Ashby Village

Ashby Village makes CNN news. Julie Freestone, member/volunteer/Board member was interviewed for this article, along with members from Beacon Hill Village - where the Village movement started. Read below for their quotes and mention of Ashby Village.

What to do today (besides vote!)? Listen to Ashby Village's Executive Director Andy Gaines talk about Ashby Village on the radio show "Aging By The Bay." Here’s the recording link. https://soundcloud.com/agingbythe/ashby-village-andy-gaines

ELDER ACTION Notice: "Berkeley ballot ‘drop stop’ set up downtown TODAY ONLY for no-contact voting!" For any of our members, volunteers, donors or your friends and family who haven’t yet voted - it's open today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2111 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. VOTE VOTE VOTE!... https://www.berkeleyside.com//berkeley-ballot-drop-stop-dr

Here's information about Ashby Village's Neighbors Helping Neighbors group. Village Neighborhood Groups are forming small support teams to offer help to members who may be going through a hard time (illness, surgery, loneliness, hospitalization, bereavement, etc.). Here’s how it works: Neighborhood Group leaders regularly remind folks to contact them if theyor another member they knowmight need some extra support. For example, a member might appreciate some friendly visits... or phone calls or might need to have some meals delivered after a surgery. The Neighborhood Group leader passes this request on to someone on the support team who contacts the member to get the details of the situation. If appropriate, they might ask the member if it’s okay to put out the word to the Neighborhood Group so members can volunteer to help. They might also guide the member to appropriate Village services and coordinate any ongoing service needs with Erik Whitaker in the Village Office. Neighbors Groups offer all sorts of activities from documentary nights to happy hours. Support teams offer another opportunity to strengthen our personal connections.

Ashby Village member Maxine Hong Kingston has contributed to the Scheherazade Project. Click on the link to find out about the project and listen to Maxine's story. Hers is #90. The Scheherazade Project's Morning After Report #101nights www.theScheherazadeProject.org

Membership Volunteers in Action, Part Two - Bob Stenberg, written by Karin Evans. Ashby Village is a community that was built from, and thrives with, the active engagement of its constituents. Did you know that if a member decides to leave the village for any reason, there’s a volunteer ready to support departure in good tidings, too? This positing is about another of AV's Membership Volunteers: Bob Stenberg.... Bob, with the Membership Exit Team, reaches out to members who, for whatever reason, might not have found the village a good fit. Though they are certainly in the minority, and may have very different reasons, people do leave. Some may have had a life change and the services no longer meet their needs. Whatever the reason, he says, it’s important for Ashby Village to know what might not have worked. Bob, who retired from a stressful job involving medical malpractice issues, always does a little research before contacting anyone, so he can be sensitive to people who might not want to be contacted. If someone is willing to chat, either by phone or email, Bob uses a standard interview form. He goes down a list of questionswhy people joined, whether the village met their expectations. Bob started with other volunteer jobs at Ashby Village after he and his partner joined in 2017. He did some office work, helped the decluttering team, drove members to medical appointments, and did some window-washing with Hearts & Hands. You meet such interesting people who have such interesting lives, he says. I signed up for everything and then cut back. Now his volunteer work is all by phone or email, and the answers he gets go into the Ashby Village data base, where it helps the village see what’s working and what might not be, he says. With his involvement at one end of the process, and Marty’s at the other, the two volunteers (Marty and Bob) serve as crucial bookends of village membership. "They both play a vital role in supporting member retention, now and in the future" says Pat Carvalho, Ashby Village's Operations Director. "And we are so lucky to have two warm and caring volunteers to help us get there!"

Membership Volunteers in Action, Part One - Marty Ramey, written by Karin Evans. Ashby Village is a community that was built from, and thrives with, the active engagement of its constituents. Did you know that three months after a new member joins Ashby Village, a Member Engagement volunteer reaches out to make sure the newcomer is feeling engaged and has all the information needed to get the most from their membership? And, if a member decides to leave the village for any r...eason, there’s a volunteer ready to support departure in good tidings, too? In this posting, Part One, read about Marty Ramey. (Part Two, about Bob Stenberg will be up next.) Marty Ramey, of the Member Engagement Team, is the person who checks in with new members at three months. I make an initial phone call to see if there’s anything I can help them with, or if they have any questions, says Marty. She makes sure they know how to request services and get the help they need and helps with any particular questions. A retired French teacher, Marty got involved with Ashby Village after her husband died. A friend invited her to a Living Room Chat, and she signed up to volunteer. Her mother was then 90 and far away, in independent living in Louisiana, and Marty saw volunteering as a way to offer Ashby Village members the help she would have liked to give to her own mother. People join Ashby Village for all kinds of different reasons, Marty says. If a new member is looking for a yoga class, she helps them navigate the website. If someone has a particular interest, say a desire for political involvement, she might get them in touch with the Elder Action group. If someone doesn’t find it easy to hook up electronically, she arranges for tech support. These days, of course, helping new members connect virtually is a big part of the job. We try to relay the feeling of community, even though we are apart, Marty says. If there are any problems, Marty checks in six months later, and if someone hasn’t connected, she might contact a neighborhood leader and see if they can reach out. At nine months, she contacts all new members again. Usually people are very happy by then and it’s all very positive, she says, But if there’s any reason someone isn’t happy, I try to find out why and see how we can remedy the situation. People really appreciate the outreach, says Marty. I have some wonderful conversations and I get more out of it than I put into it. It’s a lot of fun. I miss my mom and her friends, and this gives me a way to stay in touch, she adds. Talking to a lot of Ashby Village members is just the next best thing.

