Senior Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

It's 4.03. We'd like to call the meeting of the Senior Advisory Committee to order. Please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, at this time, if you'll look at the agenda, and we'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

I motion to approve.

Is there a second?

A second.

All in favor of accepting the agenda, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We've got an approved agenda. We'll move on to the minutes of the March 12th meeting. And we'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes.

So moved.

Is there a second? Second.

I'll second.

OK. All in favor of the minutes as written, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? OK. The March minutes have been approved. We'll go to Jennifer for staff updates.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for being here. And I do want to welcome our two new board members, Mr. Sanchez. And then if I pronounce it right. I just wanted to say it right. Thank you so much. So I wanted to welcome you guys to our committee. And also, you know, we will be appointing, and we will get to that, but we will be appointing a chair and vice chair since this is our new session. But we did want to go through some of our staff updates and what all we have been up to and all the seniors have been up to. Although it is summertime, we're still very busy at our community center. with all of our seniors and just to mention a couple of things you know we did have our st patrick's day party which was a hit we had i believe over 330 people at that event and then we had our cinco de mayo party on may 5th that was also a lot of fun and we did host over 300 seniors for that too And then our upcoming, we do have a senior luau actually next week on Tuesday. So we'll be having in Hawaiian entertainment. And then we're also engaging in a lot of our programs. And I know we do have some new members. So Kyle and I thought it would be a good idea to kind of go through some of those programs that we do have available at our community center. So we do have our Dancing with Lucy class. We do have four different Zumba classes that are available. Balance, Strength, Core, and More, which focuses on helping with the balance. Balance Fitness Summer Sessions, Bingo Size, Strong in 30, Tai Chi, Walk with Ease, and Yoga. So those are some of the fitness and dance classes that we have available at the community center. And then we also have our AARP smart driving course. We have bingo on Wednesdays and then we have feel good Fridays on Fridays, which is hosted by Baptist Health. And then we have low impact aerobics and we also hold lunch and learn seminars which are free to our seniors and it works in conjunction with a home health agency or a hospital system or an elder law attorney who comes in and does a presentation and provides food for the seniors for free at no cost to them. We do have the Matter of Balance program. That's where we partner with the Area Agency on Aging. It is a free program, and it works on balance, but it's also an educational class for the seniors as well. And like I mentioned, we do have a senior special event every single month, and we do theme it. So we just rolled out some of our new themes for next year. So Spring Fling, and we have May the 4th be with you. So we'll be celebrating for Star Wars. So some new things that we've added just for the docket. technology class that is also free for our seniors so we offer that in conjunction with a management company which is sponsored by Humana and Florida blue so that's just a name some of the programs that we do it's not necessarily all and we do have the freebie program to transportation so that is three Tesla vehicles that provide services monday through saturday eight to five and that is free for the seniors at no cost and it is an on-demand service so if they want to go to publics if they want to go you know to go get lunch with their friends they can utilize that service it's really unique a lot of other municipalities have also been contacting us to see how we're able to facilitate that program And then we do have our congregate meal site. So that does meet Monday through Friday. We have breakfast at 830 and we have lunch at noon. So those programs are also free for the seniors. So we try to, you know, be able to provide breakfast and then they can go to a free program and then come back for lunch. So that's just to kind of give a gist of the programs that we're hosting right now. And I know that Kyle has some more updated information.

Jennifer, sorry, it's me. Can we get a list of that? Just I'd like to have it just for my book. All right. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Just some more kind of in-depth updates on what we've done lately, because Jennifer obviously did a great job covering what we do for the most part in totality there. Yesterday, we hosted our second annual Senior Olympics. It was our summer edition. We had about 40 or so seniors come out and participate in our games. We had ping pong, shuffleboard, cornhole, and axe throwing.

Axe throwing. Not real axes.

Yes. Safe acts wrong. That one we had about 30 participants in. It was the most popular game. But we had 11 sponsors come out. And so we kind of had a little sponsors row where when they weren't participating in games, they were able to mingle amongst all the vendors. So it worked out. We had bagels, donuts, and coffee to start the morning. And then we ended it all with some pizza. You know, got to treat the athletes right. You know, make sure that, you know.

Get their carbs. Exactly. That's right. That's so cool.

Today we hosted a Alzheimer's awareness lunch and learn. And that was from the Capstone at Royal Palm Beach. We had, I think it was 46 in attendance. And then next week we have a vascular health talk. And we have currently, I think, 52 registered. And as Jennifer mentioned, next week we have our Luau. We have, I believe it's 268 currently registered. And we are very excited for that. We hope you all come join us.

