Looking at the wise faces at Woodlands Retirement Village, do you reckon you could pick the mountain climber? The miniature-maker? The avid collector of shovels, or the deep-sea diver?
A team at the retirement home is pushing back against the perception residents are “just waiting to go” by hosting a one-day expo celebrating lifelong skills and identities.
More than 40 submissions have been made so far, with residents challenged to represent one defining passion or aspect of themselves within a space no bigger than a sofa cushion.
Committee member Sue Clark says that people often forget the lives residents have lived before moving into the village.
“It’s an opportunity for our community to show a different side of ourselves,” she explains.
Part of the motivation is to challenge the idea that entering a retirement home means losing vitality, curiosity and usefulness.
“That you’re just waiting to go,” fellow committee member Mary Inglis says, describing a mindset that can be easy to fall into when people think they are “past it”.
“But you’re not,” she adds.
Sue acknowledges that holding onto self-confidence and self-worth can become harder as people age, but says the exhibition offers a little window into each resident’s story.
“It makes us a little bit more aware of the people in the village, and what they have achieved in their lives,” she says.
The uptake has been huge, and Sue reckons it has taken on a life of its own.
“We’ve got such an extraordinarily broad range of things that people have done,” she says.
“The success of the expo is that people come out of it feeling good, and feeling important.”
The expo’s grand opening will take place at 10am, led by a mysterious figure referred to as ‘The Mayor of Thorp Bush’.
The exhibition runs for one day only at Woodlands’ community hall, on Thursday, 2 July, from 10am – 4pm. The public is welcome, with a koha bucket collecting donations for Hospice.
