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Hello everyone, I hope you have all recovered from the silly season!

A few “thank-you’s” are in order for the lovely Christmas gifts we were able to share with our clients. Firstly thank you to our volunteers for delivering them along with the meals and other items… Big THANKS to Armidale Regional Council staff who raise funds every year to purchase these gifts and then to the staff who take the time to wrap them all up for a Christmas Surprise!

We received donated Lions Christmas Cakes again this year—thank you to the Armidale Dumaresq Lions and Ros Brady who organized these for us.

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a very busy winter here and spring has arrive early! In addition to our usual flow of activity, some of you may have noticed a staffing change. Tanya has moved on from our office and we welcome our new Administration Officer and Volunteer Coordinator Danielle to the team.

As we celebrate the 70th anniversary of Meals on Wheels commencing in Australia, we reflect on our own beginnings here in Armidale in 1966 and you can be sure we will celebrate our own 60th birthday in style in 2026!

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Hello everyone,

As I write this, it is the end of May and chill is really starting to bite with some extremely nasty frosts already! Please use all the tips and tools you know for keeping your house warm: shut doors to rooms you are not using; use door-snakes to prevents cold draughts; use your curtains and blinds to help reduce the cold coming in through your glass windows – all of these things will help.

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Hello everyone,  I think I just managed to get this newsletter out on the last day of summer!

A quick Thank You for everyone who sent back the Social Impact Surveys. We were asked if our service would participate in this data collection – both our clients and the volunteers, because collecting it’s important that studies like this have a wide range of participants – not just people from the city! We will pass on some of the results of the survey as they are provided.

There is plenty going on in the health and aged care sectors at the moment. I would like to congratulate The New England Division of General Practice, New England Visions 2030 and Adam Marshall M.P. who might have started to make inroads into the future of our GP Workforce. This issue impacts every single person in our area but we know that older people have a heavy reliance on their GP and that access is difficult right now. Fingers crossed we see some real progress soon!

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Hello everyone,

As we head towards the warmer months, we must acknowledge the sterling efforts of our volunteer drivers who have recently braved torrential rain, gale force winds, flooded creaks, potholes (and whatever is happening on Donnelly Street!) and some very chilly November temperatures, to ensure your food is delivered to your door.

Many of our clients have sent notes of thanks to our volunteers and your kind words are passed on and very much appreciated.

We are going through an extremely busy period in the Aged Care Sector. As I mentioned in the last newsletter – if you or someone you know needs any help to remain safe and independent at home, in addition to services you are already receiving – DO NOT WAIT!  There are delays in every part of the process at the moment, so please be proactive about your support services.

If you have concerns about any of the services you are receiving or would like some clear, professional advice about anything in the Aged Care Sector, please take advantage of the service listed below – The Seniors Rights Service.  Some people do not have family or friends to help them navigate the system which can be complex at times, so please reach out to this service if you need to.

We are excited to welcome new staff member Kaitlin, who has hit the ground running and is a delightful addition to our Admin team.

Kerryn Williams,  Manager

Download our Spring 2022 newsletter here

The Journey into Aged Care.
The very basic diagram in the centre of the newsletter demonstrates the journey that consumers take when entering into aged care services. It’s important for the general community to understand how the system works, so people have realistic expectations and embrace the process for a successful journey.

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Happy Spring everyone!

We are heading towards another warm summer and look forward to offering you our summer menu – of course our salads will be available again on Tuesdays and Thursdays as they continue to be a very popular meal choice.

As usual, please contact us if you have any feedback about the meals – it’s always extremely valuable for us to get any comments from our clients about the meals so please contact the office on 6772 8970 with any feedback you have.

Congratulations to all of our volunteers – we have 100% double-vaccination rates for all staff and active volunteers and we are so proud to be able to say that our service remains safe and reliable for our community.  (more…)

Greetings to all! We hope you are keeping well and warm as we enter the final month of Winter for 2021 – although so often the calendar deceives us in terms of the arrival of Spring!

As we witness the ebb and flow of ongoing COVID restrictions and limitations imposed upon us we just keep on working to provide our clients with a service each day and we rely so much on our wonderful volunteers to be able to make that possible.

We have implemented the mandatory QR Code registration process as well as providing increased sanitization and cleaning procedures.

Everyone is diligently wearing their masks in the office and on deliveries and we thank you all for your patience and persistence during this ongoing challenge.  LOCKDOWN: Thanks everyone for adhering to our NO CONTACT delivery rules and for increased vigilance during lockdown.

The MOW network is a great group of people and we all share our goals to provide high quality services to our community. With the recent lockdowns in the Sydney and metropolitan areas, we were concerned that some of the biggest services in NSW would be struggling with staff shortages, fearful clients, limitations on supplies and all sorts of other logistical issues impacting on their daily operations.  All the regional MOW services were encouraged to send a light-hearted message to our metro colleagues to wish them support at this time. I sent a rather silly photo of myself with a message on my computer screen.

Kerryn Williams
Manager

Download our Winter 2021 Newsletter here. 

As we move into another chilly winter, we transition into our warmer winter menu items. We hope you are enjoying the new range of meal options.

We continue to receive a large number of new referrals to the service each day which is often the case as winter sets in.  Welcome to all our new clients!

Our intake process requires some robust discussions with clients to ensure we get all the dietary and delivery information we need to provide a great service. We are also glad to report a number of new clients providing glowing feedback about the positive impact our service has on their general well-being and their ability to attend to more enjoyable tasks with their renewed energy!  In addition to that, we  often hear such great reports about how lovely our delivery drivers are. These are the best compliments we can get.  Thank you everyone!

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