Innovation at the Village

Welcome back from your Labor Day weekend. I hope you enjoyed yourself and are ready now that fall has begun. I want to introduce you to the newly retooled San Francisco Village newsletter.

We took your suggestions to heart and as your new editor and publisher, I am excited to report that you can now easily read and print our e-newsletter. And--in the spirit of innovation--you can now sign up for events even as you read!

The improvements we’ve made are detailed below but first I’d like to invite you to help us with one more important change: I'm announcing a contest for all readers to name our monthly newsletter! What should we call this vehicle that keeps us abreast of the Village's goings-on? Please take a minute to submit your suggestions to info@sfvillage.org or call the Village office at 415-387-1375. We will announce the selected name in an upcoming newsletter.

We owe many special thanks to Eva Auchincloss and Carolyn Pon, who have edited and produced the Village newsletter since its inception. They leave big shoes to fill as each month you saw and read the product of their dedication and hard work in generating a newsletter that would keep you informed of the Village.

I'd like the share with you the highlights of changes appearing in this newsletter and what it means for you:

1. You can now scan the newsletter, its columns and announcements, for interest, clicking through to the rest of the feature only if you want to. No more scrolling down, down, down!
2. You can now print the e-newsletter easily because it is in the pdf format.
3. You can now sign up for events from the newsletter because it is linked to the website calendar.

As well, those who already receive it via snail mail will continue to do so in a timely manner.

As with everything else about the Village, we welcome your ideas and feedback because, after all, this newsletter is for you.

Best,

Gayle Uchida, Editor and Publisher

Manager of Member Services/Operations

New at SF Village

New Technology Connects Us to Old Fashioned Care and Support, and the Activities and Interests We Enjoy!

Do your family or loved ones span across the country or maybe even across the globe? When we need to accomplish a personal goal, whether it’s managing the needs of an upcoming surgery or trying new activities, we most often turn to our inner circle of family and friends for help. When that network is fragmented or stretches across the country, it’s difficult to get the immediate support we need to handle life’s challenges. Tyze keeps you connected to loved ones and organizes the support you need. If you know how to use email and the Internet, you can use Tyze.

Tyze is an on-line personal network service that is now FREE to SF Village Members. On-line personal networks are a type of social network, like Facebook, where you use the Internet to organize a community of your own family and friends online. But unlike other social network sites, Tyze is private, closed, secure and only open to the people you invite. By using the calendar and task tools on Tyze, families and friends can manage the needs of loved ones from a distance and share the workload with a select community of SFV Members and friends. Meanwhile, personal photos and stories posted to Tyze keep all connected to important occasions and milestones.

SF Village was selected to participate in Tyze through a competitive process and the generous support of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

SF VILLAGERS CAN NOW CREATE THEIR OWN FREE TYZE PERSONAL NETWORKS!
CALL US TO LEARN MORE: info@sfvillage.org or (415) 387-1375
(If you know how to use email and the Internet, you can use Tyze.)

Friendship Line Offers FREE Services to SF Villagers: Just One Phone Call Away (415) 387-1375

The Friendship Line is an unmatched service with highly qualified, well-trained and aging sensitive staff and volunteers who offer ongoing connection for many older adults living independently. SF Village has partnered with IOA’s Friendship Line to provide exciting offerings FREE to SF Village Members:

• 24 Hour Crisis Phone Service from a Live Person!
  • In case of an urgent situation that does not require 911 intervention, The Friendship Line will answer calls for SF Village 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. SF Village staff will be on call and contacted immediately in case of emergency.
• After Hours Phone Service for SF Village
  • Whenever you call SF Village after hours, The Friendship Line staff will take personal messages and take care to deliver these messages on your behalf. Yes, a real human being - no transferring your call to voice mail.
• Daily Medication Reminders
  • Let us know if you’d like a daily phone call as a friendly reminder to take your medication. Medication mismanagement is a common cause for medical emergencies and often leads to consideration about no longer living independently at home.
• Daily Check-In Calls
  • Whether it’s a simple “Rise and Shine” or a chat with a trusted voice, The Friendship Line will be the encouragement you need to be up and at it, and enjoying life. Call us if you’d like to set up this regular service.
• Support for Emotional Wellness
  • If you’d like a trusted and confidential ear to listen, The Friendship Line will give you a call as frequent as daily, for a friendly chat and to check-in on your overall wellness. If you’d prefer to call into the Friendship Line, that works as well.

Please feel free to contact us with questions about these new services. We’re very excited to be offering SF Villagers a growing network of support – 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Innovation: The Heart of San Francisco Village

Think about what innovation really is. Take a company like OXO. They started by making Good Grips potato peelers and can openers, created by a man whose wife had arthritis and needed to have more comfortable tools for preparing food. Potato peelers and can openers are not new items. But the makers of OXO changed how we think about them and how we use them.

That’s what we believe we’re doing at SFV.

We know there’s nothing new about growing old! But there is something new in the way we approach it, the way we, as a generation, are re-inventing it.

We do it very practically – by creating a single number to call for all our SFV resources; by vetting service providers so they serve us, not some corporate dictate; by creating networks and connections like our new partnership with the Tyze Program (which Christabel describes in her article in this newsletter); by our new 24/7 “Friendship Line” you can call any time at all, even if it’s just to chat.

