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Minutes 10-09-00 MINUTES OF SENIOR ADVISORY BOARD MEETING HELD IN SENI~OR CENTER, 1021 SOUTH FEDERAL HIGHWAY, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA, ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2000 AT 3:00 P.M. PRESENT Betty Collins, Chair Olive Field Jeanne Hasty Denise Chain berlain ABSENT Amelia Benell Elizabeth Jenkins Bernice Joyce Christine Wilson Carolyn Sims, Recreation Supervisor ALSO PRESENT Shirley Jaskiewicz, former Commissioner Peggy Stranahan, former member Senior Advisory Board Betty Thomas, Chair of Recreation and Parks Board 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG AND MOMENT OF SILENT PRAYER Chair Betty Collins called the meeting to order at 3:00 P.M. and led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, followed by a moment of silent prayer for the seniors of the City. Chair Collins acknowledged the visitors and welcomed them to the meeting. 2. AGENDA APPROVAL Motion Ms. Field made a motion to approve the agenda as written. Ms. Hasty seconded the motion that carried unanimously, 3. MINUTES APPROVAL OF 9/11/00 MEETING Motion Ms. Field made a motion to approve the minutes of the 9/11/00 meeting as written. Hasty seconded the motion that carried unanimously. 3. CHAIRMAN'S REMARKS MS. Organizing the Senior Volunteers Chair Collins mentioned that she had gotten a letter from a disgruntled person pertaining. to the lack of organization of the senior volunteers. Some people had come to do a job and had been told that other people were supposed to do it and instances like this. She sa'd there were two sides to every story and that she had a productive meeting with Meeting Minutes Senior Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 9, 2000 Wally Majors, Acting Recreation Director on the subject of organization of the senior volunteers. Chair Collins emphasized the importance of organizing the senior volunteers and distributed a'set of proposed bylaws for a group she wanted to form for the purpose of organizing the sen~or volunteers. She stated that a task force had been set up to consider the best way to organize all the volunteers, not just the senior center volunteers in general. They would all belong to RSVP. The task force met twice to discuss guidelines for the project. They suggested the name of the "Senior Volunteers of the City of Boynton Beach" with a purpose of organizing exclusively for senior volunteers willing to assist with the City's functions, activities and programs. The membership of the group would be open to all interested citizens 55 years of age or older, who had an interest in serving as a volunteer in the City of Boynton Beach. A meeting would be held monthly at the discretion of the officers. Special meetings would be called to prepare for special events. The City group in search of help would only have to come to one group, not to the community at large. The notice of other than regular meetings would be done by telephone calls and would be displayed in the Senior Center. Chair Collins said the officers would need to be' appointed based on people who were willing and able to do the job and then elected in successive years. Ms. Hasty asked if there wasn't already a specific person paid by the city to organize the volunteers, for GALA for example? Chair Collins said the Recreation Department organized and ran GALA. Instead of putting in any paperwork for seniors to volunteer they would come to our group which would be the core of seniors and they would say "We need 50 volunteers todo "X". The person taking that information would say "What do you want them to do?" The largest volunteer group in the City is the seniors. Ms. Hasty said it sounded like a filtering system and wondered if this wasn't Mr. Steven's job already? Chair Collins said yeS bUt his job spanned a lot more than just Boynton Beach. When a person volunteers as RSVP you can say I only want to work at Bethesda. Suppose an assisted living facility calls and says we are having a function, do you have someone who can help us? We are talking only about having volunteers for the City of Boynton Beach functions. This does not mean that the volunteers would only work at the Senior Center. If someone says they would like to work at the Senior.Center, Herb shouldn't be the one to schedule people. He makes sure that every senior that is in this City gets the insurance, which is his number one priority. The Federal Government funds this effort. Palm Beach County is. number one for volunteers. That is how the funds come. Our Board is an advisory board so we need to make a suggestion to the City Commission that we organize the seniors. At Bethesda Hospital for example, Chair Collins said, there is a paid Director of Volunteers. Every volunteer who works there knows exactly what to do and when and where to do it. In our case, if the organization got a call the president would follow the guidelines. Chair Collins said that senior volunteers had been hurt in the past through lack of organization. Some of them failed because they were not trained properly. Some of them signed up to volunteer and were never called. Ms. Hasty questioned the method by which the new volunteer group would be formed? Chair Collins said the City would advertise for senior volunteers through its water bills. They would be invited to a meeting where the program would be explained. Cha~'r 2 Meeting Minutes Senior Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 9, 2000 Collins said that this new group would be under the auspices of the Recreation Department. Former Vice Mayor Shirley Jackiewicz suggested