By Dongyun Kwon
Local senior citizen clubs are struggling with making ends meet and asking for more support from the Yarra Ranges Council (YRC).
Yarra Valley Combined Seniors president Raymond Cooper asked councillors for more support for local senior citizen clubs at the YRC meeting on Tuesday 12 March.
Senior Citizen Clubs and Over 50’s Friendship Groups provide a relaxed environment where people can enjoy the company of others and participate in a range of social activities.
Mr Cooper said seniors clubs play an important role in helping older people.
“Seniors clubs are not just a place for old folks to sit down and have a cup of tea and a biscuit,” he said.
“They come to the clubs to actually find out things. They ask us if we can fill their forms online and we can help them with questionnaires.”
Mr Cooper said the local senior clubs wanted to improve their clubs and found the lack of support from the YRC.
“What we [Wandin Senior Citizens Centre] did recently is we put in four air conditioners and got 10-panel solar power from the government which we increased to 20 of our own backs,” he said.
“Kitchen upgrades cost us $11,000. We only got five [thousand] off from the council and the dishwasher cost us $9600 which the Bendigo Bank was very kind to give us six [thousand].
“The council would only offer us a $700 single household dishwasher which only washes six plates at a time and we feed 50 people.
“So in all, we spent $55,470 and the council contributed $5500. The Bendigo Bank gave us $6600 the government gave us $22,400 and the seniors donated $20,970.”
One of the expenditures that seniors clubs find hard to pay is the hall hiring fee.
In the meeting, Mr Cooper claimed one of the seniors clubs that is most affected by hall rental fee is Yarra Junction Over 50’s Friendship Club.
“One club I must mention is Yarra Junction [Over 50’s Friendship Club], the council would not give them the $5000 grant because the club hasn’t got the word ‘seniors’ in their club,” he said.
“They’ve got about 30 old pensioners who are over 50 but the council only gives them a grant of $1000 a year.
Star Mail contacted Yarra Junction Over 50’s Friendship Club and the club’s secretary Carole Corcoran said the reason the club didn’t put the word ‘senior’ in the name was to include a wide range of people.
“We wanted it open to other age groups because there were a lot of people up in the Upper Yarra who were in need of support,” she said.
“But we never ever received any of the seniors’ funds over $5000 a year because we didn’t use the name ‘seniors’.
“The only grant we’ve ever got from the council helped us with paying our rent to the council, they gave it to us and then we’d give it back to them to cover the rent.”
Yarra Junction Over 50’s Friendship Club has run a community free meal to help people redevelop friendships after the Covid lockdown.
“We get approximately 50 people coming along and they’re not just from Yarra Junction. We do it once a month on the third Wednesday at the Yarraburn Centre,” Ms Corcoran said.
“We got one grant from YRC and it’s exhausted and got no other grant, so we had to look for another way to keep it going.
“We started a dance [lesson] and the money from the dance has continued to help the [community free] meal for the local people.”
To run all the activities including the community free meal, dance and games, Yarra Junction Over 50’s Friendship Club hires three YRC’s halls in Yarra Junction, Kilsyth and Mount Evelyn regularly which has burdened its finances.
“The Yarraburn Centre is $11 per hour. The Mount Evelyn Hall is the same price, $11 an hour,” Ms Corcoran said.
“The Kilsyth Hall is $87.81 per dance, [we run it] twice a month which costs over $170 per month.”
In response to the question, O’Shannassy Councillor Jim Child said he would look at what is going on at Yarra Junction Over 50’s Friendship Club.
“I was on the Upper Yarra Shire when the building [the old senior citizens hall] was built in the 1980s and it was eventually fell away because of lack of memberships and we’ve got another council building in Warburton, solely built for the senior citizens, again closed because we didn’t have that involvement of the seniors in the community,” he said.
“We’re starting to get back now, especially in Yarra Junction with the over 50s club which is absolutely amazing.
“We’ve got the other facilities like U3A in Yarra Junction, which actually uses our building and that is just a tremendous resource for the elderly to get involved with and there’s actually younger people learning so much from that facility as well. So to me, I reiterate our commitment to senior citizens and their facilities.”
The other issue that Mr Cooper mentioned was the YRC’s transport service.
The transport service provides a vital social link to our residents who are isolated or unable to utilise other modes of transport and connects them with their community.
The service is provided to seniors clubs, shopping trips, outings and medical appointments.
YRC considered stepping away from providing a transport service by 30 June this year at the Tuesday 24 October 2023 council meeting.
“There are a lot of seniors on the outskirts and they’re being told they’re going to lose their transports,” Mr Cooper said.
“When they spoke to the transport drivers, one of them heard ‘Why can’t the people on the outskirts move nearer to the town?’.”
Ryrie Ward Councillor Fiona McAllister said she was shocked when she heard what Mr Cooper said.
“I’d hate to think that it was ever said ‘move closer’, I’m shocked,” she said.
“We’re a municipality with two and a half thousand square kilometres, and that’s what we love and that’s why many of us don’t live in urban areas.
“It’s time to change because the funding has been pulled away, [but] the council’s commitment hasn’t pulled away.”
