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Touch
of Gray - November / December 2002
Residents
Enjoyed Just Completed Artists-In-Action Series
Carolina Meadows Employee Training Program
Receives Recognition
Residents
Enjoyed Just Completed Artists-In-Action Series
Beverly
Miller is the Volunteer Coordinator at Carolina Meadows. She
lines up helpers for the CLEO (Community Life Enrichment Options)
program and works with the Health Center Auxiliary volunteers.
She interfaces with our MAP (Meadows Assistance Program),
the resident volunteers who provide, among other things, transportation
for residents on weekends and at other times when the usual
transport staff are off-duty. She works with visiting University
and High School student volunteers, recruits community volunteers
for special events (such as the recent Carolina Meadows "State
Fair"), and has recruited a growing number of intergenerational
visitors from Chatham and Orange counties to visit regularly
and add interest to the lives of Health Center residents.
Beverly,
who hails from Cincinnati, Ohio, began as an elementary teacher
but has had many years experience working with retirees. She
is also an amateur artist who likes to watch artists at work
and see them demonstrate their processes as they create. She
wondered if our Health Center residents would enjoy visits
by local artists willing to show themselves at work. After
all, she reasoned, it would be something new and different
from bingo, arts and crafts as well as the other usual activities.
She also felt it would be a novel way to invite neighbors
from surrounding communities to Carolina Meadows as volunteers.
Where
would Beverly find the artists and how would she convince
them to come and show us how they worked? During last year's
Studio Tours in Orange and Chatham Counties she visited many
artists at work and selected those whom she thought would
enjoy doing this kind of thing and who would have a personal
rapport with older residents. She looked for artists who had
something to bring and show to our audience that could be
easily seen and would be interesting to residents. As Beverly
recalls, "The invitation was for the artist to share
with us about and demonstrate for us - to the extent possible
- the process of creating their work."
Surprisingly,
most of those she invited had never before been asked to work
before a live audience, but were quite taken with the idea.
She lined up six programs from April through September. With
the help of residents and staff, she presented each artist-at-work
once a month on a Wednesday afternoon in the Health Center
Activity Room to groups of 12 to 20 residents.
The
first to appear in April was Jacqueline Hammer of Fearrington
Village, creator of an unusual kind of wall-hung art. Her
work has been exhibited up and down the East Coast. She uses
large pieces of paper that she first softens in water. She
shapes the pieces into abstract sculptures that she paints
and mounts. Residents were fascinated by her demonstration
and the finished products.
In
May our guest artist was Amy Lanou, a Carrboro resident and
creator of colorful contemporary quilts and fiber collages.
While she is a fiber artist and creative spirit by vocation,
Amy is a nutritionist by profession and a director of the
nutrition department at the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine (PCRM).While here she demonstrated her techniques
and created a sunset collage. Later she enhanced the work
and titled it "Carolina Meadows" and hung it for
a two-artist show at Carrboro's Century Center during the
month of August. "I enjoyed sharing backgrounds with
some of the residents," Amy commented, "I would
love to do it again with such an appreciative audience."
The
artist in June was Ginny Chenet, from Orange County, who specializes
in large-scale vivid floral paintings and impressionistic
landscapes in oils and acrylics. She had just returned from
Greece and showed us some of her work from there. She also
demonstrated the artist's travel kit she uses when she paints
landscapes. It was her first visit to a senior group and she
was delighted at the interest shown and the willingness of
residents to share their lifetime recollections with her.
Guy
Wilkins from Chapel Hill, with his bold-stroke expressionist
paintings, was our July guest. He visited with his daughter,
who is also a painter. Before applying paint Guy sketches
his subject on a canvas. While here he painted on the spot
an already-sketched canvas and talked about his work. Guy
was very impressed at the helpful staff and at the level of
audience participation. He was, in Beverly's opinion, a great
sport. He stepped back toward the end and asked "What
do you think?" Several suggestions came from the audience
and he followed them, with friendly banter back and forth
much to the residents' enjoyment.
In
August our visiting artist was Zen Palkoski, a 77-year old
retiree living in Fearrington Village and a remarkable woodcarver.
He is best know for his Wood Spirits, that look like wise
old bearded men, carved out of weathered fence posts and aspen
stumps. He creates birds, bowls, Santas and fruit and his
work has been displayed at the North Carolina Botanical Gardens.
Residents watched as he carved a piece and particularly liked
being able to see and feel the figures of Uncle Sam, the birds
and the owls that he passed around. Touching and feeling the
finished work was a very important part of most of the artists'
visits, in Beverly's opinion.
