The best investment you can make in 2020 is to take time out and recharge the motivational batteries at the VILLAGE SUMMIT, the annual meeting of village management professionals.
Join 300 of your colleagues in experiencing Australia’s best motivational speakers.
First up is Matt Church, returning to the VILLAGE SUMMIT by popular demand. Matt is listed in the Top 10 motivational speakers in the world for his ability to simplify the job of leadership and empower you to identify and implement simple changes with big results.
Sonia McDonald explores courageous leadership and how to dare to step into your own power as a leader. You will learn how to build your ‘A Team’, deliver trust and resilience and ultimately satisfied residents and a successful business.
Dr Paulo Maestro is an internationally renowned speaker, author, sports psychologist and neuro-scientist. As a former champion cyclist, he is revered as a legendary mentor in the field of human potential on and off the sporting arena, working with Valentino Rossi, Usain Bolt, US boxing phenomenon Floyd Mayweather, and potentially you too.
Plus, you will learn from 22 leading village sector leaders and CEOs who will share their knowledge and experience.
Book now for the VILLAGE SUMMIT and recharge in Sydney, Thursday 20 and Friday 21 February. Learn more HERE.
There has been so much discussion around the country about “leadership” through these disasters, from people calling out the Prime Minister, politicians being on holidays when their own portfolios are going up in smoke, and ‘too late’ questions on who is responsible for fires and when to call in the armed services.
The fact is that real people in each community are stepping forward in the vacuum and just ‘leading’ and leading well – because they hear and understand the local issues.
We are seeing hundreds – if not thousands – of ordinary Australians taking the needs of their communities into their own hands – making decisions, people providing meals, creating ‘GoFundMe’ pages, organising donations, volunteering to cook, mending fences, carting fodder, etc.
This level of community engagement is very thought-provoking!
Becky Hirst, The Community Engagement specialist, says: “the silent majority is now in action”.
Are our residents of our retirement villages members the ‘silent majority’? Can we draw a retirement village comparison?
Becky provides an alternative model of decision making “flipping from the government always being the decision maker, even deciding to what level the community will be “allowed” to influence decisions, to a time where the community may become “the decision makers”?
Perhaps an example from the bushfires would be: does the local community know better deciding when to reduce local forest fuel loads compared to committees and bureaucrats in Canberra who fix one rule for the whole state or country?
Can the same be said for retirement villages and decisions being made at head office?
Using Becky’s chart on community leadership, let’s look at the first three points and our role as Village Managers:
Empowered:
We will identify what is important for our community and take action to implement change where necessary.
Collaborate:
We will look to work together with Government as providers of advice, support and resources where necessary.
Involve:
We will work with Government to ensure that its concerns and issues are directly reflected in any alternative solutions developed.
Replacing ‘government’ with operators/head office.
Is this the future or is this today?
We, as strong, flexible, agile “leaders”, will be delivering a model like this to empower our communities to be more engaged with decisions that are likely to impact village communities and residents.
This is leadership from the centre. It is not always easy, and it requires skills. But it generates great results for your village ‘silent majority’, as we have seen with the fires, and great satisfaction for us as a leader.
Fires happen. The past four months have been ‘catastrophic’ with drought and tinder dry bush.
But fire happens every year in villages for domestic reasons, as many as you would know. We report in The Weekly SOURCE newsletter an average of four village homes being burnt to the ground every winter because a heater or a stove is left on.
Having plans and policies in place is vital – and now required in NSW with their new Rules of Conduct. And the plans must include the unexpected.
We spoke to Patrick Reid, the CEO of NSW South Coast based IRT who had seven aged care homes and seven villages in the fire zones on New Year’s Eve.
One of the challenges they had to handle was nine residents that required ambulance evacuation from their Dalmeny aged care centre but the local town of Narooma only had two ambulances and multiple calls for them.
Telephone lines also failed as communication towers burnt down; and they had to ensure sites had enough supplies of pureed and texture modified food.
Their pharmacists also stepped up to ensure residents were provided with their medication, with their Malua Bay pharmacist still seeing clients despite losing his home in the fires
We also spoke to Nikki Fisher, COO at Ingenia. They had 10 land lease communities and holiday communities in the fire zone over the Christmas/New Year. At Lake Conjola they lost two homes to fire (while the local community lost 70 homes) and had no power for eight days with 73 residents who had decided to stay despite evacuation advice.
Ingenia worked with Emergency headquarters to have police escorts to bring in generators and satellite phones and sent out over 10,000 emails to families updating on events.
(For more background and lessons from Ingenia see next Tuesday’s the Weekly SOURCE newsletter).
The message is we all must be professional in our preparation for the unexpected. Tools and education are available through membership of our DCM Institute personal development program. You can learn more HERE.
We take this opportunity to thank you, Village professionals far and wide, for your valuable contributions to the organisations, communities and residents you serve and for your continued commitment to the sector!
If you are working through the holidays, perhaps you could try to:
Work a bit of fun or nostalgia into your workday
Put some carols on
Make time to share special some moments with your community
Share a meal with your community
Finish up some of the loose end to-do jobs whilst it’s a little quieter
Make taking down the decorations a community effort & shout morning tea
Make time to keep in touch with those important to you
Know that the DCM Institute community will be alongside you!
Wishing you the merriest of Christmases, a fantastic festive season and hope that 2020 delivers satisfaction, achievement and loads of fun times!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the early adopters of the Village Management professional development program which launched in April 2019.
The program has seen Village professionals of 25+ years, regional managers, executive directors and CEO’s come together to learn, share experiences, advance their careers and importantly the forming of a community of village professionals striving for the industry and themselves to be the best it can be.
