Diana (Toni) Fontana, President* Kathleen Luczynski, Vice President John Philpott, Treasurer* Dawn Dellea, Clerk Jacob Dabrowski Sandy Driscoll Kim Mathews*
Mary K. O’Brien David O’Neill Stephen Radin Karen Reilly Mary Shogry-Hayer* Mary Strout
2018-2019 Advisory Council Gina Armstrong, CHAIR Mary Shogry- Hayer, VICE CHAIR Bruce Bernstein Lisa Fletcher- Udel SERVING BERKSHIRE COUNTY FOR THREE GENERATIONS
June Green Kathie Loring Irwin (Tom) Renak
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Hoping all is well with you. A lot has happened since we last touched based in June when we published our final edition of Berkshire Senior before taking a hiatus to determine how to move forward with the publication. The Berkshire Summer, which was just beginning in June, has pretty much come and gone though it has moved us into a season Berkshire folks seem to treasure almost as much, Autumn. In the intervening months we at Elder Services have been busy continuing to support Berkshire seniors and celebrating our Agency’s 45th Anniversary. Special thanks to those of you joined us at the September 22nd performance of the Young@Heart Chorus that we presented at the Colonial Theatre. With the retirement of Berkshire Senior’s editor and designer of more than 30 years, we focused our energies on reimagining the format, content and distribution of the “new” Berkshire Senior. The result of that work is this issue of Berkshire Senior, the first of many publications we believe will be more contemporary, more focused on issues of interest to Berkshire seniors and will be distributed to a larger audience. Berkshire Senior will be distributed every other month (the next issue will be in January 2020, then March 2020, May 2020, etc.) in the Sunday edition of the Berkshire Eagle. The Sunday circulation of the Berkshire Eagle is its largest, reaching approximately 18,000 readers. In addition, Berkshire Senior will also be available electronically on the Berkshire Eagle and Elder Services’ websites and will be available on some social media outlets. Since the distribution of Berkshire Senior will reach more people than in the past and will be available as an e-edition on two websites and various social media outlets, we are taking a wait and see approach to e-mailing it or making hardcopies available at locations throughout the County. If, as time goes by we become aware there is enough demand for drop shipments and e-mail distribution we will consider that. To my point about Berkshire Senior being focused on issues of interest to Berkshire Seniors, our hope is to expand our editorial board to include more of our neighbors and encourage other organizations to contribute articles or other content. Our editorial board is currently comprised of one community member and six Elder Services’ employees. What better way to improve the publication and make it more relevant to Berkshire seniors than to have more Berkshire seniors have a say in what we publish? If you or anyone you know would like to serve on the Editorial Board (we meet every other month for about an hour and a half) please call us at 499-0524. We’d love to have you! We also invite other organizations who serve seniors to join the editorial board and/or contribute content. Just a reminder that Medicare Open Enrollment has begun and will end on December 7th. Open Enrollment is a major part of managing one’s healthcare and should be considered as important as preventative care. Even if nothing has changed for you it’s possible that your plan may have changed, which can potentially impact the cost of the plan and your out of pocket medical costs. Please be sure to consult with one of Elder Services’ trained SHINE representatives. Hoping you enjoy this issue of Berkshire Senior and wishing you all the best autumn in the Berkshires has to offer. Christopher McLaughlin is the Executive Director of Elder Services.
Elder Services’ Berkshire Senior, November-December 2019
Monuments • Markers Lettering
Welcome Back!
ELDER SERVICES UPDATE
2018-2019 Board of Directors
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