big screen in your community (ie. the Super Bowl)

The Tailgating theme night was easy to do in its basic concept and the residents enjoyed it. They enjoyed dressing in their team's apparel. I watched as conversations were started over the jersey they had on with women who don't usually have much contact. It was a time of pride for some as they wore their college team's shirts. 

I did learn two lessons from this program. The first is what would be clear to understand as I shared the suggestions above: plan this in advance or you might end up with just the basics! And the other is if you are promoting a team trivia contest, it is better if you tell the community that it is not a sports trivia game. I never said that it was a general trivia game...but I never told them that it was not what they assumed it would be based upon the nature of the theme night..... football.

And for more inspiration, check out my board at Pinterest!

So there is the game plan. You are ready to "set-HIKE"!! Go get 'em team!!

Wild West Night

As the weather cools off, it is a great time of the year to get WILD! Yes, this could mean a lot of different things to a creative person such as yourself.... a wild safari party, a wild night in Havana party, or maybe a WILD WEST party!

The residents at my independent living retirement community love this theme. It is one of those that I can repeat every few years and they look forward to it being the same - GREAT! This is what we do at my community:

• Host the event outside. Usually by the pool where there is a large flat grass area right off of the sidewalks
• Rent a large tent for the residents to sit under to dine
• I found great balloon weights that I used on the tables for decorations. They were cowboy boots.
• Erect 3 sided booths that our maintenance department made for these occasions (they come apart for easy storage)
• Decorate the boots with western concepts....... the saloon, jail, post office, canteen, tack shop, etc. Make them personalized with your communities name in the titles if you can
• These booths will house the food for your event. 
• The balloon weights can also be used in front of the chaffing dish to hold the name of the food item inside
• Create Wanted Posters  of staff members of your management team, or anyone else that your residents will recognize easily. For this you will need a few props - cowboy hats, toy guns, bandannas, toy handcuffs, etc. You will also need to be cleaver and come up with creative crimes to list for your wanted posters. (This is fun to do!)  I hung these signs inside the building to help encourage residents to walk outside...... some residents had not been to that side of our campus before.....
• I brought in horses to have simply hang out. One year, we even found a woman who had a miniature that she uses in pet therapy! Residents were encouraged to come to the grazing area and have their pictures taken with the horse.
• Of course, encourage the residents and the staff to wear their best western wear.
• And if you or anyone you know has access to a western saddle or other tack, use it for decorations.
• Get hay bales and put them around the tent. I used them to make sure no one tripped on the stakes of the tent
• The organization I work for does not allow alcohol to be a party of any programs that we put on - but if yours does allow it... don't miss out on the Saloon. It could be a lot of fun.
• Also, you might include a hay ride at this event.  
• If you need more decoration ideas, please feel free to look at the Activities Director's Store I created on Amazon.

Well, there you have it Partner! "Happy Trails" to you and those you meet along the trails.

80-odd years of happy

Flamingo Fun Fosters Future Festivities!

The flamingo is a fun and interesting bird and one more reason to party!  Party you ask? Why not! It was about time that I hosted a dance in my retirement community and I usually create a theme for the dances in order to decorate and get the residents involved. Instead of doing the same old themes based around the holidays or seasons of the year, I created a Pink Flamingo Dance.

I asked the residents to dress in pink and almost everyone did! Of course, there was a man or two who declared that he did not own anything pink, but that was fine. I even suggested that they could dress like a flamingo if they wanted, which no one did, but a few people did wear their shirts with flamingos on them. 

I bought some great decorations through Amazon such as an inflatable 4ft flamingo to take photos with and pink flamingo floating coasters that I used as floats in our lobby's fountain. I put balloon weights and pink balloons in them for the reception that was held before dinner. I also use the floating beverage holders for the centerpieces of the tables at the dance.

In the picture above you will see me wearing a hat similar to one that I saw at Amazon. I happened to have been able to borrow mine from a resident who had some other pink flamingo items. This was actually one of the first programs where I had three different residents offer decor for the event. I really think that it helped having their items not only for the obvious reason of having more stuff to use, but because they were telling their friends that I was going to be using their stuff and it helped promote the event even more!

Sometimes my events are very elegant, sometimes they are really nice and sometimes they are more fun than they are stylish. This is one of those events where it is all about having fun. I could have gone crazy with all the pink things I saw at the store (cake serving stand, cups, etc.) but I made the focus really be on the flamingos. I also found flamingos in the garden section of Walmart. In order to make them stand up inside the Lobby, I went to the craft store and bought sheets of thick Styrofoam. I covered the Styrofoam with plastic that I found in the crafts store, which had a water print on it. 

I'm sure as activities directors, you can see that this activity can be modified for any kind of animal or trendy item. I have a resident who wants me to have a Rubber Ducky Party, and ask everyone to wear yellow and share their duckies. She happens to be a collector of rubbber duckies, but since I'm not sure that others have any, I've put it off - for now. What about doing something with Smilie Faces? Or a camouflage party during hunting season  (that one is for those of you who have that.... I'm in South Florida, and that is not a season we really recognize here.) Maybe frogs would be fun?  I think you understand where I'm going with this. It doesn't have to be about Flamingos. Pick what you see around you and take it to the next level by celebrating it in your own way. If it has never been done before, it makes it even better! I find that residents give a lot of credit for thinking outside the box and let you get away more if it is not perfect. Take a risk and try something new today. It will make you feel good and your residents will be thanking you.