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Older & Bolder Newsletter 26

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Growing Old Disgracefully photography competition launched

A photography competition, Growing Old Disgracefully, has been launched by NIACE and Mature Times to coincide with UN Day of Older Persons. The competition is open to anyone in the UK aged 55 and over and encourages older people to illustrate the wide variety of ways and places older people learn.

Lois Gladdish, Information Officer for NIACE’s Older and Bolder Team, said:

“To celebrate today’s United Nations International Day of Older Persons we are looking for creative, positive images of older people learning.”

She continued:

“This competition is your chance to capture an unusual learning scene and to express yourself through the wonders of photography. Amateur, hobbyist or professional — if you have a digital camera and an imagination, you can take inspiring photos that reflect your enthusiasm for learning. We are looking for photographs of older people, taken by older people. This is your chance to prove that you can still enjoy learning and handle the latest technology – age is not a barrier. Whether you belong to a singing, rock climbing or drama group let us see how you are Growing Old Disgracefully.”

Tony Watts, Editor of Mature Times, said:

“There are, arguably, few things we all enjoy more than watching someone 'growing old disgracefully'. It's an inspirational, life-enhancing act of defiance that we all hope we can emulate. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes out of this challenge and sharing the results with all my readers.”

The deadline for entries is Friday 16th January 2009. Judging will take place in early February 2009 and presentations of awards and photographic vouchers will take place at the NIACE E-Guides Event at the end of March 2009 in Nottingham, which looks at the impact of technology in learning.

For more information and an entry form please contact Lois Gladdish, Information Officer, Older & Bolder, NIACE, 21 De Montfort Street, Leicester LE1 7GE or email: lois.gladdish@niace.org.uk

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Jim Soulsby Retires

"February 2008 marked the end of an era for NIACE with the retirement of Jim Soulsby, after 12 years leading NIACE’s Older and Bolder programme.

Jim came to us from Lancashire, where he had already made a mark on services for older people, and he rapidly became a well known figure on the national scene. Wherever the education of older people was being discussed, Jim could be found, tirelessly networking, bringing alliances, building links between organisations which would otherwise never have spoken to each other, and spotting and encouraging individuals with good ideas and talent.

Throughout the country, in educational circles and well beyond (in health, social services and finance, to name a few) Jim was Older and Bolder – campaigning not only for proper provision for older people but for their right to engage in shaping and directing educational provision, not just receiving it. He was always concerned to create ways of making the voices of older people heard in debates on adult learning. He was a driving force in the Senior Learner of the Year Awards, making sure that remarkable achievements were not only recognised, but documented in the Older and Bolder database, which continues to provide inspiring examples of good and interesting practice to illuminate campaigns, debates and materials on later life.

We know that his retirement is only a step to a different kind of engagement – he is certainly not planning to give up the cause – and we look forward to continuing contact in his new life."

Stephen McNair, Associate Director of Adult Learners

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Two Recent Email Discussions

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Later Life Learning in Link Age Plus

The Social Exclusion Unit report A Sure Start to Later Life: Ending Inequalities for Older People (January 2006) indicated that learning opportunities for older people should be considered as an integral element of the pilot programme. This briefing sheet is intended to help the pilot programmes, as they continue to develop, to consider how and when education in later life can be offered. It explores the value of learning in later life, some of the ways it can be made part of the Link Age Plus programme, and latterly highlights what the local adult education world will look like.

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Digital stories from older learners

Earlier in 2007 the Older & Bolder team set up two workshops, one in Coventry and the other in Birmingham, to record older people’s learning journeys. The mornings were used to encourage the learners to talk about their experiences and how their learning had affected their lives. The facilitators then helped them to gather their thoughts, and any documents and photographs they had bought along, into a story. In the afternoon their stories were recorded and the images loaded onto a computer. These 10 personal stories demonstrate how learning has changed these peoples’ lives.

From Danny who said,
“The head teacher of my school brought me in to the office and asked me to leave school because of poor results and what he had heard from the teachers. He said that I was wasting their time and mine and that I would make nothing of my life – Well I have!

In 2000 I attended Coventry College. I gained my first formal qualification, qualified as an electrician, and in 2006 I set up own company. I have proved my teachers and the head teacher wrong – I have achieved my goals and more.”

To Margaret who said,
“At the age of 40 I learnt to read, a new life began. I learnt to thread a needle and went on to a hand embroidery course, followed by a C&G in patchwork and quilting.

I found the written work very hard, but using the abc button on the computer and having a great tutor helped.”

Older & Bolder is currently developing a ‘toolkit’ to demonstrate how to collect digital stories from older people. This will be available shortly on this website.

You can download two sample stories from the DVD below.

If you would like a high-resolution, hard copy of the original DVD please email: lois.gladdish@niace.org.uk with your names and address.

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Coming Soon

Facilitating Older Learners

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