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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-04-06 Regular Meeting GRAPEVINE SENIOR CITIZENS ADVISORY BOARD MEETING AGENDA Tuesday, April 6, 2010— 3:30 PM Grapevine Senior Activities Center 421 Church Street Grapevine, TX 76051 817-410-8130 1. Call to Order 2. Welcome Guests 3. Consideration of minutes for February 2, 2010 meeting 4. Citizen Requests 5. New Business a. Housing Authority update—Joetta King b. GRACE update— !dell Bowker c. Senior Activities Center update (11W' 6. Adjourn IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND THIS PUBLIC MEETING AND YOU HAVE A DISABILITY THAT REQUIRES SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS AT THE MEETING, PLEASE CONTACT THE SENIOR ACTIVITIES CENTER AT 817-410-8130, AT LEAST 24 HOURS IN ADVANCE. REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS WILL BE MADE TO ASSIST YOUR NEEDS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TEXAS GOVERNMENT CODE, CHAPTER 551.001 et seq, ACTS OF THE 1993 TEXAS LEGISLATURE, THE BOARD MEETING AGENDA, WAS PREPARED AND POSTED ON THIS,THE 2nd OF April 2010 AT 5:00 PM. i_K-iteAoil-b,*(4.0-0 Eileen Hinson,Assistant Director Grapevine Senior Activities Center C (0, GRAPEVINE SENIOR CITIZENS ADVISORY BOARD Minutes of Tuesday, April 6, 2010 meeting Grapevine Senior Activities Center 421 Church Street Grapevine, TX 76051 817-410-8130 1. Call to Order The Grapevine Senior Citizens Advisory Board met at 3:30 PM on April 6, 2010 at the Grapevine Senior Activities Center. The following members were present Dick Guckel, Chairperson Tena Burrell, Co-Chairperson Pam Price, Secretary Paul Ernst Carey Miller Dorothy Kritz, Ex-offico, Grapevine Senior Activities Center Francia Arrigan, Ex-offico, GRACE (dell Bowker, Ex-offico, GRACE (iir Others present Kaye Grayson, SAC Director Roy Stewart, City Council Member Liaison Those not present R. Bruce Walters Joetta King, Ex-offico, Housing Authority Chris Smith, Recreation Superintendent, Parks & Recreation 2. Welcome Guests There were no guests present. 3. Consideration of minutes for February 2, 2010 meeting The minutes were approved as read. 4. Citizen Requests There were no requests to be brought before the Board. Dick Guckel did comment that the Citizens Request forms could be made available on the City's website. Another location for the forms would be at the SAC — in its newsletter as well as posted on the center's bulletin board. 5. New Business (h. 100406 Minutes 1/4 a. Housing Authority update — Joetta King CThere was no report. b. GRACE update— Idell Bowker and Francia Arrigan (dell reported that she has completed her home visits with clients. GRACEFUL BUYS will move from its current location to where the TOUCH OF GRACE Boutique has been operating. Furniture donations will be directed to the location on Northwest Highway. All other GRACE donations are to be made at the Scribner Street Station. Tuesdays are Senior Discount Days at the Northwest Highway location and it was suggested to Kaye that an outside tour for the SAC could be scheduled to visit the facility. On March 23 GRACE set up a Resource Table at the SAC and it was very resourceful; there are plans to continue having such a table available once a month at the Center to answer seniors' questions. One-on-one attention, not just a group presentation, was the focus. Hillary Jordan, Client Services Program Manager, came with Francia on the 23rd. They met with 10-15 seniors. GRACE feels this is a good way to meet with those seniors who are active in the SAC but live outside the city limits. Through a joint effort with Meals on Wheels GRACE will participate in a new program to assist seniors called Neighbors Helping Neighbors. The goal is to have a volunteer committing for one year to help a senior at least once a month with any concerns held by the senior (which could include minor repairs and handyman jobs around the home, provide one-on-one companionship and transportation along with other needs). Francia added that GRACE will need more team effort and resources in coordinating all services and the goal is to embrace with members of the community. The process will include many visits with church and community groups asking them to commit quality assistance for each senior. To get the program started, the first need to be addressed will be assisting the seniors with commodities — delivering meals, groceries, and other daily needs. GRACE will develop a volunteer training program focusing on quality and commitment. It was suggested that the GRACE program manager do a presentation at the June 1st Board meeting. An information table being made available to seniors at the SAC would be a positive addition to the program. Neighbors Helping Neighbors focuses on the senior community who doesn't have help. Two years ago it was funded to work with GRACE by a grant from the United Way to combat senior isolation. The program wants to be a technical support group for GRACE since GRACE has already established a network and has a database of seniors from the Grapevine, Southlake, and Colleyville communities. GRACE plans to create a training manual, do assessments and learn where the need is the greatest. By coordinating efforts with churches and the police department auxiliary, GRACE will work to be sure that this program does not "repeat" existing programs but finds support in areas needing attention. 