To me seeing the multiple teams attend the workshop days with their leaders reinforces the many amazing organisations that are committed not only to the sector but the people at the heart of the sector.
A special thank you to our industry partners MinterEllison, Russell Kennedy, O’Loughlins Lawyers and Jackson McDonald, and Culturise for their support and unwavering commitment during 2019.
I would also like to make a particular thank you to Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) who have supported the program and worked side by side with us in 2019 to ensure that members of the program are able, if they choose to do so, to work towards a Diploma of Leadership and Management.
Over the summer break, the DCM Institute team will be continuing to work to improve this program with a new learning portal due for release in April 2020.
The 2020 program will respond to the feedback of current participants and will focus on increasing the flexible learning options, adding further valuable industry partnerships and tailoring content to enhance participant learning requirements.
It will also offer four professional development workshop days to allow participants to engage in more face-to-face learning opportunities.
The DCM Institute is proud to present two days of inspiration, unique learnings in community leadership, focused technical and soft skill development, professional development and networking.
The VILLAGE SUMMIT will deliver:
A high intensity two-day forum focused on Village Managers and HO support
Extension on existing learnings and skills
Leadership skills and personal development
Leadership experts showcasing the soft skills of leading people and communities
A comprehensive review of ‘regulations’ – how they are changing the business of retirement villages and the skills required
Mastering the 8 Point Plan, the Code of Conduct and Accreditation
Technology and retirement villages: efficiencies, care support, compliance
Property and assets management
Sales and marketing skills and the bottom line impact
A deep briefing on the retirement village sector and its exciting growth future
Insight into the current and future expectations of residents
A foundation for ongoing professional development and career advancement
Networking opportunities with peers and leaders at every level of the sector
With 25 leading speakers to inspire and learn from, this is an opportunity not to be missed.
However, on the flip side the exciting news is that with all disruption comes opportunity for reframing and refocus, and we feel confident many operators are well on their way to make the most of these opportunities!
Village Managers will be at the centre. The DCM Institute is thrilled to share we have ended 2019 with over 300 members registered in the Village Management Professional Development program.
This includes private, not for profit and ASX organisations, regional and metro based, large and small.
It demonstrates the sector is responding to the suggestion that the Village Manager and their teams play the most important role in our sector in ensuring the expectations and requirements of both the operator and critically, the resident communities are a priority.
In recognition of this key role Village Professionals play in the sector, DCM Institute has committed to continue to run the ONLY Village Management focused two-day conference in the country – the VILLAGE SUMMIT – for a second year with over 300 delegates in attendance (more on that below).
The sector – via the Property Council – has launched, and will continue to implement throughout later 2020, a Capability Framework that will provide the basis for Village Professionals to map their careers.
Together, these initiatives send a very clear message to advocacy bodies and government that the sector is investing in these very important professionals to ensure that it attracts and retains a stable workforce that is willing and able to deliver on resident expectations.
It also highlights the many amazing organisations that are committed not only to the sector but the people at the heart of the sector.
Resident Associations’ views and their expectations have been heard and considered more seriously than ever previously encountered by Governments across the country, with many states enacting immediate legislated reforms.
In my own 20-plus years of experience, Ministers would barely be involved in the drafting of new Retirement Village legislation.
Yet in 2019, they were making election promises and directing drafting new legislation in various states due to the tireless advocacy work of the Resident Associations (Photographed Building Commissioner, David Chandler and Kevin Anderson, NSW Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation).
The continued slow and steady media activity via Today Tonight, The Australian and several local state-based papers has continued to confuse retirement villages and aged care.
Then we had Earle Haven Retirement Village on the Gold Coast confusing everyone when its aged care home was abandoned by the outsourced manager.
Reinforcing the media’s interest in our sector are the awards to Anne Connolly (pictured right) and her team from ABC, who recently took out the Australian Human Rights Commission’ Media Award for their ‘Aged Care: Who Cares?’ investigation which aired in September 2018.
2019 has also seen the increase in the acceptance of the Land Lease model and an extremely popular housing option for retirees.
Plus the introduction of many other hybrid model offerings such as LDK Healthcare – led by assisted living advocate Paul Browne – and their “Club membership” offer, apartment buildings with Care Concierges, etc….
Along the way village operators are building medium rise villages that look like hotels – and Village Managers will be leading them.
2019 has certainly been a year of disruption and refocus for many operators and the sector!
On Wednesday 30th October, Aminya Village residents with members of family and friends, (over 40 ladies in total), celebrated Pink Ribbon Day in our Terrace Cafe with a very enjoyable High Tea.
This is our third year for this event with Guest Speaker, Lee Christian, attending on behalf of the Australian Cancer Research Foundation to report on the many advancements and funding grants projects which we fundraise towards. Currently, to date, our generous residents have raised $1,474 with this year’s tally being $510.
A photo booth was created on the lounge area in the Café with some fun dress ups which created wonderful memories and lots of laughter for our residents. A great day was had by all who attended and enjoyed the spirit of the event.
During November and December 10 Regional Meets were held across the country.
Inaugural meetings were held in Perth, NSW and the Gold Coast with many of our colleagues meeting other Village Managers in their local area for the first time and Adelaide had a great turnout with a guest speaker who shared information on the benefits of meditation.
If you would like to host a meeting in the new year, contact Tania and she will coordinate the meeting for you.
Or if you would like to find out more just go to the Meeting Hub page on the DCM Institute website and follow the prompts. Please share the link to help us grow this great networking opportunity.Attend Regional MeetHost Regional Meet