And then the trips.

Yes. On the 23rd of this month, we are taking our bus to the Bush Wildlife Sanctuary in Jupiter, where we will be able to get 25 seniors admission and lunch. So we're very excited for that. That's our first time going there. And a few weeks ago, we took a trip to the Vincent Ramos Therapeutic Writing Center. And that was a smashing success. Everybody loved it. And since they are so close by, we were able to do two bus trips. So we took a group, dropped them off. They received about an hour tour and got to really get behind the scenes of what all they do. Because they're an amazing, amazing organization to work with. And then we had another group waiting. They received a lunch and learn and some food. And then when they finished up, we just swapped groups. And it worked out perfectly. And they had a blast. So we're trying to continue to add more trips. So we're starting to reach out. And they're all paid for. So we have an amazing sponsorship group, you know, partners that we're able to team up with. And so it's been awesome, awesome experiences for the seniors.

Is it possible to add another bus? I don't know at this time, but that's something we could certainly look towards.

Would there be an appetite for another, would you fill another bus going up to Bush Wildlife?

Yeah, I'm sure easily.

So, I mean, that would be, because I noticed that when I was reviewing from our last meeting, you know, there could be 50 to 75 people. And I know from the turnout to the events- A lot of people. A lot of people. And based on what you've mentioned, Kyle, about the success of Vince Ramos. And to tie all that in, it appears that you're really hitting the nail on the head with topics, events, trips, because everything is, quote, selling out. I mean, you know, obviously, and you're underwriting everything and getting the grants and getting the coverage. So there's a lot of people who get to benefit from this. So I think from seniors, we say thank you. because you're certainly You're certainly doing a lot for, I know when I attend some of these events, and there's several hundred, which I would expect for the Luau next week, because they love to, is the steel drum guy coming?

No, so it'll be the actual Aloha Entertainment, so it'll be the dancers.

Oh my, oh, that's right. So, okay, so to that note, and then I will be quiet. I know you're really, really busy, and it's hard to believe that sometimes I'm actually busy and I don't look at this list. Is it possible to have us in a little file that you could say, reminder, Senior Olympics next Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock. Stop by if you can for 9 to 12, luau. And I can remember, because I get busy with something or I get on the phone with something else, and it's like, oh, no, I could have gone to the luau.

Because I have to say, if you haven't gone to these events,

They're really something. And these people, it's so much fun. I mean, I'm leading the conga line sometimes. It is so fun. It's just, if you aren't young, if you don't feel young, you will after that, going to one of those. So thank you. But if you have a minute maybe to do a blast to us, and it doesn't have to be every day, but like this week, remember. There's this, this, this, and this. And or we could use some help for this. I know sometimes when that line gets long handing out lunches and water, I mean, I feel like even I'm participating a little bit in helping out and I enjoy it. But, you know, many hands make light work when there's a lot of people. And sometimes once they get seated, they don't want to get back up because they're talking. And we can be walking around helping them get stuff. They'll say, can I get some whatever? And we get it. I know I see you all going crazy. But if we can help at all and can go. And not everybody can, but sometimes I can. And I would like to. So thank you.

We can send a monthly reminder. So like the beginning of the month, if you wanted us to. And just say, hey, this is what we've got for the month.

Perfect.

And then you guys can pick and choose. That's great. If that works.

An asterisk if we could use some help for this.

We'll always take help.

You're always very gracious when anybody shows up. OK, thank you so much.

Normally, if you send out an email as a list, I can right click on Google. and tell the Google to add it to my calendar, it automatically does it. I don't have to manually, like ChatGPG or Gemini, in case of Google, will automatically take the email and add it on my calendar.

That's how I do it. Thank you very much. Kyle, quick question. With the field trips, because we see they're very popular, and until we have the ability and the funding to maybe add another busload, do you check to see, like, who's gone on it and say, okay, we're going to get this other group first, and then we're going to circulate people through? Okay, perfect.

That's a great question, and that's for this latest trip for the Jupiter one. announced it to everybody saying if you're currently signing up for an opportunity to go and we said we want to make sure that it's fair to everybody that not either the first 25 that ran out of bingo to sign up or fill it up immediately so we took it all and we're putting it in just a list. And then we'll let a randomizer kind of put out 25 names. So that way, and we're trying to make sure that.

It's a total blind draw. Yeah.

At least try to make it as fair as possible. Yeah. Gotcha.

The other question is, I'm assuming that the Sugar Consortium people have reached out to you all to do, they do their free trips for at least one busload of 50, 55 people. They would probably do a few busloads with you all.

