Nellie’s notes Nellie Melba Retirement Village • Wintter edition 2 0 18
Glamour and Glitz
Opera singer Cleo Lee McGowen performing at the Meet the Scholars concert
Meet Hector and June Gilbert
Meet Bronwyn Fox
Running For Geoff ’s Life
A note from Bronwyn, Dale and Michelle Welcome to the winter edition of our newly named Nellie’s Notes. We are excited to welcome our first apartment residents in July! The village is progressing rapidly and our construction team have been very lucky with the weather. Last month we hosted our village friends on a bus tour to our sister village, Weary Dunlop. Once we arrived, morning tea was provided followed by a tour of the village and then lunch with the residents. The feedback was great and everyone was impressed by the village. Our second stage of apartments are selling now and as a Ryman village we offer some of the most resident friendly terms in Australasia. Such as fixed weekly fees*, repayment guaranteed within
six months of vacating your apartment, no refurbishment or hidden costs, a 90-day money back guarantee*, plus five more guarantees! Our sales office and showhome is open seven days a week at 6 Brandon Park Drive, Wheelers Hill. We welcome you to pop in any time to discuss your retirement living options over a cuppa. We look forward to seeing you soon. Kind regards
Bronwyn, Dale and Michelle Village manager & sales advisors *Terms and conditions apply
Winning at Bowls Recently we took part in the sponsors day tournament at Glen Waverley Bowls Club. Both of us played and to our great surprise we won! It was a great day, we always love getting out in the local community. Dale and Michelle
Bronwyn Fox Village Manager Ph: 1800 288 299 Call Bronwyn for general enquiries, or any information about low care, high care and specialist dementia care.
Dale Singleton & Michelle Shaw Sales Advisors Ph: 03 9271 3636 Talk to Dale or Michelle for more information about independent and serviced apartments.
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Opera Trust delights Ryman Healthcare’s partnership with the Melba Opera Trust has been formalised at a glitzy event showcasing the trust’s most recent group of scholars.
we’ve been continuously impressed with the integrity and consideration they have provided to Melba’s family, her legacy and their drive to do justice to her memory,” Amy said.
A ‘Meet the Scholars’ concert was held at Deakin Edge, on the banks of Melbourne’s Yarra River, on May 7.
“They are a company whose culture is one of community, relationships, caring and integrity and it is a great honour to be launching the Ryman Healthcare Opera Scholarship next year.”
Before an exclusive group of supporters were treated to performances by the seven budding stars, the trust’s general manager Amy Black announced the creation of the Ryman Healthcare Opera Scholarship. The scholarship will be awarded in 2019 to one of the young performers. Ryman named its new village in Brandon Park Nellie Melba after working closely with the opera trust to secure the blessing of the iconic opera singer’s descendants in the UK.
Amy said the other “happy benefit” of the scholarship was that residents at Ryman’s Melbourne village would enjoy performances by the scholar and be able to track his or her career as it progresses. The first residents are due to move into apartments at Nellie Melba at the end of July. Pictured above: Fleuranne Brockway, Jessica Harper and Cleo Lee McGowan performing
“We developed a relationship with Ryman Healthcare through the naming process and
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Nellie Melba’s transformation Our village is beginning its transition from a building site to the most desirable new address for retirees in Melbourne. After meticulous design and planning, nearly 150,000 man hours, and enough cement poured to fill four Olympic-sized swimming pools, the first stage of apartments are aprogressing well. The addition of the exterior brickwork has revealed our village’s complexion to the world. “It’s exciting,” says project manager Travis Cocks. “It’s nice to get further towards the end of it in terms of handing some apartments over. It’s the nicer part of the job – you get past all the dirt and start to see a finished product that will be someone’s home, so that’s always a good feeling. “I think everyone’s excited to see that.” Our first residents will move into their new apartment on July 30.
and independent one, two and three-bedroomed apartments. Amenities include a café, an indoor swimming pool, movie theatre, hair and beauty salons and a bowling green. Our village will eventually be home to around 700 residents, who will have Ryman’s continuum of care, including low, high and specialist dementia care, available to them within their village community. Nellie Melba sales advisors Dale Singleton and Michelle Shaw are loving watching the construction of the village progress. “The design is beautiful and all on schedule for our village centre opening” Dale says. Michelle says the construction of the village has drawn on a huge team effort “to produce, arguably, one of the best full continuum of care retirement villages Melbourne has seen.” Pictured above: The first stage of apartments are progressing well.
When complete, our village will include aged care rooms, assisted living in serviced apartments
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Staff Profile
Introducing Bronwyn
“My hope for the role is that I can really influence from the ground up,” she says. “I’ve got an opportunity to create a really cohesive and well-run village and have a happy, efficient place that residents want to live in and where staff want to work.” With experience in the retirement living and aged care sector of almost 25 years, Nellie Melba couldn’t be in better hands. Bronwyn was most recently a business manager at Royal Freemasons, overseeing a portfolio of five retirement villages and nine independent unit properties.
My hope for the role is that I can really influence from the ground up.
Prior to this, Bronwyn was a village manager at three villages in Melbourne for a national retirement operator.
It’s not often you get to build something important from the ground up, but that’s exactly the opportunity in front of Bronwyn Fox. And she’s excited about it.