Interest
in the series among residents of both the Health Center and
The Fairways (Assisted Living) has grown steadily as the series
has progressed. So it was fitting that we had a record turn-out
for our last program in September. This was the visit of Joel
Hunnnicutt, an insurance executive by profession but a self-taught
innovative wood turner by avocation. Joel has his home and
studio in Siler City.
He
brought a lathe and exhibited what he called his Segmented
Turning style. Rather than turning a single piece of wood
to make a vessel, he cuts out between 20 and 200 separate
blocks of different woods arranged in colorful patterns. The
blocks are then glued together and set on a lathe. While the
lathe rotates at 300 or more revolutions per minute he carefully
carves to the vessel's final shape with a sharp steel gouge.
As he worked on carving a new bowl, residents watched the
chips fall and asked questions, such as what happens to the
chips. Joel gives them to a local farm where they make excellent
bedding for horses.
Joel
uses native hardwoods, such as ash, cherry, maple and walnut.
Each piece is a unique creation in both color and shape. He
passed around some beautiful pieces including an unusual open
segmented vase. This led to many resident questions as to
how long each project takes and where he displays his finished
work. Besides his studio in the Hall-London House in Pittsboro
he currently shows pieces in Chapel Hill at the Green Tara
in Eastgate as well as in the Red Wolf in Brevard. -- Des
Reilly, Resident
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Carolina
Meadows Employee Training Program Receives Recognition
Remember how you knew that a household
appliance was going to work well if it carried the Good Housekeeping
Seal of Approval? Something like that goes on in senior communities
across the nation through the Accreditation Seal of Approval
awarded by the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission (CCAC).
Founded in 1985, under the auspices of the American Association
of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA), CCAC is the nation's
only accrediting body for aging services. To win Accreditation
a community must meet or exceed standards of excellence in
the areas of governance, finance & strategy, and health
& wellness.
CCAC has recently published its first annual edition of "Best
Practices in CCAC Accredited Organizations." The book
is intended to help senior communities reach their potential
for excellence by showcasing 25 innovative best practices
among its accredited organizations which other communities
might wish to follow. One of the featured articles covers
the innovative training and indoctrination techniques Carolina
Meadows follows with its Physical Plant employees. .
The object of the Carolina Meadows program is to let new employees
experience other aspects of the operation firsthand. Newly
hired Physical Plant employees spend time working in different
areas of the community, distributing meals to residents in
the Health Center, working at the front desk in the Club Center
and making the rounds with caregivers in The Fairways (Assisted
Living) and Health Center skilled nursing wings.
The technique was developed by Joe Zannini, Director of Carolina
Meadows Physical Plant since 1996. Joe came out of retirement
to take on the Carolina Meadows job. He had been the Director
of the fifth largest housing complex in the United States
- the residence halls of the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst.
"This program allows plant employees to experience the
total community and our mission," explains Joe. "More
importantly, this training component is aimed at eliminating
any 'we-they' feelings."
The Physical Plant staff, like other Carolina Meadows employees,
must attend an all-day orientation program to learn the mission,
company benefits and OSHA requirements and become familiar
with the campus. Before working on their own, plant employees
must pass 16 different tests in an effort to ensure safety
and emergency preparedness. Test material covers automatic
external defibrillator protocols, report writing, chain of
command, elevator emergency response, disaster response, emergency
generator operations, emergency phone operations, call-out
procedures, guest services, fire alarms, work orders, and
emergency response to building system failures. "Taking
the time to document training with testing helps employees
understand what our expectations are. Consequently, the testing
effort is an excellent risk management tool," Joe points
out. As he further stresses, "Being
able to diagnose varied problems, make necessary repairs and
document the interventions are not only basic skills required
for high-quality service, they are essential for meeting government
requirements. Carolina Meadows test-oriented training program
has been a key factor in ensuring quality services and in
meeting compliance regulations."
The 37 Carolina Meadows plant operation employees have a broad
set of responsibilities. The staff includes technicians specializing
in heating and air conditioning, carpentry, painting, landscaping
golf course and general grounds maintenance and upkeep. Staff
members are also responsible for campus security, medical,
fire and inactivity alarms as well as response equipment.
The staff, in Joe's words, is a 24/7 response team. As well
the staff cares for an indoor swimming pool, a community soccer
field, as well as tennis, croquet and bocce courts. They also
manage the community's waste treatment plant and sewer distribution
lines. -- Des Reilly, Resident
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