Friends of Hospice Christmas Newsletter

December 2009

Merry Christmas to the Friends of Hospice

Another year draws to a close, & we all begin looking forward to being with family & friends over Christmas & New Year, & to some warm weather & sunshine & time in the garden or on the beach. This newsletter is to bring you up to date with recent Hospice events, to request some help from anyone who has time to offer but doesn’t want to be involved with direct client care, & to let you know what is happening early next year.

MANY THANKS TO BUTTON DAY COLLECTORS & CONCERT PATRONS
These 2 fundraising events held in October were very successful. Button Day raised $4146 despite, (because of?), terrible weather. The concert was a lovely event, with proceeds over $850, including the raffle
Thanks to Julie Crawford & Larayne Kingston for donation of prizes, and to other volunteers for help on the day.
Special thanks to Penny King who has organized the concert for the past 10 years. We’ve had chamber music, choirs, & jazz, all in a variety of locations, but always a delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

New office arrangements
Following the resignation of our office manager, we will be making some changes to the day to day management of the Hospice service. Starting in the New Year, Lucia Ikin will work one day per week as Assistant Coordinator, with the Coordinator tasks shared between Jenny (full-time) and Lucia. Some of the administrative work (keeping records and statistics up to date, filing, letter-writing etc) will be now done by Lucia and Jenny.
The financial management will be wholly undertaken by our very competent & committed Treasurer. She intends ‘modernizing’ our book-keeping practices, by more efficient use of computer accountancy systems. However, we will be asking for help to deal with some of the other office work & fund-raising.

HELP WANTED

OFFICE VOLUNTEER

If you are not currently able to volunteer directly with clients, perhaps you would be able to help out occasionally in the office—with photocopying & sending out newsletters, preparing materials for volunteer training & education, fund-raising help, managing the Hospice library. It would probably only amount to a couple of hours per month, but might suit someone who still wants to contribute to Hospice, but can’t commit to much time, or needs Time Out from client work.

BUTTON DAY ORGANISER

Button Day is our biggest fund-raising event each year. We are looking for someone to take on the task of organizing this annual effort. It would need a few hours’ work early in the year to book venues, a few more to recruit and chase up collectors a couple of months before ’the day’, then a chunk of time around the day itself organizing the tins, and money etc and then sending out thank you notes to collectors.   Much of this work could be done from home.

COMPUTER WHIZZ
Are you able to give a few hours from time to time helping to maintain our web-site, deal with any ‘glitches’ in the computer, and advising on ‘technical ‘ issues? Much of this work could be done from home, but you would need a bit of patience to put up with the “luddites” in the office!

EVENT ORGANISER
If you have the enthusiasm for organizing one or two fund-raising &/or publicity events for us each year, (the concert has been our annual event up to now), we would be delighted to talk with you about your ideas. You would be your own boss—how big or small the event is up to you.


Christmas shopping
Don’t forget the Hospice CD (gentle guitar music) $10 Christmas special and a good little stocking filler.
If you’re buying books for presents, don’t forget you can donate Fullers loyalty points to Hospice —we use the points to buy new books for the Hospice library

NEXT VOLUNTEER TRAINING
There will be a training course for new volunteers starting in February, (once schools return). Those people who have expressed an interest in doing the Hospice Care volunteer training course will receive an invitation to our information session in late January. The course itself will run for 1 full day per week for 6 weeks.

Areas where we specially need more volunteers are Glenorchy & further north, Sorell & areas east of there, Derwent Valley and Huon. If you live in these areas, or know others who do, & who may be interested in Hospice volunteering, please make contact with the office to discuss training options. If there are enough people in one area, we may be able to ‘bring the training to you’. If there are only one or two, but willing to travel to Hobart, we can probably help with meeting travel expenses to attend.

Volunteering really IS good for you!

It has been known for a long time that volunteering is good for one’s physical & mental health, social life & sense of connectedness & wellbeing. Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland is running a long-term research project investigating “Social Engagement Strategies: Engaging Older people to maximize contribution to society”. The research so far is proving that volunteering has actual, measureable benefits for the volunteers & the community they serve.
Experience Corps volunteers are assigned to work in inner city elementary (K—3) schools assisting with curriculum—literacy, maths, computing; conflict resolution; improving school attendance, providing outreach support to parents struggling to cope, & running public health programs in the school (ie Asthma Club). These volunteers make a very big contribution. They are expected to give at least 15 hours per week for a full school year. Between 15 and 25 volunteers are assigned to a school, so they have a pretty big impact on the school environment, & culture.
The volunteers get an intensive training course that runs for a week, and it includes role playing, & lots about the school culture they are about to enter. The majority of volunteers in the Baltimore program are African—American women, all over 60 years of age, many of whom have no more than high school level education themselves. The training encourages a strong team bond among the volunteers, & this is vital in helping them to cope with the demands of the role once they are assigned to the school, where they take a mentoring role, rather than being tutors .
The volunteers are also paid $250 per month, which for many of these poorer people makes volunteering possible. On average, most give 22 hours per week.
In setting up the program, teaching unions, the school communities & the local governments which run schools needed to be fully supportive of the ‘experiment’. It has been such a success that more schools (23 so far), are requesting entry into the program,
For the volunteers, there are proven, measured benefits to physical health—improved strength, flexibility & overall fitness, better memory and attention (functional MRI’s reveal more areas of the brain are active & growing than a control group). Social life and sense of meaning and purpose are improved through the work with the children, but even more through the sense of ‘teamwork’ that the volunteers feel among their group.
This was an inspirational talk given by Prof George Rebok at a recent seminar Jenny attended in Hobart. Lots of questions were asked as the presentation was given, & it was evident everyone was very impressed with this project.
Worth watching future developments

BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT—MORE SERVICES, MORE COOPERATION
Hospice has been running a ‘Walking Through Grief” support group for the past couple of years. New clients join at least every month, & we now have up to 20 people who walk from time to time, with about 12 regulars.
In cooperation with the Cancer Council, The Compassionate Friends, RHH Grief & Loss Service, Life-line, CanTeen & several other services, we have supported 2 events this year for families who have experienced the death of a child (of any age, & from any cause). Hospice has been successful in obtaining a Community Support Levy grant of $2000 to purchase equipment to assist with running bereavement support events—& we have bought BBQ/picnic gear, craft materials, & some items for the walking group. It is intended that the equipment will be available for loan to other groups around the state who may want to organize events to support people who have been bereaved.
This year 2 more bereavement support services have started up—Lifeline is offering a survivors of suicide support service, & The Compassionate Friends hold bi-monthly meetings which Hospice is pleased to support with practical assistance of booking meeting rooms, & providing tea, coffee etc.

CHRISTMAS CLOSING

The Hospice office will close at 5pm on Wednesday 23rd
December, & reopen on Monday 4th January 2010.