100406 Minutes 2/4 • • • , At today's meeting Tena Burrell volunteered to put together a Social Security (1. workshop and facilitate the sessions that will help train GRACE volunteers in working with seniors. Tena has been trained by Zanda Hilger with the Area Agency on Aging (AAA), to do workshops, and have the PowerPoint programs and other tools necessary to do these workshops. Tena will contact Zanda on behalf of the Grapevine Senior Activity Center and GRACE, and get more information to us by the next meeting. These workshops can be funded through the AAA so that there is no cost to the center or GRACE. Also Tena provided updated goals on behalf of the Senior Service Allianz group (SSA) that is a division of the Grapevine Chamber dealing with Community Outreach: 1)Team Charter: Identify and collaborate with an established non-profit organization associated with the Chamber of Commerce as an avenue for supporting senior-related community issues such as transportation, food collections, and volunteer healthcare services. 2) Team Lead: Tena Burrell, Financial and Estate Planning Services 3) Short Term Goal: Assist in obtaining members with specialties we do not currently have in our"committed" SSA membership. 4) Mid Term Goal: Work with City of Grapevine and Fire Dept. to promote VIAL OF LIFE program for the seniors in the community. 5) Long Term Goal: Work with Grapevine Senior Activity Center and GRACE to communicate our mission, and build long term relationships. (Iiir c. Senior Activities Center update On March 19th Carol Ray, Outreach Benefits Counselor, for the Area Agency on Aging of Tarrant County came out to the SAC to do a presentation on Medication Management. After the presentation she visited with approximately 10 seniors who had preregistered to meet with her for one-on-one benefits counseling. Carol will be coming out on a monthly basis to do a presentation and provide one-on-one benefits counseling to interested seniors. Her next presentation will be on April 20th at 10:30. Her presentation will be on "Long Term Options for Aging Well". This service is provided in part by Senior Citizen Services (SCS) and United Way. On March 23rd, GRACE had a resource table set up at the SAC from 10:30 until around Noon. Francia Arrigan, Director of Programs and Hillary Jordan, Client Services Program Manager at GRACE were available to answer any questions about programs or services that they offer and they had resource material available to hand out to the seniors. This program went very well and we will continue to offer this service on a monthly basis. This gives GRACE an opportunity to meet informally with the seniors and discuss any issues that they might have that GRACE can possibly help them with. On March 26th, we had 2 buses (42 seniors) go on the trip to tour the new Cowboys Stadium. Everyone had a wonderful time and were very impressed with the facility. (1., The staff that provided the tour were very nice and went out of their way to insure 100406 Minutes 3/4 that the seniors enjoyed the tour. We had a waiting list of around 20 that could not go so we are going to plan another tour to the stadium in the near future. On March 30th we had around 20 seniors participate in a drum circle. Edward Owen, who is a drum circle facilitator with "Experience the Drum," led the drum circle at the SAC. He provided the drums and anyone could participate regardless of their musical experience. A few people were a little hesitant at first but once we got the session going...everyone really had a great time. This is a great activity for coordination, rhythm, and exercise too. He will be coming back on May 4th at 10:30 to do another drum circle session. Everyone is welcome to participate. We are working on setting up this program to be a monthly activity. Marcy Roitman Booth with the GV Convention and Visitor's Bureau will be here on Friday, April 9th to do a presentation on the new GV Visitor's Shuttle. The program starts at 10:30. On Saturday, April 24th we are going again to Meet and Greet the Troops at DFW International Airport. Seniors will need to call the SAC for more details. Dick Guckel and Paul Ernst who work with the Tax Aide program at the SAC reported that at this date over 200 seniors have participated in the tax program; in 2008 there were 174 tax returns done. This is a free service yet many of the seniors make donations to FOGSAC to show their appreciation. Irby Dick reported that he attended the Senior and Law Enforcement Together (SALT) conference which focused on fraud. Most reasons for crimes in the United States are drug related. To prevent Identification Theft, seniors are encouraged to put a freeze on the three credit bureaus so that no one can use their identity. This service costs $10 per credit bureau and the seniors can unfreeze their credit reports at any time. Dave Lieber of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram spoke at the conference. SALT was originated by the Grapevine and HEB Police Departments. 6. Adjourn - The meeting adjourned at 4:50 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Pam Price,Price, Secretary ( Minutes approved by the Board on / day of ya/n-<_...1 , 2010. 100406 Minutes 4/4