Have you voted yet? Here's Betty Webster, AV board member dropping in her ballot. To find the Dropbox near you, please check the EA Chart (https://docs.google.com/.../12pzOp.../edit...). If you are an AV member, and you prefer to not mail in your ballot, and cannot get to a Dropbox, ELDER ACTION and Ashby Village have vetted volunteers available to pick up and deliver your sealed ballots to an Official Dropbox. Anyone may return your ballot for you, as long as that person does not get paid on a per ballot basis. For your ballot to be counted, you must fill out the authorization section on the outside of your ballot envelope (https://www.sos.ca.gov/elect.../voter-registration/vote-mail). For help delivering your ballot, please contact us at [email protected].

Have you gotten your flu shot? Flu season is upon us. As most of you know, it is even more important this year than ever before that we all get our flu shots this year while the COVID-19 virus is still threatening our health. Check out this informative article about Flu Shots and make sure you get be immunized soon:... https://betterhealthwhileaging.net/flu-shots-in-aging-what-

Ashby Village's member/volunteer Roger suggests this 7-day email newsletter from the Washington Post called "What Day Is It?" It begins on Monday. Thanks, Roger!

ELDER ACTION (EA) Co-Chair Rochelle Lefkowitz and her husband, AV Member Felix Kramer, put their completed ballots into the Berkeley Dropbox in front of the library on University. To find the Dropbox near you, please check the EA Chart (https://docs.google.com//12pzOp-wmZZQj6MIc01gjP_IRo2/edit). If are an AV member, prefer to not mail in your ballot and cannot get to a Dropbox, ELDER ACTION and Ashby Village have vetted volunteers available to pick up and deliver your sea...led ballots to an Official Dropbox. Anyone may return your ballot for you, as long as that person does not get paid on a per ballot basis. For your ballot to be counted, you must fill out the authorization section on the outside of your ballot envelope (https://www.sos.ca.gov/electio/voter-registration/vote-mail). For help delivering your ballot, please contact us at [email protected].

Elder Action and Embracing Change Presents: Healthcare and Long-Term Care In the Age of Covid When: Thursday, October 15, 2:00-4:00pm Where: via Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86100495271... Jodi Reid of the California Alliance for Retired Americans, California’s largest grassroots senior advocacy organization, will address what we have learned about our statewide public health system as well as long-term care alternatives as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. She will also address efforts to achieve a universal long-term care benefit and some form of single-payer healthcare in the State of California.

Science and Ideas Group: COVID-19 Vaccine Research: Latest Developments! When: Wednesday, October 14, 3:00-4:30pm Where: via Zoom, https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85703376751... To date, the world has no defense against COVID-19. The development of an effective, safe vaccine against the virus is the holy grail of research in medicine today. How is this research conducted and evaluated? What phases must it pass through? What challenges are involved in conduction of conclusive clinical trials? The primary aim of this education and discussion session is to address these questions. The speakers are Dr. Christopher Hall, infectious disease specialist, and Tricia Smallwood, clinical research coordinator of Jordan Research and Education Institute, Sutter East Bay Medical Center, Oakland, CA. The speakers will also provide specific information about the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine trial, for which Sutter is a research partner. The Institute is seeking older (at risk because of age alone) adult participants from Berkeley and Oakland. Ashby Village members will have the opportunity, if they are interested, to follow up with the researchers about joining the AstraZeneca trial. Ashby Village does not endorse this company, its work, the Sutter Research Institute, or participation of our members in the study. We do hope for a lively discussion and many questions from you, our Zoom participants.

Be An Informed Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville Voter! When: Wednesday, October 13, 10:30am Where: Via Zoom, https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85461593472... The League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville will give us the Pros and Cons of the November Ballot Measures. Speakers from the League will provide nonpartisan, unbiased information on all the measures and answer questions. Providing information to help voters make decisions about their communities and their government is a core mission of the League of Women Voters. This November, Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville voters will cast votes on: 12 State Propositions 4 City of Albany Measures 8 City of Berkeley Measures 2 Alameda County Measures