Yeah, and we used to do that, and that's something we certainly can bring back for sure. Um, and then also to kind of go back to the extra bus, you know, we do have a contract with bus one, so we can always rent, you know, a bus too. So we could do that if we wanted to. I think that right now, you know, we're just trying to see what, you know, if there's a need for it and if people are really wanting to do it before we decide to take that leap, you know, and invest. Cause right now we're getting it for free, which is great. Um, and we're not paying anything for it. So that's probably something maybe down the road we would look towards for sure. Great.

Donna, can you expand on that consortium? What is that all about?

It's usually based out of the city hall at Clewiston, and the sugar consortium between U.S. Sugar, and I can't remember the other one, they'll want to show the communities basically what they do out there. And so they will pick you up. They'll pick up the charge for the bus, fill up 50 people. They've done it in Buena Vida on a regular basis for years. And they show you what they do, their process. They'll take you through their refinery. They'll take everyone to lunch. It's very educational, but we understand also their agenda is to show what we're doing out here is clean. We are not polluting the environment. We want to protect our environment because it's our bread and butter. So it's really just to educate and also put Their information out there, but it's very enjoyable and and really interesting to see. So I'm sure it would be something you would get people to sign up for. And I'm sure that if there was they're trying to expose as many people, I mean, as many voters as possible to their industry. So I'm sure they would send over the course, and it's usually in the spring, of the spring, a few busloads out there.

Yeah. Historically, in the past, we've went, I believe, February. That's when we went, which was nice because it was cool. Nice weather. Sure. I actually took a trip with the seniors and went there. So it was fun. But, yeah, we'll certainly bring that back because it is a great trip. And it's free. So it's wonderful.

Nice.

Okay. It appears, are you done? Okay.

It appears we forgot to do roll call, and I know we need that for our minutes. So let's go through our list. Roxanne, here. David, here. Rick, here. Penelope, here. Not present. Neeraj? Yes. Donna, I'm here. And Mabel? Present. Thank you. And we have a quorum. Thank you. Sure. Let's move to old business. Is there any old business? Go ahead.

My favorite subject, second favorite other than lunch, golf. Do you know if the owner of Wellington National has touched base with Jim Barnes?

I don't know. I haven't heard anything.

He told me what he was going to do is to work out some way where we could get money from potential players over to the village somehow. So, okay, I'll check with him to see. Just FYI, the reason we didn't have a golf tournament in April was we did run into some legal issue about...

the village taking you can expand on it if you like yeah so since we were going to do it on an outside entity and we are not physically keeping the money the village isn't because it would go towards the golf course we could not accept the money the money would have to go to the course so future planning wise it's just it's a little logistical you know hiccup but we can fix it it's not that big of a deal i think we'll be able to fix it as long as we work with them um and maybe we work it to where you know We collect registration and maybe we send the, you know, information to the golf club. I mean, we could certainly figure it out, but I definitely want to do it because I think it would be really fun.

Yeah. The owner was looking towards October, you know, after. October would be perfect. Yeah. Okay. I'll follow up with him. Yeah. Awesome.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Any other old business? Okay. I'm sure we move on to new business. And the agenda lists under new business that we need to select a chair and a vice chair. We've lost two or two members. Have, I guess, their terms expired. We have new members to fill. And at least one of those members held the position as chair of this group, of this committee. So I don't know who the vice chair was.

The vice chair was Penelope.

Oh, great. Okay. So how do you want to do this? You want to do nominations?

Yeah, if we could do nominations. Okay.

So shall we start with chair or vice chair?

Let's start with chair.

Okay. So we'll entertain any nominations for the position of chair. Okay.

I nominate Donna Baxter.

Our second.

That's lovely, but I'm really not going to be in Wellington for all of the fall till almost the end of the year. My daughter's having twins in Dallas. Oh. So I will be there and I don't feel like I could fulfill. And also now we can't even join via Zoom. So it would be not advantageous to this committee.

Could the vice chair take over while you're gone for four or five months?

Technically, yes.

I'll just ask.

Is there any other interest of someone in this position for chair? Nope. Okay. So if that is the case, we need to have a vice chair that can commit to being here. Right. I don't know when our next regularly scheduled meeting is.

So we're in June. So it'll be July, August, September.

It'll be September, which I know I will not be here. Right. So let's...

So you'll accept the nomination?

