Carolyn McClean: Welcome to the Ashburton Seniors Centre official opening. My name is Carolyn McClean and I'm the Director of Community Development at the City of Boroondara. Given the current COVID restrictions, we are not able to meet in person to celebrate the opening of this fantastic facility, however, we felt that it was very important to officially mark the building's opening and ensure that all of the senior’s groups will be able to move in when safe to do so. I would like to extend a warm welcome to the Mayor of Boroondara, Councillor Cynthia Watson, the ward Councillor Garry Thompson, the Federal Member for Higgins, Dr. Katie Allen MP, Bob Stensholt, Chair Samarinda Ashburton Aged Services, and I would also like to welcome everyone watching this presentation. I would now like to introduce the Mayor of Boroondara, Councillor Cynthia Watson to say a few words.
Mayor Cynthia Watson: Welcome everyone to the virtual opening of the Ashburton Seniors Centre, a $6.99M centre which shows council's commitment to seniors in our community, helping them to stay connected and have healthy lifestyles and enjoy a quality of life that is unique and wonderful in Boroondara. Our healthy aging plan, Add Life to Your Years, is also part of that commitment. We are proud to be able to offer support to our senior's groups through our annual grants program and our annual community strengthening grants. More than 400 seniors previously attended the centre on a weekly basis.
This new building will provide further opportunities for expansion of activities and services to our over 55s community. Although we would like to be welcoming back our Seniors Clubs who will really enjoy using this fantastic facility, unfortunately, COVID-19 restrictions does not enable that to happen at this time but it will in the future and we will get through this difficult time together. Council is working with all community groups and their members to help them get through this difficult time.
This new, fit for purpose centre will be a contemporary and accessible facility providing opportunities for older residents to both have increased social connection and participate in lifelong learning, both of which can have tremendous positive effects on an individual's overall health and well-being. Council would like to thank the Federal Government for the $10,000 grant we received through the Stronger Community Grant Program. This money helped to build an outdoor culture kitchen which will be used by a variety of different groups to celebrate Boroondara’s diverse cultures and their associated foods. I would now like to introduce Councillor Garry Thompson, the Councillor for Solway ward which includes the Ashburton Seniors Centre.
Cr. Garry Thompson: Thank you Mayor Watson for your introduction. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Traditional Owners as the original custodians on the land in which we've gathered, the Wurundjeri People in the northern part of our municipality, and I pay my respects to their Elders past and present and any Elders that may be watching this online. I'd also like to acknowledge Dr. Katie Allen MP, Federal Member for Higgins, our mayor, Councillor Cynthia Watson, Mr. Bob Stensholt, Chair of the Samarinda Ashburton Aged Services, and we also have in attendance DS Architects and Harris HMC builders who've done a fantastic job in delivering this new centre.
Well, welcome everyone to the unveiling of the new Ashburton Seniors Centre. As the number of Boroondara residents aged over 55 is forecast to grow to about 29% in 2028, centres like this will become ever more important to our community. The $6.99M redevelopment of Ashburton Seniors Centre has delivered a light, modern, multi-purpose site with a range of spaces to support the social and well-being needs of our seniors in Ashburton. This redevelopment creates new opportunities for social connection and well-being for community groups to use the facility and will attract more residents from Ashburton and the wider Boroondara community to join in the programs it has on offer. The Ashburton Seniors Centre is a new, fit for purpose centre which will enhance and support hundreds of over 55s in our area. The new building is fully accessible and has a large hall, a dining room, four activity spaces, large kitchen, administration areas, two kitchenettes, storage, and an outdoor courtyard complete with an outdoor kitchen which received a $10,000 Federal Government Stronger Communities Grant. In addition, the lower ground level car park has a Meals on Wheels program, a distribution point, and also scooter charging areas.
Samarinda Ashburton Aged Services will continue to manage the centre and provide important services to our community. Those activities and services provided at the centre will include Meals on Wheels program, exercise classes such as Qigong and table tennis, three senior multicultural groups will meet at the centre weekly and I look forward to catching up with them again. There will be line dancing, educational classes including English as a second language, and a computer kiosk. There will be a Coffee Club, lunches and Man Friday activities, craft activities including knitting sewing and painting. It is truly a fantastic facility. I'd now like to introduce the Federal Member for Higgins, Dr. Katie Allen MP, to say a few words.
Dr. Katie Allen: Hi I'm Dr. Katie Allen, Federal Member for Higgins and I’m here in Canberra in Federal Parliament and unable to join you, so I'm so pleased to be able to send this congratulatory message for the virtual opening of the redevelopment for the Ashburton Seniors Centre. Congratulations to all of you who put so much work into making this redevelopment what it is going to be which is a fantastic outcome for our senior citizens. Congratulations particularly to the City of Boroondara, to the CEO Phil Storer, to the mayor, Cynthia Watson and Councillor Garry Thompson. I know that the whole team has worked so hard to deliver on this and I'm very pleased that the Federal Government has contributed $10,000 through the Stronger Communities Grant and that that's been able to contribute to the outdoor kitchen which will be an important and hopefully much-loved part of the Senior Citizens Centre. I know that when I've come down to visit it’s just been fantastic to see how well this Seniors Centre utilised is. There's been fantastic cooking and art classes and lots of really great physical activity that goes on with centres, so important to keep our senior citizens active and I know that it's difficult at this stage with COVID that we can't all be together but I'm hoping it won't be long before we're opening up again and all being able to enjoy each other's company, get together and to be a real community again. But congratulations to the whole team, well done for organising today and I'm sorry that I can't be there with you.
Carolyn McClean: Thank you, Dr. Allen. I would like to introduce the Chair of Samarinda Ashburton Aged Services, Mr. Bob Stensholt, to say a few words.
Bob Stensholt: We welcome the completion of the Samarinda Community Centre for seniors and adults with a disability. This is a project which has been over a decade in the making from when Tanya our previous CEO and Hal Hobbs, the Chair of Ashburton Support Services first talked to Council and to the advocacy of Brian Bergen, the former head of Ashburton support services and myself. We even employed a local architect, Garry Thompson, and we discovered that the foundations of the building were no longer safe. The original centre was built on this site by the Ashburton Senior Citizens Welfare Association over 50 years ago and now we have this new building they'll continue to provide Meals on Wheels and community care and support for our seniors and people with a disability. It'll be the home to many groups such as the Chinese groups, the Golden Memories, the Vietnamese, and the Indian groups. It will also be the source of many activities such as boot scooting, Zumba, lunches, concerts. It will be a wonderful centre for so many activities for our locals.
This has been a great partnership with Boroondara City Council over many years and long may continue to be for the benefit of our senior citizens and our adults with disabilities. We thank the Council officers very much for including us in the planning of this building and what is being built. We also thank the architects and we thank the builders that have done a wonderful job and worked with us very closely while it's been built. It's been a great plan, a great building, and now it's a wonderful venue for our local citizens and we'll have a great future. Thank you.
Carolyn McClean: To officially open the Ashburton Seniors Centre, the commemorative plaque will be unveiled. Once restrictions have eased and it is safe to do so, a public Open Day will be scheduled. This will provide Council with a wonderful opportunity to showcase this fantastic new facility which shows council’s commitment to the senior residents of Boroondara. The Open Day will be a ceremony which involves formalities, speeches and community involvement activities and community groups. This concludes the formalities. I will now invite you to watch a short video showing the original centre and the transformation that has occurred. Thank you for taking the time to look at this recording and I'm looking forward to when restrictions will ease and we can all meet at the new Ashburton Seniors Centre.