Newsletter 5-1

Volume 5 Issue 1 February-March 2021

In this Issue:
Starting 2021
Group Sessions
New Team Members
Seniors Festival
Partnership
Home Visits

Starting 2021
As with many other enterprises, Living Connected is bouncing back to face-to-face business in 2021.

Group Sessions
In the Illawarra we are now running 3 well-attended weekly Doropin sessions at Unanderra Community Center Mon 1:30pm), Woonona Bulli RSL (Thurs 3pm) and iAccelerate (Tues 10am) on the Innovation Campus. We are also holding monthly sessions at Albion Park Rail (see picture), Nowra, Culburra and Bundanoon.
All sessions are free of charge.
See our website for details

New Team Members
On Saturday March 6, the post graduate residences at Wollongong University held a welcome to new students and several new student volunteers and interns were recruited at the Living Connected table. We have also welcomed others who have heard of our work and come on board to help out at our Dropin Centres and Zoom Sessions.

Seniors Festival
It used to be called Seniors Week but now the NSW annual event is called Seniors Festival. This year the dates are April 13-24 we will hold several special events aligned with our various Dropin Sessions. See details in the relevant Council publications and our Facebook and Web pages.

Partnerships
Living Connected could not operate without strong ongoing partnerships with community and aged-care organisations. Over the past few months, we have been partnering with Warrigal Care to deliver Samsung tablets to seniors in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven and help recipients set them up the way they want. We are just about to embark on new venture with IRT, teaching residents in their facilities in the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and southern Sydney about their digital devices in preparation for the roll out of a new app, IRT Connect. A big thanks to all those who partner with us.

Home Visits.
In 2019 we were funded by the Goodthings Foundation to develop our now popular home service. This is our most costly service, but we have been providing it free of charge, firstly as a condition of the grant and then due to challenges with COVID. Our original intention was to provide a first visit free each year and then charge after that with a significant discount for pensioners. This will be our policy from now on. We are hoping that those who have government care packages, will be able to pay for our service through them. We are talking to home care managers about this. We will make further announcements soon. We do want to ensure that everyone who needs our help can continue to get it.

Newsletter 4-5

Volume 4, Issue 5 August, 2020

In this Issue:
Seeing out 2020
Group Zoom Sessions
Young Mentors Update
Digital Mentor Training
Resuming Face to Face

Download as a PDF LC Newsletter Vol 4 Iss 5

Seeing out 2020
We are now moving into Spring, on the run down to Summer and the end of the year. Many people are struggling to hold many of the functions that usually occur at this time of year. One of the Living Connected services we now provide, is to run Zoom sessions for others or to teach others how to run Zoom meetings themselves. These could range from a small family get together to an awards ceremony for a much large group. We don’t charge for this service so if you know anyone wanting help in this area, please put them in touch with us.\

Illawarra Women in Business Award
It is rewarding when your efforts are recognised, and this reflects on the great work of our whole team. Helen Hasan, founder of Living Connected, has been awarded Highly Commended in this year’s IWIB Illawarra Business Women’s Awards, under the category of IWIB Outstanding Commitment to the Community Award 2020. This award recognizes Illawarra women who are committed to making a difference in our local community, through their charitable endeavours and voluntary commitment.

Group Zoom Sessions
At Living Connected we continue to enjoy the learning and friendly discussion at our 5 weekly Zoom sessions. As well as helping people with all sorts of digital problems, we are encouraging seniors to use apps such as Zoom to stay connected with others online and welcome those who join us at these Zoom sessions just to have a chat.

Young Mentors Update– our first cohort graduates
As mentioned in our last Newsletter, the first online cohort of Young
Mentors completed their program and we are endeavouring to deliver
their certificates in person. Worrigee recipients, Jamie, Ashton and
Nathan Beattie are here at home with their proud Dad, as Helen Hasan
dropped in to present them with their certificates. We are now
planning to run the same program for several new groups of High
School students over the next few weeks.

Online Digital Mentor Training for Regional Areas
Inspired by the success of the online version of the Young Mentors Training program, we are now planning to hold a similar online program for anyone in outer regional areas south of Batemans Bay and into the Highland to the
west. This will start in September so anyone interest please contact us There will be no charge.

Resuming Face to Face Help
We are continuing our efforts to offer a wider range of face-to-face help for seniors under strict COVID19 protocols. These include a few group sessions held at the same time as one of our Zoom sessions so people see how Zoom works and be able to join us on Zoom if we have to stop face to face at any time. Here we are spaced for COVID and so learners can join the helpers in breakout rooms on the Zoom session they can see on the TV without sound interference.