Go For Life Games 2012 It’s June, the sun is out and it’s time to play! Building on the success of last year’s pilots, we at Age & Opportunity are delighted to be holding this year’s Go for Life Games on Saturday, 8 June in Dublin City University.

Teams from 14 counties will participate, competing in different leisure games. The teams involved hail from Carlow, Cork, Dublin City, Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, South County Dublin, Fingal, Kildare, Kilkenny, Meath, Kerry, South Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow.

Eoghan Hanlon, freelance media professional, describes his experience of an AgeWise workshop – and an unexpected realisation. Having just finished a postgraduate course last year, he was considering how our assumptions of ‘what makes a student’ are still very age-focused. “I considered the experience of a college classmate of mine, who was in her fifties. She felt acutely aware of her own age in comparison to the rest of the class (the oldest of whom was twenty years younger), but the rest of the class just saw her as another classmate. I figured that she herself was a victim of a sort of internalised ageism... However, I then remembered an incident where the class was split into two groups for a project to produce a magazine aimed at students. At each and every stage of the project, both groups implicitly assumed that targeting students meant targeting people from their late teens to their early thirties. This was despite having a classmate in her fifties sitting in the same room. She even reinforced this attitude as she stated that she was worried that she had little to contribute to the magazine’s content due to her age!”

At Age & Opportunity, we're delighted to be involved with Socialcomputing.ie, a free website to assist people new to the internet. It's an easy-to-use index of popular Irish sites, such as newspapers, online banking and TV channels. It's particularly handy for someone who is unfamiliar with how to navigate the internet or someone who is only an occasional user, especially using a tablet computer.

Business in the Community Ireland initiated the project between Age & Opportunity, IBM volunteers, Active Retirement Ireland, Age Action, Third Age and the Older Women’s Network. Also, as part of the project, over 100 computers have also been supplied for refurbishment by other Business in the Community Ireland member companies to be given to local community groups.

With only about 40 days left until Bealtaine 2013, we are very pleased to welcome events from arts centres, libraries, groups, clubs, care settings and other organisers for inclusion on the listings. Our theme for this year is ‘Grow Happy’. John Butler Yeats, the father of poet WB Yeats, wrote in a letter that "Happiness... is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing or that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing". Bealtaine is a reminder to us that, no matter what our age, we always have the potential for growth. Come and grow happy with us!

Some highlights for us so far are the 'Complaints Choir' on 1 May which will transform the nation's moans and groans into a beautiful musical piece. 'The Man in The Woman's Shoes' is touring theatres around the country (and if I could give you one piece of advice - DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW - you'll be kicking yourself if you do). The slow craft project 'Wandering Methods' will be exhibiting in Rathfarnham Castle in Dublin from mid-May. Photographer Kate Byrne is exhibiting her work in the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda and will be speaking about the exhibition at a special Bealtaine event in the gallery.

We are now delivering increasing numbers of AgeWise workshops. Our open sessions, where people can attend on a 'per person' basis are proving very popular among staff new to the area of ageing and those who are looking at different ways of tackling age discrimination in their sector.

It was on the morning of one of these sessions when media coverage hit about Taro Aso, the Japanese Deputy Prime Minister, who encouraged his country's older people to "hurry up and die" due to his concern about the State potentially having to pay for their medical care. While making offensive statements seems to be his style, it does reveal a certain underlying assumption that is not reflected in the reality of most older people's lives.

The Go for Life Fitline, a phone line that supports and motivates people to get active, is now available in Kilkenny, thanks to Go for Life and Kilkenny Recreation & Sports Partnership. Kilkenny is a great place to be active and the FitLine will provide information about facilities, clubs, classes and groups around the county.

A big part of how we stay active is to form active habits. FitLine also advises people on setting up activity routines that they can do alone or with other people, whatever suits their lifestyle.

The Community Effect aims to help people to develop confidence and skills so that they can work for change in their communities. The Community Effect offers the potential for active community engagement and leadership within a safe learning environment. Participants will develop their critical awareness skills and explore how wider societal issues impact on the lives of older people and motivate them to bring about change on issues affecting their lives.

Maire Brady who attended The Community Effect in Enniscorthy back in December, organised by the Wexford Local Development, talks about her experience on the course:
‘I’ve met there many interesting and different people, and I’ve learned there a lot about others and also myself. I always thought that people in my age group have similar beliefs and opinions, and only there I’ve discovered that we are more complex and varied. We’re all part of the community and there is a place for variety and various options within it. We can all contribute.

Thanks to our brilliant new volunteer, Catherine, who contacted us having read our plea in the last EngAGE newsletter, we are now tweeting as @Age_Opp. This means that you can now follow us on Twitter, Facebook and on YouTube, as well as finding out about us on our website ageandopportunity.ie.

You can also follow our Bealtaine festival on Twitter (@BealtaineFest), Facebook and YouTube too, as well as via bealtaine.com. We've always been pretty social, Catherine has helped us to put a Web 2.0 slant on it.

Our AgeWise trainers are already on the go in 2013 with workshops booked in Galway, Meath, Cork, Kerry and Dublin. It seems that more and more organisations want to be ready for the increase in Ireland’s older population and are making plans to become more age aware now.

AgeWise, for anyone who hasn’t been to a workshop, raises awareness of attitudes to ageing and older people in organisations. From there, it encourages action on how to counter age discrimination. A half-day workshop, it has already benefited organisations in the health sector, third-level institutions, community development, libraries and private businesses.

Senator Marie Louise O’Donnell has launched our ‘Learning to Power Change’ report, which looks at the experiences of older groups in Kildare, North Leitrim, Wexford and Wicklow who took part in community education courses on civic engagement.

The report found that, across all four sites, people benefitted from the courses through personal growth and increased social interaction. It also found that their level of engagement in their communities and their willingness to become more involved in issues at a local level was greatly increased.

The results of the twelfth national Go for Life Small Grant Scheme were announced by Minister Michael Ring in November. The scheme, supported by the Irish Sports Council and Age & Opportunity, funded 872 groups across the country with a total grant fund of €285,000.

That money will enable groups to do various physical activities or to buy sports equipment. Details of the allocations were announced by Michael Ring TD, Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, on November 29th in Dublin.

Every January, we invite museums, arts centres, active retirement groups, galleries, libraries, nursing homes to join us and organise an arts event (or events) for the month May that celebrates creativity as we age. As a result, the Bealtaine family grew in 2012 to 675 organisers who, together, hosted over 3,700 events in theatre, the visual arts, film, photography, music, literature and craft. Over 115,000 people attended Bealtaine events in 2012.

The theme for 2013 is ‘Grow Happy’, which encompasses positivity, cheerfulness, growth, and is inspired by WB Yeats’ quote: “Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing”.

Mary Kennedy, presenter on RTÉ’s Nationwide, spoke to Go for Life about keeping active and involved

“I do like to keep fit and I’ve had an interest in fitness ever since I was in school. I still jog. I’ve done two marathons but not recently – I don’t know if the knees would take it. I also go to Pilates. When it comes to being healthy, you can’t turn back the clock, but you can maximise your potential. I try to live and eat healthily during the week, and then throw caution to the wind at the weekends - you couldn’t do it all the time!”

Our friends, fans, followers and viewers on social media deserve the best. We are looking for a volunteer that can help us to give them the best. If you have skills in social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and love to connect with people, can you help us to plan our next phase of social media engagement and then help to make that plan a reality?

To find out more, contact Aleksandra Szymbara at 01 805 7709 or email Aleksandra at Aleksandra.szymbara[at]ageandopportunity.ie