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St Vincent’s Care Services
Kangaroo Point
Dale Hewerdine
Facility Manager St Vincent’s Care Services
Kangaroo Point
Facility manager photo (2.5x2.5cm)
St Vincent’s Care Services Kangaroo Point
Facility Newsletter September 2018
Message from the Facility Manager – Dale Hewerdine
Hi residents and relatives
Firstly, thank you to all the residents and relatives who attended the Ekka Country and Western Show Day BBQ on Tuesday 14 August to celebrate in your best farmer styles, and help raise money for the farmers in our A Fiver for a Farmer appeal. It was a great effort from all the residents to raise almost $400 from the market day selling fruit and Devonshire teas, and then the BBQ day bringing our total up to $820 with the involvement of staff, relatives and visitors. What a tremendous effort. I have not seen that many checks, jeans and cowboy hats in the one place for a long time! To date, the appeal (which was started by a 10 year old NSW schoolboy) has raised over $900,000 for the farmers!!
The spirit of generosity, caring, giving and assisting those who are less fortunate, vulnerable or in need is very much in line with the mission of our foundress Mary Aikenhead. Under her guidance, the Sisters of Charity
established her mission in Australia, and our organisation, St Vincent's Care Services. It gives me great faith in the future that our younger generation are concerned about the welfare of other people and their country enough to make such selfless efforts from such a young age.
You would be aware that our Clinical Manager Ellen has recently transferred to St Vincent’s Care Services Community Living to begin a new chapter in her life. I interviewed some candidates for the Clinical Manager role last week and should be able to make an announcement about the successful person shortly.
Take care and talk soon!
A Fiver for a Farmer BBQ
On Tuesday 14 August 2018, we had a Country and Western Show Day for the Ekka.
A BBQ lunch was served in the courtyard for approximately 130 residents, staff and family members. Everyone dressed up in their finest farmer clothes and generously donated to a great cause. Combined with the market day money we raised $820 for A Fiver for a Farmer.
Thank you to everyone who came along and donated.
Seniors Week 2018
We celebrated this year with a intergenerational choir performance – a combination of voices from the children of East Brisbane State School Class 3H and our Marycrest Melody Choir. It was a great morning filled with song and dance and some wonderful jokes from Sr Cecile. A lovely poem was also was read by Laurie, and Ian concluded our morning with a prayer and blessing. A great morning was had by all who attended. Thank you to everyone involved for helping to make such a wonderful event.
Elvis concert
The Elvis concert with Romeo and Juliette was the big highlight for the week with 75 people coming along to watch the King perform some of his most famous songs.
We finished off the day in the courtyard for Happy hour, which was a great way to end the week.
St Vincent’s Care Services Kangaroo Point
Phone: 07 3240 1268 Email: [email protected]
Website: www.svcs.org.au
At St Vincent’s Care Services, we make you the priority — and we welcome your feedback. If you have compliments or suggestions about our services, or wish to raise a concern, please
come and see us, fill out a feedback form at reception, or email the Facility Manager: [email protected]@svha.org.au
The Australian Government’s Aged Care Complaints commissioner provides a free service for anyone wishing to raise their concerns about the quality of care or services being delivered to
people receiving aged care services at a government-funded facility. www.agedcarecomplaints.gov.au | 1800 550 552
Pastoral Care news
Greetings to residents and families,
August has been a busy month here and the weather has been quite pleasant. We have welcomed some new residents, we have had our own special Ekka week activities and we have celebrated Seniors Week in great style. The Seniors Week concert was a great success, and it was wonderful to watch our Marycrest Melody Choir and the East Brisbane State School children performing together.
In our monthly Armchair Philosophers discussion group, we came together to explore The seven blessings that come with ageing. At first, we jokingly said these might be bad knees, sore feet, hearing loss, dentures, etc.! But then we honed in on the seven blessings that are suggested by 82 year old American writer and Benedictine Sister, Joan Chittister. Sister Joan suggests that these blessings may be – perspective, time, freedom, newness, tale telling, relationships and transcendence. Some very lively and interesting discussion was generated in our group – so much that we ran out of time to explore all seven of the suggested blessings!
We agreed that perspective could indicate that elders have a good sense of what really matters in life; freedom means that elders now have fewer responsibilities than in their earlier life; and that this may give them more time to enjoy the present.
I asked the members of our group about the concept of newness – if they had done anything since coming to Marycrest that they had never attempted before. I suspect that several would answer yes, as our Lifestyle and Pastoral Care programs enable residents to join a choir, be part of a book club, a discussion group, a fund raising committee, learn how to use a computer, and engage in meditation, yoga, or tai chi!
An interesting aspect arising from our discussion and exchange of ideas, was the importance of good communication between elders and younger people – something we have a great opportunity to achieve here, as our residents are largely in the elders category and many of our staff members are quite youthful! I do believe that our residents have a great deal of wisdom to share, and we encourage them to do so.
We might resume the topic of The seven blessings that come with ageing at another Philosophy session, as we did not really touch on tale telling, relationships or transcendence. Of course, I did stress that tale telling had nothing to do with telling fibs or gossip, but relaying our life stories and reminiscing. So we look forward to that and to delving into the concept of transcendence.
Enjoy the month ahead – we have lots of great activities and events coming up and Spring is just around the corner!
Peace and Blessings,
Margaret, Ian, Fr James and the Volunteers Pastoral Care Team
