HILR Planning Meeting Summary
Keep on Trucking: Aging with Grace, 4-30-10
Goals: Generate interest and commitment to next steps; eventually identify new leaders for this next stage of Pathways for Aging, or whatever else it turns out to be.
We began identifying topics and brainstorming together what people might want to pursue. Here are the ideas as noted on flipcharts:
Conversation topics--
Moment of awareness of becoming “old”
Loss of friends
Who am I and where am I going?
Personal issues
What is wisdom?
Hearing loss and what can help effectively
Surprises
Vulnerabilities
Resilience
Recognition of those who retire from HILR
Coping with serious illness of HILR members and others
Enforcing end-of-life decisions contained in health proxies, etc.
Making a video for heirs to supplement your will
Alzheimer’s disease
Using the web to share facts about healthy aging
Writing topics--
Humor in tough times
Encountering at our age strange ideas or backgrounds
What’s next???
Aloneness
Balancing work, religion, family, etc.
Dark experiences
Books and films that could generate discussions--
The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind by Barbara Strauch [Is this the right book?]
The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister
“Moonstruck”
“Away from Her”
Poetry
Books or films about aging in other cultures
Themes that could be discussed or written about--
Humor and health
Diversity in our family
Creativity, arts, and aging
“Only connect”
Poetry
Thoughts about curriculum--
Encourage writing
Cross-cultural studies of aging
Encourage connectedness within study groups
We then broke into small, facilitated groups to plan how to implement activities around the most popular topics: conversations, writing, humor and health, and book and film discussions. We recommended starting with short term commitments of 4 to 6 weeks. We also asked for volunteers to convene (but not necessarily lead) the first meeting.
Each small group reported back their results. We identified contact people for ten areas and discussed how we can all support new groups.
In summary, those who want to keep on trucking have lots of options.
Conversations, to begin in the fall
Writing in early summer
Writing later in the summer
Humor and health
Film, short story, and poetry discussions about aging, to begin in the fall
Wisdom and Age: An Intersession Course
Identity
Curriculum
Using the web to share writing
Using the web to share facts about healthy aging