beginning with the original list of volunteers. However, Chair Collins believed that they should start anew since some of the original people had already left. Chair Collins said the City wanted the senior volunteers organized and that she was amazed that a City the size of Boynton Beach did not have a database of volunteers. Also, volunteers need to be recognized for a job well done and this is made easier through organization. Ms. Carolyn Sims asked if they would work with Herb Stevens, the RSVP representative at the Senior Center? Chair Collins said he represented the RSVP group and not the City like the Senior Volunteers of the City of Boynton Beach. Every volunteer would have to go through his office though. Ms. Sims said Mr. Stevens gives out assignments as well. Chair Collins said he would be part of this and would work with this group because he represents all seniors in this area, not just the ones working here at the Center. Ms. Field said that she picked her own hours and that she worked from 8:30 to 1:30 at the front desk. Most of the people wanted to work in the mornings. Chair Collins said people would have to be told, "This is what we need, if you want a different time and it is not available, you will be put on a waiting list." Chair Collins said when somebody says, "1 will be free every Thursday from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., that is all that person has to do and they should feel good that they gave when they could. It was felt that it was important that vo un.teers commit for specific days and times. Ms. Hasty said you might need to put a limit and say you can only work three days because if someone worked four days they would be taking away someone else's position and may overextend themselves. Chair Collins said that you could try to satisfy everyone but that would never be done entirely. Ms. Collins also said that it was important to find out what the people who could only come in the afternoon wanted. Since there was not much programming in the afternoon periods, perhaps that is when the sing-alongs could be done. Ms. Chamberlain stated that there had been complaints from people who said there was nothing to do between 12:00 and 1:00 p.m. Chair Collins said the City was full of excellent educators and business people and that there were many people who would like to show their slides! We have people who have gone to elder hostels and have traveled. Chair Collins thought it would be easier on the staff to have a group or person in charge of senior volunteers because they have the one person or little group to go to. If someone says someone was not working out, that would be hard for another volunteer working with her to handle. Even in cases where some people weren't working out it could be discussed in the group sensitively and in a caring manner. Betty Thomas said that the majority of the city volunteers had been from the Recreation Department and had been used for GALA, Black Awareness, family picnics, parades, and the Easter egg hunt and the volunteer positions had been filled by staff. It would probably save everybody a lot of grief to have a group dedicated to filling these jobs, especially if there were some way to have a staff member in charge throughout the city. Meeting Minutes Senior Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 9, 2000 Ms. Carolyn Sims said right now Wendy Hollien was in charge of the volunteers and Chair Collins said she would be on the task force. She said that the volunteers themselves would have to be part of the City and under the Recreation Department. Chair Collins also said Wally Majors thought having the volunteers organized would be easier rather than just having the volunteers for the senior center. Our group would have a core of volunteers organized for anything the City wanted to do. It was determined that Wendy Hollien was acting as the "Director" of volunteers for the City (but not the Senior Center). Ms. Jaskiewicz said it could be patterned after Friends of the Library. According to Ms. Hasty, Wendy Hollien's sole purpose was to organize the volunteers and she wondered if she had some guidelines this group could follow? She suggested asking Ms. Hollien to come to one of the meetings and say what the duties should be for the people in the group. Chair Collins stated that the volunteers for City functions were one thing but that the day-to-day goings on at the Senior Center were another matter and had to be organized and have staff approval, etc Betty Thomas said that the day-to-day things in the Library were organized. Ms. Sims said that now the volunteers do know where they work and had been given a number to call if the could not come in. Chair Collins mentioned that, as Mr. Majors stated to her, they would be advising the City Commission that we would like to see the senior volunteers organized. That is all that we can do. The problem has to be addressed. She said it had not been her intention to have it under Parks and Recreation. She wanted to have it under the City in general. Social Worker Ms. Jaskiewicz asked if Mae Volen had indicated that it would have someone here in the function of social worker? She asked if the Mae Volen social worker came to the Boynton Beach Senior Center? Ms. Sims responded that they did not have one. Ms. Chamberlain said staff said it was not in the contract that they provide a social worker. The City could provide a social worker and that is the main thing we need here. The group then discussed the social worker that was coming to the Senior Center and said that Mr. Lulkin was calling him a caseworker. They believed the HMO was paying