Grant Thornton revealed why many older Australians remain unaware of retirement villages

Over 150 delegates attended the first RVA national seminar series for 2011, held across the country last week.

Delegates heard from a panel of experts about the outcomes from the Grant Thornton Retirement Living Study and the Productivity Commission Draft Report along with the full spectrum of care models.

Chris Rooke from SAE Creative told delegates what marketing and branding strategies are required to be implemented in order to drive sales and harness future opportunities for growth.

Cam Ansell from Grant Thornton took delegates through one of the most comprehensive retirement living surveys ever undertaken on the changing landscape of the industry.

Arthur Koumoukelis from Gadens Lawyers discussed some of the legal loopholes in order to operate a village successfully and minimize risk.

Chris Straw from ThomsonAdsett explained local and international design trends catering to the demands of a rapidly changing market place and alternative models of care.

The afternoon session wrapped up with an interactive panel discussion relevant to each state with networking drinks afterwards.

The RVA would like to thank all the speakers and delegates who attended the seminar and look forward to bringing more of these types of events to the industry. RVA members can access copies of the presentations from our member’s only section.

The RVA welcomes your feedback on this story and encourages you to leave a comment. You can submit your comment at the bottom of this post.

Opportunity for RVA members to feature for free in major online publication

The RVA has partnered with White Digital Media, publishers of Business Review Australia magazine, to produce an online publication about the healthcare seniors living industry. 

As part of this initiative, RVA members have the opportunity to be featured for free in one of their corporate case studies.

The publication is targeted at business executives including senior managers, directors and executives across the various industry sectors. Circulation numbers are approximately 235,000 worldwide and 100,000 in Australia and New Zealand but apparently individual web hits from one off readers is far higher.

The RVA is writing the foreword for the publication and this will include an overview of the industry and the challenges and opportunities we currently face.

The corporate case studies can include between eight to ten pages on your organisation, with images, your company logo, and a hyperlink to your website. The article will appear in the next issue of  Business Review Australia but will also stay live on their website for 12 months. 

If any RVA member is interested in taking up this opportunity to feature in the publication, there are only a limited number of places. Please contact Jeff Soboleski at j.soboleski@whitedm.com or on 00 111 760-827-7814.

The deadline for information is Friday 29 April so please contact Jeff to register your interest.

Please view recent examples of White Digital Media’s publications.

The RVA welcomes your feedback on this story and encourages you to leave a comment. You can submit your comment at the bottom of this post.

Why the retirement age must go up

An article in this month’s The Economist magazine states that current plans to raise the retirement age are not bold enough.

Many governments have started to deal with the ageing problem after announcing increases in the official retirement age that attempt to hold down the costs of state pensions while encouraging workers to stay in their jobs longer.

However, according to The Economist, the boldest plans look inadequate. Older people are going to have to stay economically active longer than governments currently envisage; and that is going to require not just governments, but also employers and workers, to behave differently.

Raising the official retirement age is only part of the solution, for many workers retire before the official age. The Peterson Institute in Washington, DC, believe that raising actual EU retirement ages to the official age would offset the impact of an ageing population over the next 20 years.

For that to happen, working practices and attitudes need to change. Western managers are too concerned about the quality of older workers. But The Economist believes that this should be less of an issue now that economies are based on services not manufacturing. Traditional seniority systems, under which people get promoted and paid more as they age, will need to change.

Private sector workers face a different problem. The demise of final-salary pensions leaves them facing two big risks: that falling markets will undermine their retirement planning, and that they will outlive their savings. This is a potential implication for our industry with the possibility that potential residents may perceive they cannot afford to enter into or maintain their stay in a retirement village.

Governments should encourage workers to save more, leading them into pension schemes by requiring them to opt out rather than opt in. The basic state pension should be high enough to give those elderly with insufficient savings a decent income without penalising those who have been frugal.

The RVA welcomes your feedback on this story and encourages you to leave a comment. You can submit your comment at the bottom of this post.

Top industry operators sell out Retirement Communities World 2011

Retirement Communities World Australia 2011 brought together the key stakeholders in retirement and aged care property development at last week’s joint Terrapinn and Retirement Village Association (RVA) conference held in Sydney.

Consisting of two main conference days and a third day dedicated to the aged care and retirement living and a master class by Gadens Lawyers, the event provided over 200 attendees with thought provoking and stimulating sessions. Attendees included developers, retirement village owner/operators, aged care providers, investors and valuers, with organisations from the for-profit and not for profit sector.

RVA members reported great satisfaction with the breadth and depth of topics, key industry insights and discoveries, which included:

• Insights from overseas models
• Finance and investment challenges for the sector
• Emerging debate about future care models and retirement villages
• Trends in vertical village development
• Impacts of the Productivity Commission Report

The RVA would like to thank Terrapinn, the event sponsors and media partners for the valuable contribution made to the event.

We look forward to building an event for 2012 that is even bigger, better and enables leaders in the industry to discuss and debate the critical challenges and opportunities facing the retirement village industry.

If you attended the event and would like to share your thoughts on the event, please click here.

RVA welcomes a new Queensland Regional Member Services Coordinator

The RVA is pleased to appoint Sara Hassall as the new Queensland Regional Member Services Coordinator.

New Queensland Regional Member Services Coordinator Sara Hassall

Ms Hassall has taken over the role from Genell Kokokiris, who has moved into a newly formed National Events & Professional Development Manager Role last month and comes to the RVA after an extensive career background in event management within the corporate and hospitality industries.

RVA CEO Andrew Giles said he was extremely excited by the appointment of Ms Hassall as the new Queensland Regional Member Services Coordinator.

”Sara brings with her a strong background in successfully executing international and national events with part of her role managing business partners and developing sponsorship for events, which will be of tremendous benefit to the RVA and our membership,” Mr Giles said.

Ms Hassall said she was looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that the role of leading the Queensland region presented.

Her role is to support the RVA in growing the Queensland membership and provide support to existing village and associate members and the regional committee. Ms Hassall will also assist in professional development, education and events within Queensland.

The RVA welcomes your feedback on this story and encourages you to leave a comment. You can submit your comment at the bottom of this post.

Southern Cross Care celebrate UDIA Award for Senior Living

Southern Cross Care in South Australia is celebrating once again after The Pines Lodge received the top prize at the UDIA Excellence Awards for the category of Seniors Living. While The Pines Lodge is an aged care facility, the award comes off the back of their recently completed retirement development The Waterford who received the UDIA SA Award for Excellence in the category of Medium Density Housing for Aged Care and Retirement Less than 60 Residences last year.

The judges nominated The Waterford development for entry into the National UDIA Awards, which was won by The Pines Lodge.

The UDIA National Awards recognises the highest quality developments from across the country. This year’s nominees delivered innovative and excellent projects which are of the highest standards in the industry.

The Pines Lodge was the final stage in Southern Cross Care’s planned and integrated development of the site from an original nursing home and hostel into a state of the art two-storey twin building residential care facility.

The Waterford luxury retirement apartments development at its Lourdes Valley site at Myrtle Bank is the latest addition to Southern Cross Care’s independent living accommodation portfolio and its first entry into the luxury end of the retirement lifestyle accommodation market.

The RVA congratulates Southern Cross Care on being recognised on the sheer quality of their developments.

The RVA welcomes your feedback on this story and encourages you to leave a comment. You can submit your comment at the bottom of this post.