“There was myself and a part-time staff and I was called the office manager, but I didn’t really have anybody to manage,” she said with a laugh from her office at the Saskatoon Field House.

Gawdun became the executive director of the council 10 years later and now has six permanent staff and a number on contracts covered by grants.

With the multitude of projects the council runs, staff members and volunteers are kept hopping. “We couldn’t do the work we do without the volunteers,” she said. “The volunteers and the staff are working together as a team to accomplish our goals.

“The nice thing is seniors are very committed to SCOA. I’ve seen the original board members – you serve on the board for so long and then the bylaws you need to go off – and they are very much interested in SCOA’s work so they will stay on a committee and they will work on a particular project.”

These original members have been involved since 1991.

Gawdun said the ranks are increasing with baby boomers coming of age and getting involved. That’s a good thing.

SCOA has more than 3,500 members. “In a typical year we do serve many more than that. When you add that up, there are about 20,000 touch points a year that we have through visiting our websites and coming in person and participating in meetings and programs and events. So we do reach a lot.”

Programs, classes and services are targeted to those 55 years of age or older. And the price is right. “To become a full member it is $25 for the year and there is a family membership of $35. Associate membership is free for those who can’t afford to be a member; we want everybody to be able to access our services.”

The first project all those years ago was related to elder abuse. The program was used to develop a pamphlet that would help prevent older adults from such things as financial abuse. Older adults can be easier pickings for scammers.

Next up was a program dealing with isolation. The programs are still running today, but Live Smart, Young at Heart and Travel Eat Meet are now in the hands of Luther Care.

That isn’t to say the SCOA isn’t delivering similar programs. There is a huge demand for them. Gawdun said. She said the topic came up time and again in various focus groups.

“We created seniors’ neighbourhood hub clubs and it’s basically a drop-in program for older adults where you can go once a month. There’s some gentle exercise, they have a fun activity that might be a presentation or a game. There are different ways of socializing and then they have refreshments.” The program was launched at Mayfair Church.

“It’s been so popular we decided we were going to show other organizations how to run their own hub clubs.” As an example, SCOA hooked up with the Eastview Community Association. “I went to their community association committee meeting and talked about the hub club and asked them if they wanted to set one up in their own area, similar to ours. There was four or five seniors on the community association so they were quite interested.”

They was what was going on in Mayfair and jumped in. “We helped them by giving them a tool kit, a guide to set up their own program, how to apply for their own funding, kind of step by step what you would do when running an event. They have been so successful in running their program that they now have 75 seniors coming out.

“The Open Door Society is running one in Pleasant Hill and we now have a hub club run by St. Martin’s United Church and another operated by Silverwood Heights Community Association for a total of five hub clubs city-wide.”

The hub clubs are open to active seniors city-wide. Those attending the meetings are encouraged to become SCOA members.

There are life-long learning programs. On the day of the interview, a workshop on birding was taking place. Participants take two sessions indoors and then they go out into the wild.

In these changing technological times, programs geared to learning about gadgets are popular. And what better way than having students teaching older adults?

“We have seniors’ tech buddy program that we match older adults with students at St. Joseph High School,” Gawdun said. “Tech buddy is for intergenerational activities between the students and the older adults.”

“The students, about a week before this fair, receive age friendly communication from SCOA. But before the students and older adults get together, there is a half-day technology fair where we usually have a speaker – usually from either Affinity Credit Union or the police come and speak about Internet fraud and safety.” Then the students take over. “They bring their technology devices, like their cellphone or their tablet or laptop, and the students show them how to use it. The older adults come with all their questions and they are shown how it works.” It is a good program for both the older adults and the students.

“They’re getting that empowerment by showing older adults how to do something and students also learn from the older adults.”

Gawdun pointed to the Globe Walk as another success story. It runs from January to the end of April. In essence, groups of older adults walk, record their distances and see how far they have collectively gone.

“The SCOA Globe Walk’s goal is to bring this fantastic, motivating, healthy program to all Saskatchewan communities. Our popular SCOA Globe Walk is expanding to include Regina. Regina was the first, and it proved to be a great choice! We look forward to having the Regina teams joining us for Globe Walk 2020. Join SCOA on a new Globe Walk adventure starting January 2020.”

One year local walkers made it around the world six times. Another year they got to the moon and halfway back.

There are 89 captains and several thousand walkers, she said, adding walkers can use the Field House for the four months at a cost of $25.

Much of the SCOA’s programming is user driven. There is a focus group of 500 older adults, for example. Other ideas come from organizations with a stake in making Saskatoon age friendly. “Out of that, the results came with a lot of different suggestions for what SCOA could be doing and what the health authority could be doing.

“We have done a lot of work from that and that’s how the hub clubs, the Global Walk and the seniors tech buddy (were initiated). We formed partnerships with the city police and fire and we worked with them.

“They created a video to use for training the police officers; it was how to communicate with older adults in all sorts of different situations. That was fun to make because we provided the seniors actors and they did the filming. We had a grand opening of the video and we had that at Preston Park retirement home because they did a lot of the filming there.”

The program now includes Saskatoon Transit. “We hope to make a video with them, as well, to train their drivers and also to show older adults how to use the transit system.”

She pointed out the success of the caregiver information support centre.

“We have been doing some wonderful work there. Every year we have different workshops and forums. Informal caregivers connect with each other and network and then we have a presentation on a topic they choose.”

One was focused on Alzheimer’s. A family spoke about living with somebody with Alzheimer’s and then a professional made a presentation.

SCOA has a century club for the oldest of the older adults. Six times a year, members 90 and older – 176 members – go out on activities. On the other six months they get a newsletter to connect. They also have a memory book with their photos and stories.

Funding from SCOA comes from grants, the Ministry of Health, donations, fundraising and sponsorships.

For more – much more – information, visit www. scoa.ca.

-Cam Hutchinson