him and staff is having him come in to speak. The group said that they didn't want a salesman. They wanted a real social worker, funded by the federal Government. Ms. Sims said she would check into it and if it wasn't right, they wouldn't have it. Betty Thomas said when the Senior Center was drawn up they put in a place for a social worker and asked what happened to that? Chair Collins said Mae Volen wanted to run 3t and we did not want that. They wanted this to be a satellite of Mae Volen. Chair ollins said it had to be a City project. Everyone agreed that getting a social worker was a primary goal of the Senior Center. Funding and Grants Ms. Jaskiewicz said it was disconcerting to her that they did not get enough money from the Federal Government. She knew that there was a lot of money available. She said a lot of lobbying was needed and that this Board needed to participate as well. Ms. Sims 4 Meeting Minutes Senior Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 9, 2000 said she, Debbie Majors and staff had gone to the session and had made a presentation and learned later that they had not received funding. Ms. Jaskiewicz said the Board needed to go as a group, have signs, and make a lot of noise. Chair Collins spoke of Mr. Majors' offer to give the Senior Advisory Board transportation to go to any lobbying activities that may be required. The next date for funding is sometime in January 2001. The Senior Center should have its request in by October and it should be sent to Senator Ron Klein. Ms. Sims said she would check out the dates. Ms. Jaskiewicz said this Center was serving all the seniors of the County and deserved a piece of the funding p~e. Chair Collins said to get money you had to Drove the need and you had to have your request in on time. Ms. Jaskiewicz said you had to make a need very compelling and in this case it is the social needs of the City. She suggested using the proposals for the future that were already prepared and saying that they could not do them because the building was not finished. The group discussed the fact that the Senior Center was not a multi-purpose center but was more centered on recreation and that this hurt its funding opportunities. Ms. Jaskiewicz said the other kinds of programs were what made ~ae Volen eligible for funding. She suggested the group have Octavia Sherrod come in and outline the funding possibilities available through her organization. Things have to be scheduled regularly at this Center to show that they are serving more needs than .lust recreation. By now we should be doing some of these other things. Chair Collins said she hoped one day the Senior Center would have its own bus. Ms. Jaskiewicz said her intention had been to have all the seniors together having lunch in one place. Someone said the reason the seniors go to Boynton Bay on the Mae Volen bus is that they don't have to pay the $1.00 on the "shopper hopper" bus to go home. Ms. Jaskiewicz said she thought Mae Volen asked for a contribution for the bus also. She said wanted to see the Senior Center have its own bus. Chair Collins said she saw in the paperwork that the Area Agency on Agency handled the Federal funds and that was needed. They also needed the gravy that came from the legislative body. She said a mailing had to go out. Wally said Debbie Majors was doing all of the work for the grants. She is the one that would have to be responsible. Carolyn Sims said she would have Debbie Majors call Chair Collins. Ms. Sims said the focus of the grant request was transportation and a handicapped van. The board discussed the idea of donations from area businesses and how business Usingd°nati°nSa "TreeC°Uldof Life".be recognized in the newspaper and in the Senior Center, perhaps Ms. Hasty asked if somebody was writing up a program and she wondered if they were going to get it in on time? She thought the group should work on getting their trip together now. Chair Collins remembered organizing the renters at Boynton Terrace. Tl~y called a television station because the landlord would not do anything. They stood out there with signs and they got what they wanted. Ms. Chamberlain said they would only have a chance if the grant were to be put in on time. It was reiterated that Chair Collins would have to look over the proposal too to make sure it was inclusive. Chair Collins agreed that organization needed to be done for the January legislative session. 5 Meeting Minutes Senior Advisory Board Boynton Beach, Florida October 9, 2000 She will also speak to Debbie Majors about it and call people. She affirmed that this would be for the following year's session as it was already too late for this one. Chair Collins said that what they have at Mae Volen is an executive director who is a paid overseer. They have a Board of Directors who are big City people. If there were anyone in the City who would take on the Senior Center and be its Director, it would then come under the City. We need that paid person. Ms. Chamberlain said Herb Stevens came up to her when they were having a line dance class and he said it was ridiculous because he could not hear on the telephone. She told him that it was her belief that the needs of the Senior Center came first. Everyone agreed that she was correct but thought that the City Hall in the Mall would be a good place for Herb and that he would be able to promote the Senior Center from that location better than where he was now. 4. ADJOURNMENT Motion At 4:15 p.m. Olive Field made a motion to adjourn. Ms. Hasty seconded the motion that was carried unanimously. Respectfully submitted, Susan Collins -- Recording Secretary (one tape) 6