The Retirement Village Residents Association (Inc) ABN 16 674 035 894

Home Page Media Links News Break 2010 AGM - Notice Of Retirement Village Living            Advice for prospective Residents About Us Our Aims, Objectives & Services Issues Links Membership & Donations Newsletters Contact RVRA Forum            Forum Information Page

Australian  Capital  Territory  Matters This page and its links are provided as a service to Residents of Retirement Villages in the ACT as an assistance to them in establishing their own Association.

Meeting of ACT Retirement Village Residents, May 24th 2010 Over 70 Retirement Village Residents from around the ACT attended a meeting at the Hughes Community Centre on Monday 24th May at 2 pm. The meeting was opened by Milton Cottee, an ACT resident at Araluen Village, Fisher. He outlined the reasons for the meeting - namely to work with the NSW Retirement Villages Association to set up a Residents Association in the ACT at this important time when the first legislation for Retirement Villages has recently been tabled in the Legislative Assembly. Malcolm McKenzie, the President of the NSW Retirement Village Association introduced Mary Porter MP, Member for Ginninderra, who was instrumental in formulating the Exposure Draft of Retirement Village Act and tabled it in the Legislative Assembly as a private Member's Bill. She gave the background to the proposed legislation. Ms Porter then took questions from the floor. The questions were quite wide ranging and some topics covered were:     - the necessity for the certainty for residents in the way the legislation is worded;     - rules regarding agendas and minutes of meetings held in villages;     - the effectiveness of penalty units as mentioned in the Act;     - residents involvement in management and preparation of the budgets;     - the possible utilisation of the more useful elements within the present Code of Practice;     - the validity of existing contracts;     - the planned retention of funds from the entrance payment to be reserved for capital replacements;     - the specification of retrospectivity;     - the coverage of the problems of discrimination against residents in villages who ask questions about management;     - the coverage of Retirement Village issues under The Human Rights Act;     - representation of residents on Village Boards;     - the fear that discussions of the standardisation of leases may hold up the passage of the legislation; and     - the timing of the enactment of the legislation. Ms Porter assured the residents that these items will be considered during the consultative process which ends on 22nd September 2010. She encouraged all those attending to write to her about their concerns before this date. Ms Porter needed to leave the meeting to attend to her other Parliamentary duties. Mr Paul Flint the Manager of COTA ACT, gave a brief COTA perspective on the subject and pledged COTA support for individuals preparing reports and submissions on the draft legislation. Cliff Carey from COTA was also in attendance, and his assistance was greatly appreciated by the organisers. Malcolm McKenzie then outlined the possible benefits of having a Residents Association, and Jan Pritchett, the secretary of the RVRA, spoke about the way in which the NSW Association could assist the ACT residents by providing communication with residents through the quarterly newsletters and on the RVRA web site. She stressed however, that these decisions were to be made solely by the ACT members and they may be able to administer their own organisation with out further assistance. A Steering Committee was formed to make some decisions about how best the ACT group could proceed. For information regarding the Steering Committee please contact COTA on 6282 3777.. The meeting closed at 4 pm with many attendees sharing experiences over afternoon tea.

Steering Committee - May 2010

Name	Village	Phone	Email
Milton Cottee - Chairman	Araluen	6288 6601	cotteemilt@bigpond.com;
John Benson - Secretary	Araluen	6288 2392	jebjab@bigpond.com.au
Don Emerton	St Andrews	6282 0887	iemerton@ozemail.com.au;
Gwen Svoboda	Adria Village	6288 3023	gwensvo@yahoo.com.au;
Pam Graudenz	Aloysius Morgan Villas	6230 0460	pgraudenz@ozemail.com.au;
Alan North	Araluen	6287 7529	anorth48@bigpond.com.au
Paul Legge-Wilkinson	Aloysius Morgan Villas	6247 0317	paul_lw@tpg.com.au
Dolores O'Riordan	Morshead	6249 6022	delores.oriordan@bigpond.com;
Harry Hanson	Bellerive	6169 3514	marhar@belleriveliving.com.au;
Neville Fletcher	Bellerive	6191 3508	neville.fletcher@belleriveliving.com.au;