Our Development Officer Ingrid spent time visiting our Abbeyfield homes handing out small gifts, from Head Office, to each of our residents. Just a little something to say we’re thinking of you and wishing you all a very Merry Christmas. View photo gallery.
A BIG thank you goes out to an incredibly generous couple, Brian and Rose Lennox, who donated furniture to Stein House in Hout Bay. Residents are thrilled to bits with their new, very comfortable, lounge suite. Well done to the Ocean View Local Society’s fundraising efforts. They managed to get a Bosch washing machine and a vacuum cleaner from Electrolux donated to Ons Huisie. View photo gallery.
Thank you to Diana Knight from our Plumstead Local Society and members of the St Pius X Church for the donation of blankets that went to the residents of House of Grace in Paarl. With their new lovely colourful blankets residents have been able to keep the evening chill away. We are enormously grateful.
Our Paarl Local Society spent months in the run up to their big fundraiser held on the 25th November which was a dance and dinner in the local community centre. They managed to sell 152 tickets, the event was well attended and a huge success. Members of the public, including residents and committee members enjoyed the live music and danced the night away. There was a Lucky Draw with several prizes that were handed out and our residents had knitted squares to make up a blanket which was also raffled at the dance. Well done to Paarl on a successful fundraiser and to everyone that participated and made contributions, thank you. View photo gallery.
This year we had 3 of our houses participate in street collections. Well done to Ocean View, Plumstead and Macassar committees and residents for doing your bit in raising funds for your Abbeyfield home.
Sutherland House committee members treated their residents to a lovely Christmas lunch at the Mowbray Golf Club on Sunday, 27th November. Residents enjoyed a delicious roast and were treated to a gift each from the committee. What was unexpected was that residents then handed out gifts to each member of their committee. Well done Sutherland House! To all our other Local Societies that are doing something celebratory for their residents for Xmas, a big thank you to you!
The book launch of Light a Brief Candle was held on the 14th November. Andre Oosthuizen, a Lawyer residing Cape Town, recently published a book which featured the work of 12 charitable organisations, Abbeyfield SA being one of them, who he felt made a valuable contribution to the communities they worked in. A real honour and a privilege to be recognised and included in amongst an incredible group. Some of the other organisations included in the book: Abalimi Bezakhaya, JAG Foundation, The Chaeli Campaign, Men on the Side of the Road, Learn to Earn Campaign, Hout Bay Music Project, etc. To find out more visit www.lightabriefcandle.com
In November Zoe Paul, Director of Abbeyfield SA, travelled to the UK. While she was there she got to visit a number of Abbeyfield homes one of which was in Cheam where she was able to share a meal round the dining room table with the residents which was brilliant. She got the opportunity to visit Abbeyfield's Head Office in St. Albans and met the management team and staff members. There was an international teleconference which she participated in and a very important meeting with the Abbeyfield Chairman, the CEO and the International Director. She also travelled to Cambridge where she visited 3 very interesting Abbeyfield projects: An Lac House which accommodated 10 Vietnamese older persons, Brownsfield House for 26 older persons with dementia and a new 76 unit development in Girton which is still under construction and should be open sometime in April 2012. View photo gallery.
A big congratulations to Wyndover and the Hout Bay Local Society for organising two successful bridge drives this year for their Abbeyfield homes. These events are a great way of bringing people together and not only to bring in much needed money for the house - usually for repairs and maintenance - but also to raise awareness about Abbeyfield in the community and the work that we’re involved in. Congratulations! View photo gallery.
On 13th October, the Abbeyfield Society of Wellington celebrated their 10th anniversary of the opening of Huis Kroneberg. The committee and the residents celebrated the occasion with a lovely seafood dinner. The Chairperson, Mr. Sylvester, and his hardworking committee also treated the residents to a meal at the local Spur as part of their celebrations.
Another house of ours, Ted’s House, in Rondebosch East also celebrated their 10th year since opening their doors.
This year’s AGM was held in the Limpopo Room at the River Club in Mowbray. We had a pretty good turn out of residents and committee members. A big thank you to all of you who were able to make it. A reminder to those of you who haven’t seen our latest Annual Report and would like to, we have copies available at Head Office. View photo gallery.
For a long time Abbeyfield SA has been renting office space whch has cost the organisation a fair bit over the years. A wonderful opportunity to buy a modest little semi-detached house in Observatory came up in July that we couldn't refuse. We are incredibly grateful to have been in the position to have bought something. The move has definitely been a positive one, we're a happy hardworking Abbeyfield team in our bright new office!