Bronwyn says she’s excited to be working for an operator that is shaking up the Australian retirement living and aged care industry. “I like that Ryman is a disrupter in the marketplace.”
Bronwyn is our new village manager. As construction is ongoing, Bronwyn has been ensconced in New Zealand, spending time at New Zealand Ryman villages as part of her induction to the business.
Once Bronwyn has finished her time in New Zealand, she’ll return to Melbourne to prepare for the arrival of Nellie Melba’s first residents. “I just can’t wait to get home and get into it.”
Our village community Nellie Melba Retirement Village will be a community in its own right, with some wonderful facilities that you can make use of. As well as our facilities, there will be plenty of events, speakers and groups that you can get involved in. •
Have morning tea with your friends, in our café
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Participate in Ryman’s popular Triple A exercise programme
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Enjoy happy hour
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Get together with the blokes in the Men’s Shed
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Attend regular concerts and presentations
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It’s got to be
good enough for Mum In May 2018 Kevin Hickman announced he was standing down from the board of Ryman, ending 34 years of service at the company. There is no doubt that Ryman Healthcare would not be the company it is today without Kevin, and everyone at Ryman wishes him all the best with his retirement. The Ryman story began back in 1983, when Kevin was a former policeman turned private detective. He was asked to investigate a aged care home fire in Christchurch, and he did not like what he saw. “The fire was in an old villa and there were four people to a room all with shared toilets,’’ Kevin recalls. “To me it was crazy, the standards were so poor. But that’s how aged care homes were in those days.’’
“I thought, what would I want for Mum?”
Kevin would never dream of putting his Mother into a place like that if she needed to go into care. “I thought, what would I want for Mum?” And so, Ryman’s philosophy that care has to be “good enough for Mum” was born. Kevin teamed up with John Ryder, an accountant, and together they made a dynamic pair. Ryman – a combination of Ryder and Hickman – Healthcare was registered and they bought their first property to convert into a aged care home in 1984.
As well as providing care that was better than anywhere else, the company had to be sustainable, with its systems constantly refined and improved upon. The size of the villages and the facilities offered may have changed over the past 30 years, but Ryman’s core philosophy remains the same. Care is still at the heart of what we do. And it’s got to be good enough for Mum. Or Dad!
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Resident Profile
Meet Hector & June
When Hector said; ‘this is nice’ I couldn’t quite believe it – we never agree on anything you see!
Hector and June Gilbert have certainly done their homework when it comes to Ryman. They have sought first-hand testimonials, researched the company and they’ve investigated alternatives, only to come to the same conclusion. Having discussed the idea of moving into a retirement village, the couple discovered that they both agreed wholeheartedly that Ryman was the way to go. June says the confirmation came when they visited the show apartment at Ryman’s Weary Dunlop village.
“We’ve also heard a few horror stories from our various friends who’ve moved into places and the owners have sold out and then the new owners come in and change things. “We have got confidence that Ryman is here to stay.” The couple, who have been married for 53 years, and have four children and six grandchildren, built their house in 1963 on Glen Waverley’s busy Blackburn Road. They chose a two-bedroom apartment at Nellie Melba so they can enjoy their ‘separate zones’!
“When Hector said; ‘this is nice’ I couldn’t quite believe it – we never agree on anything you see!” she laughs.
“June loves her talkback radio whereas I don’t so this way we can maintain a cordial relationship,” laughs Hector.
Their son-in-law’s parents have lived at Weary Dunlop for three years and have been ‘perfectly happy’, she says.
Hector’s favourite pastime is playing 9 holes of golf at Glen Waverley Golf Club with a group of friends while June has a wealth of voluntary activities to her name and she hopes to find a few fellow knitters at the village.
June and Hector put their name on the waiting list to join their in-laws, but then they heard about the new Brandon Park village and thought that would be a better fit. “A key thing for us that Ryman undertakes is that as you need to move to a higher care situation, that is available on site so you don’t have that major upheaval,” says Hector.
And while Hector hopes to keep playing golf there is one thing he is relishing the idea of: “I try to keep the grass cut but I’m not really a handy kind of guy, so I’m looking forward to not having to do that for the next 20 or so years!”
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Running for Geoff ’s life As Geoff Nyssen marshalled hundreds of walkers and runners, no one would have suspected his cancer has returned. The organiser of the MY Mt Eliza Run & Fun Festival was a ball of energy at the event he founded in 2017 to raise funds for the battle against Myeloma. The event, which Ryman Healthcare has supported since its inception, is a symbol of Geoff’s fight against the disease. “I see the benefits it gives to the community and the fact that it raises a great amount of money and awareness for Myeloma Australia,” he says. Around 800 people attended with a dozen Ryman Healthcare staff and Weary Dunlop residents as well. Geoff says the event wouldn’t be possible without the support of organisations like Ryman Healthcare.
Geoff was diagnosed with Myeloma in 2014 and he was told then that he had about 10 years to live, “but I don’t buy into that.” Even though the cancer is coming back, the prognosis, Geoff says, is merely a statistic. But before he looks too far ahead, Geoff is soaking up the satisfaction of pulling off another successful community event. Pictured: Weary Dunlop village staff and residents out in good form to support Geoff’s (middle, orange shirt) cause.
6 Brandon Park Drive, Wheelers Hill
1800 288 299 www.nelliemelbavillage.com.au