It was great to see everyone at this year’s ORCA conference at the beautiful Blue Mountain Resort in Collingwood. The event was a first for me and for our new communications manager, Noel Ocol.
We’re excited to share with you two editorial videos that were shot at the conference. Scroll down to hear what advice your colleagues have to offer seniors and boomers.
Faces and names
And what an initiation! We put faces to the names of some of the wonderful people we’ve been working with including Heather Green of Greenwood Marketing & Communications and ORCA’s organizer extraordinaire Vera Shewell. We also caught up with Comfort Life and Dialogue Plus editorial advisory board members, Donna Holwell of Lord Dufferin Centre and Karen Kotanko of Diversicare and met National Pharmacy’s Colin LeBrun who has worked with Comfort Life and Dialogue Plus for several years.
Lively conversations
There were also lively conversations with Andrea Levine from Leisureworld and Christine Forget of The Royale—one of the newest members of ORCA! —plus John Macdonald of Infinite Analytics Inc., Debbie Doherty of Specialty Care and Karen Goyer and Elaine Wood of Delmanor Seniors Communities.
Mulligans
Noel and I had great fun handing out the Mulligans to all the early morning golfers—an appropriate task given our stunning ineptitude on the green!
Here are some more photos from the morning:
Retirement Home Regulations
On a more serious note, one of this year’s highlights was the powerful and inspiring address given by Brent Binions, President and CEO, Chartwell Seniors Housing REIT, keynote speaker at Tuesday’s Table Talk luncheon. His focus was the new retirement home industry regulations. In fact, the day was packed with all things regulatory including a regulations update, a presentation by the Ontario Seniors Secretariat and Retirement Home Regulatory Authority and a thorough overview of ORCA’s Draft RHRA Operational Toolkit.
Comfort Life videos
Given the intensity of Tuesday’s schedule, we were very fortunate that ORCA members took time to participate in two Comfort Life editorial videos.
We’ll be sharing the videos with the Comfort Life community as another way to help seniors and boomers understand what they need to consider when choosing a retirement community.
VIDEO: How to choose a retirement community.
You can also see this video on the Pulse of Comfort LIfe blog.
VIDEO: The future of the retirement residence industry.
‘Riding bitch’ or, ‘How to bond at an ORCA conference’
Before we say goodbye to ORCA 2011, we must take a moment to recall Laurie Johnson’s unforgettable ‘riding bitch’ confession! She shared her love of motorcycle riding with a warm and very funny story about riding with her husband before introducing this video of Japanese senior motorcyclists called “Dream Rangers”
As Noel and I chatted with ORCA members over the weekend, it seemed like every second person was a motorcycle fan. Who knew that a love of the open road would inspire such bonding?
Of course, this delighted Noel—the ultimate motorcycle expert. If you are speaking to him feel free to ask a biking question. You’ll both be glad you did!
We really enjoyed the ORCA conference and hope that you did too. Share your highlight from the conference with us.
Add a comment below…
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About Kathy Barthel