Grade 7 pupils from Ebenezer Primary School in Paarl, as part of their community outreach project, decided to adopt ‘House of Grace’ as their charity to support this year. With permission from the Abbeyfield Local Society in Paarl it was agreed that the learners would spend a day assisting residents with jobs that they found difficult to do. The boys cleaned the garden and the attic and the girls washed the windows. A big thank you to Jocelyn Andrews, the Grade 7 teacher, and her learners for thinking of Abbeyfield and taking time out from school to assist vulnerable older persons in their community. View photo gallery.
Two of our Local Society members from Walkerville in Joburg who were down for our AGM, stayed on a few extra days to visit a few of our homes that they hadn’t previously had the chance to see and meet with residents. This year Penny (Chairlady) and Jenny (Vice-Chairlady) travelled to Hout Bay, Strandfontein and Macassar and spent time chatting and sharing stories with all the residents.
Youth members from the 7th Day Adventist Church spent a day out in the community chatting to our Ethembeni residents, keeping them company and telling stories and then made them all a big lunch which they shared together. What a thoughtful gesture from a group of young and enthusiastic men and women to want to spend time with older persons in their community.
We are blessed with many angels here at Abbeyfield. Angels come into our lives on a regular basis and in this instance they’ve come in the form of Vin and Mary Baxter. What a special couple. Mary and Vin have managed to start a new Glenwood committee when the previous committee stepped down. It is our volunteers that run Abbeyfield; we could not do what we do without them, so a big thank you goes out to Mary, Vin, Carryn, Irene and Colleen.
Lower Crossroads is where it’s all happening right now. We have a new local society made up of 5 women, called Ubuhlobo, who have given up their time to run a crèche for 60 children and a soup kitchen twice a week where they feed elderly men and women from the community who otherwise wouldn’t have a meal that day. We’ve got the land and the go ahead from SANCO and using alternative building technologies we will be building a new 6 bedroom Abbeyfield Home together with a new Soup Kitchen and Crèche. View photo gallery.
We have the great pleasure of introducing you all to our new Abbeyfield Development Officer, Ingrid Alexander. She started with us on the 1st June. She has experience in the NGO world, knows a lot about financials which is always helpful and has a real affinity for older people. Well, she has her work cut out for her, not only do we need to grow but we need to make sure that our residents are happy, our committees supported and the quality of our accommodation is up to scratch. Welcome to the team Ingrid! Wishing you a long and happy stay with us.
Absa invited all the residents of Ethembeni to their branch in Gugulethu for a ‘wellness’ afternoon. This event formed part of their corporate social responsibility. The wellness programme for the afternoon included Absa’s resident Nurse checking blood pressure and testing the elderly resident’s sugar levels. There was important education around a number of health issues like prostate cancer, breast cancer and cervical cancer. Absa then shared important information about drawing up a Will and offered to provide this service to them all free of charge. Residents enjoyed delicious eats and drink and at the end of the day were each given an Absa gift bag filled with goodies to take home. Thank you Absa for taking the time to acknowledge our elderly residents, thank you for an interesting and informative afternoon and for spoiling us with delicious food and gifts. View photo gallery.
The Local Society of Macassar worked furiously to get their home equipped and furnished in time for the grand opening of Happy Hearts Manor on the 28th May 2011, and what a wonderful day it was. It was a wet and wintry Saturday afternoon but that didn't matter, nothing was going to dampen the spirits of this crowd. About 60 guests joined the Local Society at the house for an afternoon of live music, singing by local community residents, delicious eats and a packed programme of speeches by residents, the Abbeyfield Director, the previous Abbeyfield Development Officer who established the committee back in 2003, the new Councillor for the area and members of the Committee.
Members of the Macassar community were blown away by the house and how happy the new residents were. Other guests included members of the Abbeyfield Board, volunteers from three of our new township Local Societies, estate agents and community leaders. The afternoon ended with everyone singing and dancing together in the true spirit of "ubuntu" - 'togetherness' and 'community.' Well done to the hard working Local Society of Macassar. Now for house no. 2! View photo gallery.