But we also innovate in less “practical” spheres – by creating a real social movement designed to change attitudes about aging (which means attitudes about us), and to energize San Franciscans to work toward what we call sustainable aging. Part of this is having community spirit, and recently we’ve helped each other in the simplest ways: by picking up a refrigerator for one member, by delivering meals to another, by giving a ride home from the hospital to a third.

Innovation is not necessarily inventing something totally new. It’s also creating smart alternatives that are relevant, inspiring and genuinely useful.

As noted by AARP, another organization that is changing with the times, 90% of us want to stay in our own homes as we age. San Francisco Village is designed to empower us to do so. We are creating a community of active, fiercely independent, involved people who want to continue exploring and expanding their worlds on their own terms and their own turf.

Take advantage of all we offer – and be part of our growth. Get more involved and be an agent for change. All ideas welcome!

Welcome to new Village members who I have spoken with or met and hope to see at our upcoming fall events. Thank you for joining our growing community. Becky Hayden, Lucy Howard, Joan Paddington, Michele Praeger, Treasure Seamster and Drew Wang.

Spotlight on Fran Moreland Johns

It’s only fitting that Fran Moreland Johns would become a successful journalist and author -- because her life and career have played out in a serious of adventurous chapters. From her first job at the Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch to her current blog Boomers & Beyond (focusing on issues of interest to over-50 generations), Fran has enjoyed a path that frequently led her to rediscovery and reinvention.

First, rediscovery: A Virginia native who married and raised three children in Georgia, Fran was in Boston in 1991 when she encountered writer-publisher Bud Johns, the college Senior Dinner Dance date she hadn’t seen in 37 years. Eleven months later she moved to San Francisco to marry Bud, whom she describes as her “final husband,” and “the Great Encourager.”

“When I came to California, I left my identity, family and career on the east coast,” Fran says, “but it was the best thing I’ve ever done.” Crediting her husband, “who thinks I can do anything,” for helping her expand her goals, Fran earned an MFA in short fiction from USF, began publishing short stories and authored Dying Unafraid, a nonfiction book telling of people who did just that. She’s working hard now on a new women’s issues book that she’ll be happy to talk with you about.

Inspired by personal experiences as a hospice volunteer and a longtime commitment to end-of-life issues, Dying Unafraid led to other published works, and activism in that field including offices on the board of Compassion & Choices of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area Network for End of Life Care. In November Fran will travel to a conference in Prague, to present a paper on "Confronting Mortality.”

As for reinvention, a few years ago when many seniors were just dipping their toes in the digital waters (or ignoring them altogether), Fran dove in and started swimming. “The roadblock for seniors is our fear of technology,” she says. “I’m particularly thankful for my friend Mary Trigiani (of SPADA, Inc), who taught me about blogs and cyberspace. Having a tutor or mentor is key – I was lucky to know Mary.”

As members of San Francisco Village, Bud and Fran have hosted several events at their Presidio Heights home, including an arts event and a meeting place for author Gail Sheehy’s Q&A with Village members. In addition to the social events they enjoy, Fran says SFV’s vendors vetting/recommendation services have been “wonderfully useful.”

Fran’s blog, Boomers & Beyond, was part of the True/Slant website recently bought by Forbes and soon to reappear there. Her posts are archived at www.trueslant.com/franjohns, and her personal blog is www.franjohns.wordpress.com. When not at her computer, Fran enjoys arts and interfaith work, and the par course at Mountain Lake Park.

Board member Eva Auchincloss is holding a garage sale to benefit the San Francisco Village. It will be on Saturday, October 2^nd at 3620 Lyon Street from 9-3PM.

Eva will be accepting donations on Thursday, Sept. 23^rd and Friday October 1^st. Click here for Eva’s wish list and details about this activity. If you want to volunteer to help, or have donations to give, contact Eva at 415-563-7519 or eva3auch@comcast.net.

Gadgets Galore

Those in the so-called "senior" age group are far from averse to trying out the innovative devices (large and small) that seem to be popping up all around us with increased frequency. It's not just a world for the young equipped with nimble fingers and fast talk. That said, it's still true that suggestions and support come in handy.

That's the beauty of a web site called ElderGadget.com. Log on and you will find choice and stimulating ideas about these imaginative and time-saving trinkets - as well as advice on how to use them properly.

A recent look found these offerings:

Five tips for Social Networking Safety: Here, Nellie Day tells us that "social networking sites are great ways to stay in touch with family and friends. However, they can also divulge tons of information about where you live, when you're home and the valuables you keep there. Therefore you should follow a few safety rules about publishing information to prevent yourself from being a robbery target." These are enumerated

FloH Club - Tech Support for Seniors: Ms Day informs us that the club "provides over-the-phone tech support for seniors who may have trouble using their electronics or certain websites. Endorsed by Florence Henderson, who's now a senior herself, the FloH Club can teach seniors how to e-mail, social network, instant message, video conference and shop online"

ElderGadget.com casts a wide net. It reviews "smart phones, digital cameras, tablet computers, HDTVs and other gadgets with an eye to seeing how easy they are for Baby Boomers to see, use or understand." One example: "flip-flop sandals with an attached LED light that could be useful for people with poor night vision."

Areas of inquiry available range from air conditioners to treadmills to analog watches. Welcome to the wonderful world of gadgetry!