Our Early History
SALT SPRING SENIORS SERVICES SOCIETY EARLY HISTORY 1987 – 1999 – written by Mary Toynbee February 2015
1987 – A few Community Services Society volunteers, including Bob Appleton, Betty Ball, and myself, (Mary Toynbee) saw the need to compile a list of community resources available to seniors. With a $100 grant from Community Services to buy the file cards and boxes we started putting together what became the Seniors Resource Information File.
1988 – The group grew, stressing that it was to be a service society, so as not compete with the local OAPO, which was primarily a social organization. The Resource File was expanded, as the group continued gathering information (the cards were handwritten mostly by Bob Appleton and Rowena Dixon, because they had the nicest handwriting) and carrying the information boxes to different locations around town to dispense that information (that system didn’t work very well and was soon abandoned).
1989 – The newly formed Victoria Health Project (VHP) became interested and adopted us as one of their pilot projects; as such we received a generous grant and professional advice. By then there were about 30 members and the group was incorporated as a B.C. non-profit, charitable society, the Salt Spring Seniors for Seniors. Our mission was “to provide resource information and related services to seniors” on the island. We rented an office upstairs in the Valcourt Building (above Chinese Restaurant) but seniors didn’t like the stairs or the mechanical lift, so with VHP’s help in paying the increased rent we moved downstairs to a larger, more accessible space (former hair salon; later medical clinic).
1990-1992 – Meanwhile, we computerized the Resource File with our own rather unorthodox software program a9composed in the original BASIC). The nature of the inquiries we received revealed a need for transportation to help seniors get to these resources, and so Roy Betts organized a Volunteer Drivers Program (his system is still in use); the drivers then indicated many of seniors’ need for more personal support, and so Ella Robertson organized the Seniors Buddies whose purpose was to visit with other seniors and help them with their various concerns; the Buddies in turn felt a need for guidance in this activity, and so Carla Kamhoot was hired as our Coordinator and overseer.
Meanwhile Ellen Mellstrom and friends started serving soup and sandwiches every Thursday to seniors dropping in to our Centre. To keep members informed of all this activity, we began circulating a monthly News ‘n’Views, with much the same format as it has today; after years of devotion, only recently has Betty Poole retired from that task.
Through all those same years and until his death Bob Appleton kept the Memory Book to record our departed members; quite by chance, his own name was the last one written into that book before it ran out pages. I see a new book is underway and I hope this tradition will be preserved. Some of us like to look back and be reminded of our former friends.
1991-1992 – Meanwhile, we were still receiving grants (and perhaps more supervision and direction than we really wanted) from the VHP. Our rent was high, and we started looking for a place of our own: after exploring various possibilities, we settled on a moveable, prefabricated building on land owned by the Greenwoods: they gave us a temporary lease, in case they decided they needed the property to use themselves. With generous help from VHP, federal New Horizons, CRD, Seniors Lottery, various Foundations, local donations and volunteer labour, the building was completed without mortgage and with money in the bank. (much of which, I believe, is still there). The BC Lieutenant Governor David Lam formally opened the new building on November 6th, 1992.
1992-1994 – The membership grew, Carla left us, but in cooperation with Community Services, first Gail Retallack and then Rhema Cossever were hired to supervise our Senior Buddies Program, which by then was called Seniors in Touch. Meanwhile, we had become so famous, one day we received a letter from a Toronto lawyer: stating that a nationwide Toronto company called Seniors for Seniors threatened to sue us if we didn’t immediately cease and desist use of that name. Although we had the Seniors for Seniors name first, were a legally registered BC society with our activities limited to SSI and no plans to expand, and with our lawyer telling us we would probably win the court case, we figured it was not worth the expense; and so we changed our name to the five S’s, the Salt Spring Seniors Services Society. The name change cost us $60, so we sent the bill to their lawyer, but we never heard from him again.
1994-1999 – Program multiplied (see sheet: it appeared as a full-page ad in Driftwood, paid for by Max Fitch with money he won in a Driftwood Raffle); more social activities were added, though Resource Information, the Volunteer Drivers, Seniors in Touch and Thursday Lunch continued; also Income Tax help, the Lost Chords, Art Class, Computer classes, bridge and mah jong. There was even a short experiment called Seen-Teens which saw our seniors sporting with a number of teenagers.
1999 – When Norm McConnell, our long-time and well-loved Treasurer and his wife Anne, had to leave the Island, a few Seniors for Seniors members recognized the need for a seniors’ residence on SSI. Some thought our organization might undertake it, but those who by then were in charge decided the project was too big; therefore, a small group formed, thirteen prospective residents put in so-called Earnest Money, and The Gulf Islands Seniors Residence Association (GISRA) was incorporated. (That’s another story; Meadowbrook was completed in 2003 and is still going strong; as I became more involved with that I became less so at Seniors.)
Around that time, a four-way partnership was formed involving SS Seniors, Lady Minto Hospital, GISRA and the Community Services Society to finance and run a Community Wellness Program, with Coordinator Sharon Glover; this included the former Seniors-in-Touch, now called Seniors Peer Support, which continued as one of our Seniors Services Society’s core programs. Just this past year, Sharon has retired from that program, which in turn has been absorbed into a Community Services Program.
Of our original and early activities we have lost the Resource Information Services to the Internet and our Seniors’ Peer Support has moved to be Better-at-Home, but the Drivers, Thursday Lunches, News’n’Views, Caregivers’ Support Group, monthly talks and the Lost Chords continue, plus various games and social activities, all of it held together by our incredible past and present Board Members, Group Leaders and Office Volunteers. The new Board is seeking a new vision of how best to satisfy the hopes and desires (and energies) of today’s seniors.
Since its beginning, almost 2,000 Salt Spring seniors have belonged to the Society, around four to five hundred at any one time. But by now, most of us are either dead or coming close, and it’s time for the younger ones to move in and take over, to remake this organization in their own image. Neva Hohn and Marg Monro have made a great start, and they are counting on YOU to make it happen.
Mary Toynbee, February 2015
