Village Life

Retirementvillages.co.nz, the newest kid on the Eldernet block, has marked its first birthday! To celebrate the milestone we enlisted Driving Miss Daisy to deliver a scrumptious birthday cake to all those lovely clients that signed up right at the start. As you can see from the photos, the cake and …

Chef Terence Austin is on a mission – to ensure those with the eating condition dysphagia get presented with meals that look, smell and taste just as good as those served to people without the condition. People with dysphagia have difficulty swallowing liquids and solids. It’s a growing problem among …

The Operator Gretchen Berg Hachette $34.99 This book held so much promise! It looked exciting in the publisher’s summary and I was so very happy to see a copy arrive in the office for us to read. I started just before COVID (and all that went with it) and I …

Kia ora tātou! Here at Eldernet we’ve been getting some ka pai reports of what various villages and facilities around the country are doing to mark Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori / Māori Language Week. As the photos show, staff and residents at CHT Hillcrest Hospital in Mangere took …

The Jacaranda House Deborah Challinor HarperCollins RRP: $36.99 Set in both Australia and New Zealand, this book drew me in instantly. Perhaps that’s because I like a sense of where something is happening, a time and space in which to place my thoughts. Because this novel is set in places …

Going floral is a growing trend in interior décor, and there is no better way to bring the trend to life than with indoor flowers. Besides enhancing the beauty of a space, they clean the air and help you feel calm and relaxed. Caring for them is even more rewarding …

COVID-19 has shone a light on how well retirement villages and care homes are set up to cope with the challenges of such a highly contagious virus. There’s now a fresh focus on how architecture and technology can make disease prevention and containment easier, as well as improving the experience …

Jane Wrightson, our new Retirement Commissioner, tells Eldernet about her priorities for the role, and what she is looking forward to when her turn comes. What was it about the role of Retirement Commissioner that attracted you to it? I had a leadership background in media, regulation and industry advocacy …

Throughout history, intergenerational cooperation and learning has been a fundamental part of many communities and cultures. Somewhere along the way we moved away from that model. Family members began living further apart from each other; therefore, they lost their natural intergenerational composition. Society as a whole has also become more …

There are lots of factors that come in to play when deciding whether to move into a retirement village. These can be health, social, financial, security and lifestyle. Although not all retirement villages are the same, all of them have some similar characteristics that make them appealing to people. The social …