This years Abbeyfield International Conference was held in Milan, Italy from the 6th-9th May. Zoë Paul represented Abbeyfield South Africa by doing a presentation entitled ‘Spotlight on South Africa.” A number of items on the Agenda included: What is Abbeyfield? Creating communities that value their elders. How do we grow Abbeyfield? What does an international Abbeyfield mean? We had a number of interactive sessions, there were presentations by other Abbeyfield countries and we were given the chance to visit some of the Italian Abbeyfield homes. The Italians were wonderful hosts and spoilt us all. The Conference was well organised and provided a good opportunity for networking, stimulating discussions and the sharing of stories from each of our respective countries. It was so nice to feel part of a bigger global family. Our affiliated Abbeyfield countries were intrigued by the work that we do in South Africa and were all very much in support of expanding our housing model to support older people in ALL our different communities. View photo gallery.
Wonderbags are heat-retention/insulation cookers and are cooking bags which require pots to be just 5-15 minutes on the stove before inserting the pot into the bag and leaving it to cook on its own. The Wonderbag is a great way to reduce the escalating electricity charges and a way of producing slowly cooked nutritious meals.
The wider use of the Wonderbag results in: Money saved on fuel that can be spent on food. Less CO2 emissions, which contributes to a reduction in harmful carbons affecting the ozone layer and less pollution and toxic fumes, which decreases the incidence of respiratory and other diseases. The ladies of Ethembeni were so excited about their new wonderbags they couldn’t wait to get cooking. View photo gallery.
The residents of Ethembeni recently finished their 3 month Soil for Life programme. They have managed to reap the rewards of their physical labour with veggies to last a life time! Delicious beetroot, turnips, spinage, potatoes, bush beans, carrots, cauliflower and spring onions were some of what they were able to grow. They have just started to harvest their turnips and spinage. Soil for Life facilitators will continue to support this group in keeping their garden alive. The next course that will be held at Ethembeni will be teaching our residents how to make preserves. Keep up the good work and enjoy staying active. View photo gallery.
In January 2011 we welcomed 6 new volunteers to our Local Society of Plumstead. Our previous committee worked very hard for many years to open a beautiful house where 7 older people felt proud to call it home. It’s not an easy task nowadays to find people with enough time to volunteer, so we were ‘over the moon’ when Paula Lyle called to say she’d organised a group of people who liked our concept and who were interested in helping out. A big thank you goes out to Paula, Mort, Diana, Inge, Vernon, Glenda and Jenny. Welcome to the Abbeyfield family!
The CPOA invited residents of Ethembeni away to Strandfontein for the weekend. Only 3 of our residents could make it. The following is a translation (from Xhosa to English) of Betty, Phyllis and Leticia’s experience.
"It was wonderful, going out for a long weekend is something that I vaguely remember doing when I was still at school," said Betty. “The reception at the CPOA was very warm and we were treated as part of the family. We went to a place next to the beach in Strandfontein and enjoyed ourselves to the fullest. During our dinner there was always a piano playing religious songs and we were dancing throughout the night. We all shared stories and enjoyed each other's company. The food was very good and enough for all of us. We even had "patkos" at the end of the outing.
We shared ideas of collaboration as older people and had an opportunity to know each other better. We will encourage other residents to join us at the CPOA as we had witnessed that going out and meeting other people is fun and an experience on its own. Thank you very much to the CPOA and the organising team for such a lovely weekend away."
Soil for Life is a programme that educates community members on how to start community based gardens. The residents of Ethembeni recently showed interest in growing their own vegetables in the garden on their property in Gugulethu and they collectively agreed that this kind of training would be incredibly useful. The programme runs once a week for 12 weeks (every Wednesday) at Ethembeni and the training equips the ladies both theoretically and practically. Three men from a neighbouring community called Europe have also joined the group which adds a new dynamic.
Training, which is facilitated in their home language IsiXhosa, is into its third week and residents are enjoying every minute of it. They enjoy the fact that it’s not too strenuous but does keep them active.
Soil for Life has also introduced our Ethembeni residents to a project called Mamelani which focuses on educating men and women in communities around nutrition and how to manage chronic illnesses like: BP, TB, Diabetes, Arthritis, etc. They educate people on how to continue to eat healthily while not having to spend more money. Mamelani will partner with Soil for Life and facilitate joint training for a period of 8 weeks. Residents will start with this programme in March 2011. View photo gallery.
Zoë was invited by David Morrison, Treasurer of Milwood House Committee, to give a talk on Abbeyfield at their Zone 4 Lions Club Meeting held at the Croquette Club at the Waterfront on Saturday, 12th Feb 2011. Zone meetings are held quarterly and this one was the last one of their fiscal year. What a scorcher of a day but such a nice opportunity to chat to this group about the work that Abbeyfield is involved in and how we’re assisting social pensioners to live with dignity.
