Engage

We are delighted to offer Changing Gears, in person this July in Mullingar Library. Designed to boost wellbeing and resilience for those aged 50+ years, it is a five-session course which focuses on managing transitions in mid to later life.

Do you want to discover more about yourself and your capacity to meet different challenges? Would you like to take stock of your skills and experiences and plan your next steps in life?

What is Changing Gears?

Changing Gears supports people in dealing with transitions or significant life-challenges in mid to later life. It focuses on how we can build resilience, take stock, make changes, and bounce forward in life.

How does it work?

Changing Gears offers participants time to:
• Develop skills and techniques to build resilience and confidence in managing life-changes or transitions.
• Reframe transitions in their lives as opportunities with positive options, challenging negative stereotypes about ageing.
The course invites participants to reflect on challenges they have experienced in the past and life-lessons they have learned. In this way, strategies for building resilience and managing change draw on personal experience to lay the foundations for a more positive and fulfilling future.

How can I get involved?

This course is delivered in 2 ½ -hour sessions once a week over 5 weeks.
Venue: Mullingar Library, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, N91 FH4N.
Dates: Thursdays 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st July 2025
Times: 11 am – 1.30 pm (which includes a comfort break with tea and coffee)

To book a place on this course, please e-mail Fiona at engage@ageandopportunity.ie or call (01) 913 3922.

Please note that this course has been funded by the HSE and is free of charge.
Participation requires attendance at each of the five sessions (please do not book a place if you cannot attend on these dates).

Download the flyer here:  Changing Gears, Mullingar

This June we are pleased to offer our Creative Exchanges two-day course at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin. Creative Exchanges is designed for activities coordinators working in residential or day care settings. It is also suitable for those with an arts background interested in engaging with older people in a care setting.*

Creative Exchanges provides participants with:

· Practical skills to carry out creative activities with people in residential and day care settings

· An understanding of the value of creative activity, particularly in care settings

· Experience of taking part in arts-based workshops

The course is designed to provide meaningful opportunities to engage older people in arts activities and adopts a person-centred approach promoted by, HIQA’s National Quality Standards for Residential Care Settings for Older People (2016). On completion of the course, a Certificate of Attendance will be issued to participants by Age & Opportunity.

VENUE AND DATES

The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, The Creativity Hub and Studios 9 and 10. Wednesdays: 4th and 11th June 2025. 10:00am – 16.30

PRICE/BOOKING

Creative Exchanges costs €399 per participant. As places are limited, fees need to be paid in advance to secure a place. To enrol, please contact Fiona at engage@ageandopportunity.ie or Tel (01) 913 3922.

Further details here:  Creative Exchanges 2025 – Dublin

*If you are a professional artist (working within a creative or interpretive artform as defined by the Arts Act of 2003), you might like to explore either the Artists Care Exchange or the Arts, Health and the Older Person, training initiatives, we offer for professional artists, visit: www.ageandopportunity.ie/arts for more detail.

We are delighted to offer Changing Gears, in person this April & May in Waterford.

Designed to boost wellbeing and resilience for those aged 50+ years, it is a five-session course which focuses on managing transitions in mid to later life.

Do you want to discover more about yourself and your capacity to meet different challenges? Take stock of your skills and experiences and plan your next steps in life?

What is Changing Gears?

Changing Gears supports people in dealing with transitions or significant life-challenges in mid to later life. It focuses on how we can build resilience, take stock, make changes, and bounce forward in life.

How does it work?

Changing Gears offers participants time to:

· Develop skills and techniques to build resilience and confidence in managing life-changes or transitions.

· Reframe transitions in their lives as opportunities with positive options, challenging negative stereotypes about ageing.

The course invites participants to reflect on challenges they have experienced in the past and life-lessons they have learned. In this way, strategies for building resilience and managing change draw on personal experience to lay the foundations for a more positive and fulfilling future.

How can I get involved?

This course is delivered in 2 ½ -hour sessions once a week over 5 weeks.

Venue: Treacy’s Hotel, 1 Merchants Quay, Waterford X91 AV9W

Dates: Wednesdays 30 April and 7, 14, 21, 28 May Times: 11 am – 1.30 pm (which includes a comfort break with tea and coffee)

To book a place on this course, please e-mail Fiona at Fiona.holohan@ageandopportunity.ie or call (01) 913 3922.

Please note that this course has been funded by the HSE and is free of charge. Participation requires attendance at each of the five sessions (please do not book a place if you cannot attend on these dates).

Are you living with dementia or do you have a friend or family member who is?

Are you interested in cultural/social opportunities to join in together?

If so, you may be interested in the Azure initiative run in galleries and museums around the country.

Read more about how Age & Opportunity is working to train gallery and museum staff to deliver Azure tours.

The Education Room in the State Apartments at Dublin Castle on recent Wednesdays is a very lively space. On a particularly cold morning, as tours of the apartments run outside and the ticket desk buzzes, Frank and Jackie Golden chat to the group gathered about how Frank’s dementia affects them and how having access to cultural experiences like Azure tours add to their lives.  Frank tells the group they offer him ‘stimulation’ and his wife Jackie points out, that they have connected with others living with dementia and their families through Azure. “Frank,” she laughs, “is a very social person so getting out and about and meeting people is really important for us. We love the gallery or museum experience element of Azure, and we also love the coffee and the chat afterwards.” She comments too on the welcome and the friendliness the tours offer, that makes them so valuable. “Now if we visit a gallery or a museum and there isn’t an Azure guide or facilitator running a tour, we feel cheated!”