Yeah, thank you, Roxanne. I will accept. I feel bad about not being able to be here for a while. But yes, I will indeed accept that nomination. So let's look to who would be interested in being vice chair, knowing full well that in the fall, they will need to chair the meetings.

I nominate Mabel. Oh.

And I second it.

Okay.

If no one else is interested. Campaign speech, please. Do you accept Mabel?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. We'll accept that nomination. So is there anything else we need to do?

No, so I would say that our chair is Ms. Donna Baxter and our vice chair is Ms. Mabel Gay. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. Congratulations. Congratulations.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

We have to say that Jennifer and Kyle, you're a pleasure to work with. You make being up here very easy because you provide us with a lot of information and we appreciate it. And we're excited to have new people join us. I will just, I know Roxanne and I are very new to this committee ourselves, so we're just getting our, and Mabel, you just came on.

Right, just came on as well.

So yeah, so we have a lot of people who are just new because we've been moving around on different committees. Correct. So we found ourselves here right now, and we're thrilled to be with everyone. And now it's that point in our agenda for public comment. Okay. We could mark on the agenda that Penelope has just joined us.

On the minutes, I'm sorry. We have a seat at the table over here.

Okay, not hearing for any public comment, we'll go to board comments. Rather than put our new people on the hot seat right away, we'll start on this end. We're at the board comments part of the event. So if you have anything you would like to share, feel free. And if not, we can move over to Rick.

Well, I'd just like to say hello, and I unfortunately put this in at 4.30, and so here I am. I apologize for my tardiness, and I look forward to working with everyone.

Thank you. Rick? Just kudos to you guys. I had a friend who brought a friend to one of the recent outings. I forget what it was. And he said it was probably the best organized thing he's ever been to. So hats off to you guys.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to go down to David now.

Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is David Sanchez. I've been a resident in Wellington for 12 years now. Moved up here to make a better life for our family, and it absolutely turned out that way. Thanks be to God and to the village. My wife and I are big fans, my family as well. Of everything you guys put on, it's always top notch. And my parents are fortunately still with me. I look forward to contributing any way I can, because obviously it's very near and dear to my heart. And everyone has to have a voice at all levels. So I'm happy to champion for the voice of seniors. Thank you.

My name is Niraj Mandirata. I moved to Wellington in 2011. When I moved here, my kids were, one was in kindergarten, I think pre-K, I don't even remember. The other one was in Goddard pre-K. So now both are college. My son goes to University of Florida in Gainesville, and my daughter just started starting summer next week in UCF Orlando, making sure they both stay in state. And Although both of them wanted to go far, but kind of made them like I have only two kidneys. I need one for me. So with that said that, you know, you're right. When we moved to Wellington, I came here for the job, but I kind of left the job very quickly and decided to stay in Wellington. Wellington was beautiful, very friendly, loved every bit of Wellington. while I had some friends in PGA and Boca pushing me up or down, and I decided to stay in Wellington. So I've been here 15 years. Kids went through Equestrian, Emerald Cove, although then they went to the choice schools up in Rivera Beach, but, you know, the part of still the Palm Beach County. My wife is full-time realtor with Equestrian South Beach. I am semi-retired now. Not retired. I mean, I've sold my businesses, but I'm still working full time. So I started calling people in Wellington Council, Napoleone, McGovern, like, hey, I need to do something. And they said, come to these events. So I started attending. And finally, I said, give me something. And I'm now learning about it. So while there are six, seven committees, I'm happy to be here and learn more about it.

Thank you.

I want to just give kudos to staff for all you do and how organized it is and how you make it so much fun and you're so accommodating to 300 or 400 seniors at an event and what you do every day to try to come up with things. And you certainly are doing it. So thank you very much. Thank you.

Same here. You guys do a wonderful job. I see you around at other events. And always, like I say, top notch. Thank you for having me back. I enjoyed my first term. Thank you. That's the senior citizen in me. My first term, and I'm looking forward to the second term. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to mention, as our gentlemen were mentioning, and just for those people who are watching at home, how important it is to find a way to be involved in your local government, whether it's through you know, your own civic organizations who contribute or these committees. But this is a great way to really see how hard our staff works and our council supports these great programs. So we ask you if you have the time and the inclination to please find a way to contribute. It's very rewarding, and it makes this an even better place to live, work, and raise your families. So with that, we will – oh, do we have our date for September, or do you – Yeah, let me look really quickly.

Is that where we have it? And let's see. It will be – September 10th.

Okay.

So we'll be back here September 10th, 4 p.m. And until then, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Thank you. Is there a second? I second it. Okay. We are adjourned. Thank you so much.

Thank you.