January 2019 - Age Action U3A Life Long Learning Team Visit to our Meeting.

Age Action Phone 475 6989; https://www.ageaction.ie

At our January 2019 meeting we welcomed Age Action U3A to our meeting. Billy O’Keefe, Lifelong Learning Programme Manager, introduced the Age Action U3A LifeLong Learning team - Annette Head, Development Officer and Carol Kelly, Administrator, Both moved to U3A LLL recently - Annette moved from managing Care and Repair while Carol worked on reception for over 3 years and is now Administrator for U3A Life Long Learning section of Age Action.

Billy gave an overview of Age Action Ireland. AAI started in 1992 and U3A commenced within Age Action in 1995. U3A Sutton Baldoyle is now coming up to our 15th year.

The work of Age Action has changed considerably over that time. Age Action was set up as an advocacy group and has developed and grown since then. The mission of Age Action is to achieve fundamental change in the lives of all older people by eliminating age discrimination, promoting positive ageing and securing their access to comprehensive and high-quality services that meets the needs of older people.

Some of the examples of advocacy mentioned were, amongst others, protecting the Free Travel Pass, Age Discrimination campaigns such as the abolition of compulsory retirement, National Budgets submission particularly on such areas as State pensions, social benefits and other policy and advocacy areas. Age Action tries to represent and support what members and older people consider important to them and what members and volunteers want Age Action to do.

Older people and telephone and personal callers to Age Action also seek Information, to talk to someone about Entitlements, Volunteering and other issues and this developed into Age Action providing an Information and Support Service.

1. U3A Life Long Learning within Age Action

The Life Long Learning team are going around the country to meet up with existing U3A groups and setting up new groups. There are 34 U3A groups at the moment and expect another four within a few months. Each group is organised and work independently based on the needs of their group and can be quite different depending on whether urban, rural or urban/rural mix.

This morning The Age Action LLL team facilitated our group’s planning session and to stand back and

· look at where we are at;

· what is our purpose?

· what U3A Sutton Baldoyle means to each of us

· what we do well

· what can be improved

Next Step

· what want to focus on and

· preparation of an action programme for the rest of 2019 and into 2020.

This was a highly participative session and the Age Action LLL team took away all the inputs and Billy commited to pulling all of the inputs together and forward them to us after the meeting.

We have now received this one-page list that pulls together the inputs into two columns – one column listing What U3A means to members and the second column listing The Future-going forward

This will be brought along to our February 13 meeting and can be discussed.

Age Action LLL Workshops.

This is a new initiative by the LLL team and it has been agreed that they will come back to visit us in September 2019 to present one of their workshops – Managing your Finances Safely. For your information the second workshop presented by AA LLL team is Ageing and Development [raising awareness of older people needs in developing countries.

We look forward to this visit.

Reminder of other Lifelong Learning opportunities

During the meeting the group were reminded of the various programmes/courses that are run within the local community/adult education colleges as well as our close links with DCU Intergenerational Learning Programme and TCD Trinity Engage. For example in Part 1 of this post meeting update members are circulated with details of all of DCU modules and a number of members have been attending DCU-ILP modules/seminars for over 8/9 years now.

In conjunction with the U3A LLL team we look forward to the annual U3A Trinity Engage event. This year this is planned for week commencing April 29^th and the theme is ‘Silence’. TCD are also planning some interesting events for April 4^th. So keep the diary dates.

Future Learn – Online Courses.

Members were reminded of interesting online programmes listed on Future Learn – in particular TCD - https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/successful-ageing -

Exercise Prescription for the Prevention and Treatment of Disease - Learn how physical exercise can help patients including those with cardiovascular disease, mental health problems and cancer.

https://view.vzaar.com/6387057/video - just over a 2min TCD video.

2. OTHER AGE ACTION SERVICES OUTLINED BY AGE ACTION TEAM

Care and Repair

One of the services within Age Action is ‘Care and Repair’. Annette described this service which offers help to older people over 65 with small DIY jobs, for example changing a light bulb, smoke/carbon monoxide alarms, grab rails, moving items to and from attic, hanging curtains, minor electric, plumbing repairs, carpentery work. Care and Repair operates from their national base in Inchicore of Age Action and have a number of Community partners throughout the country.

Members of U3A Sutton Baldoyle would be interested in the partnership with North County Dublin Care and Repair located in Swords. Their contact number is 807 4282 or 0818 6919 411.

Age Action also has a trade referral list of registered trades people who provide a good job for a fair price and follow up feedback calls. Further details provided on Age Action website careandrepairdublin@ageaction.ie

Age Action Free ‘Getting Started Computer programme’

Billy highlighted that all older people are being driven or forced to use online services only – some of which can be viewed as actually taking away an older person’s independence and ability to continue to do things for themselves as they either do not have access to the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) or the knowledge to be included in these changes.

To meet the knowledge and skills need Age Action launched ‘Getting Started Computer programmes’ some years ago. These programmes are run around the country. Age Action's Getting Started Computer Training programme delivers free training on computers, tablets and smartphones to people over the age of 55. Individuals are encouraged to bring along their own equipment [if available], such as laptop, Tablets etc.

Since 2006 Age Action has trained more than 35,000 older people in 14 counties with the assistance of thousands of volunteer tutors. You can call Age Action Head Office in Inchicore and to find out more - Phone 475 6989 or go on to their website at

https://www.ageaction.ie/how-we-can-help/getting-started-computer-training/about-getting-started-computer-training

The training takes place in small classes groups and also are run in libraries, community centres, schools, colleges, and other local family resource centres.

ACORN TABLET PROJECT - NOW AVAILABLE ON THE MARKET

GO TO MYACORN.IE WEBSITE.

This Smart Tablet is designed to act as a day to day specialised Tablet tailored exclusively to the needs of seniors with one of aims to facilitate ICT inclusion.

This is an initiative of Fingal Age Friendly Senior Citizens Forum in conjunction with Cliffrun Media and Age Friendly Ireland. A number of U3A Sutton Baldoyle members are involved in the project and trialling/testing the Acorn Tablet.

For further information go to https://cliffrunmedia.com/

Ageing Matters Magazine - click on this link to read this magazine

https://www.ageaction.ie/sites/default/files/attachments/ageing_matters_december_2018_0.pdf