From the Acting Executive Director

Dear Members and Friends:

With summer coming to a close it’s time to reflect back on a year of change for the Village. Some of the change has been sad and difficult, but some has made us a stronger organization too. I thank you for supporting us and keeping the Village dream alive and thriving in our beloved City. The year ahead looks bright. We will hold a major volunteer training soon, host Dr. Walter Bortz on Sept 15 and continue to provide the workshops and social events you’d like to see.

We will all miss Christabel and are sad that she will not return to her duties here at the Village. But of course we all know that she must do the best thing for her health and we respect her decision. We know it was not any easy one to make. The board is hard at work interviewing candidates for the Executive Director position and I have agreed to stay on until the new Executive Director is hired and trained.

The SF Village office staff is really working well together. Keyatta Shade (Key) is quickly getting up to speed on our operations, designing the volunteer program, and scheduling a volunteer training. Cindy Chin, our Enterprise for High School student (she’s a senior at Lowell) helps us twice a week with admin work and updating the website calendar. We thought you might appreciate seeing the faces of our staff -- the people who are ready to help you when you call.

Thank you all for your continued support and your commitment to Village life!

-Janis

Our Staff Team

Here are the faces that match the voices you hear whenever you call into our the Village offices.  Click the READ MORE button for a brief description of each person:

Welcome to Our September Newsletter

Dear Villagers,

As we have reported earlier, we are in the process of refreshing our newsletter and apologize for any bumps along the road. As we build our volunteer network, we will be asking people to be part of the newsletter team, either on a continuing basis or by submitting articles or calendar events on a one-time basis. Please share your ideas and talents with us – writing articles, editing, photography and most important, your thoughts on the role of our newsletter in communicating with our members. Please contact Keyatta, our new Volunteer Manager, to discuss your interest: call 415-387-1375 or email key@sfvillage.org.

We want to thank those members, volunteers and staff who have contributed already: Tom Benét, Barbara Hancock, Don Langley, Mary Moore Gaines, Fran Johns, Gayle Geary, Michael Lavigne, Marsha Robertson, and Janis Brewer. And special thanks to CitiScape Property Managment Inc. for generously printing our newsletter for us.

Warmest regards,

Gayle Geary, Board President

I Can Hear You Now!

By Don Langley

Or at least I can hear better. I have new, much-improved hearing aids, thanks to a Village meeting about new technology presented by an audiologist recommended by other Village members.

That was just one of the benefits of our membership in recent months. Earlier, my wife Judy and I attended the class on Advance Directives. We already had such documents, but the class caused us to consider many additional factors and provided the documents to record them. It galvanized us to find a new Health Advocate -- somebody we trust in the next generation, who will be available when we need him. At the second meeting our decisions were notarized.

Balance Comes To The Village

balance | ˈbaləns | noun

An even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.

This is just one definition for balance. When we hear the word, balance, we may think about how to fit everything into our busy lives. For many of us, achieving balance is a goal - to find the best relationship between work and relaxation, to determine how to maintain our equanimity, to decide how much time to spend with our grandchildren and friends.

Remembering The Only Good Girl in Hollywood

By Fran Johns

SF Village member and acclaimed biographer Emily Leider’s latest book, Myrna Loy: the Only Good Girl in Hollywood (University of California Press), will delight those who remember such films as The Best Years of Our Lives or The Thin Man, and surprise those who thought she was just a gorgeous movie star.