So what are Azure tours? Azure tours are free in-person (and in some cases online) gallery/museum led experiences designed for people living with dementia and their families and friends. During a tour participants explore a selection of artworks, (no more than two or three) with a guide/facilitator who has received special training to facilitate the tour. Numbers are normally limited to eight participants and afterwards, a cup of tea or coffee in the gallery/museum cafe and a chat with other participants is the norm and a key part of the experience.

Caroline Orr, who trains museum and gallery staff to facilitate the tours, points out that the tours are all about ‘being in the moment’ and enjoying the experience of exploring an artwork together, in a welcoming and inclusive environment and not about guides imparting their knowledge. “The focus is all about the participants observations and connections with the artwork and ultimately enjoyment. You may never have visited a gallery or museum before in your life, but you can still participate in a tour and enjoy it.”

How did the Azure initiative come about?  In 2012 Age & Opportunity, along with IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny and the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland, formed a Steering Group to introduce Azure tours to galleries/museums in Ireland.  They took inspiration from a similar initiative, running in New York’s, Museum of Modern Art, ‘Meet Me at MOMA’ and the group now oversee training courses and network days which train and support galleries and museums nationwide, to facilitate Azure tours. Today over 35 galleries/museums/arts centres have staff trained to offer tours and this figure doesn’t include OPW sites.

At Dublin Castle the group of 11 OPW guides are continuing Day 1 of their Azure training, this is managed by Age & Opportunity and takes place over 5 days. They come from eight different OPW sites: Dublin Castle, Reginald’s Tower, Pearse Museum, Kilkenny Castle, Tintern Abbey, Emo Court and Glendalough which means these are all OPW sites Azure tours will be offered at, if they aren’t already up and running.

Stephanie Kennedy, an Information and Education Officer at Dublin Castle, who’s been facilitating Azure tours for several years is busy at the ticket desk but takes a minute to comment on her experience. “Running Azure tours is one of my favourite types of tour. I love the journey of the slow looking and the unique ways that people see and approach the art works and artefacts. Up to now we’ve offered about four Azure tours a year and we’ve always had a great response from participants and family members – many have returned time and time again.  With this training course, more guides will be Azure trained, so we’ll be able to scale our number of those tours up which we’re delighted about.”

For more information on galleries/museums which run Azure tours, or if you work with a gallery/museum and are interested in Azure Foundation training for staff please visit  https://ageandopportunity.ie/engage/azure.  Please note too that some galleries/museums such as Butler Gallery, Kilkenny also organise off site Azure tours within Care Settings.

To book an Azure tour at Dublin Castle please email: dublincastleeducation@opw.ie

This March we are pleased to offer our Creative Exchanges two-day course at Limerick City Gallery of Art.  Creative Exchanges is designed for activities coordinators working in residential or day care settings.  It is also suitable for those with an arts background interested in engaging with older people in a care setting. *

Creative Exchanges provides participants with:

• Practical skills to carry out creative activities with people in residential and day care settings
• An understanding of the value of creative activity, particularly in care settings
• Experience of taking part in arts-based workshops

The course is designed to provide meaningful opportunities to engage older people in arts activities and adopts a person-centred approach promoted by HIQA’s National Quality Standards for Residential Care Settings for Older People (2016). On completion of the course, a Certificate of Attendance will be issued to participants by Age & Opportunity.

VENUE AND DATES
Limerick City Gallery of Art, Carnegie Building, Pery Square, Prior’s-Land, Limerick, V94 E67F.
Mondays: 24^th and 31^st March 2025.  10.15 am – 16.30pm.
Tea/coffee will be provided on arrival, and at the mid-morning break.

PRICE/BOOKING
Creative Exchanges costs €399 per participant and participants need to attend both training days.  As places are limited, fees need to be paid in advance to secure a place. To enrol, please contact Fiona at engage@ageandopportunity.ie or Tel (01) 913 3922.

*If you are a professional artist (working within a creative or interpretive art form as defined by the Arts Act of 2003), you might like to explore either the Artists Care Exchange or the Arts, Health and the Older Person, training initiatives, we offer for professional artists, visit: www.ageandopportunity.ie/arts for more detail.

More information here:  Creative Exchanges – Limerick 

We are delighted to offer Changing Gears this February and March in Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin and Dundalk, Co. Louth. Designed to boost wellbeing and resilience for those aged 50+ years, this course focuses on managing transitions in mid to later life.

Changing Gears supports people in dealing with transitions or significant life-challenges in mid to later life. It focuses on how we can build resilience, take stock, make changes, and bounce forward in life.

Dublin course:

Venue:               Dún Laoghaire LexIcon, Haigh Terrace, Moran Park, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin A96 H283

Dates:                Wednesdays 26 February, 5, 12, 19, 26 March 2025

Times:                10.30 am – 1.00 pm (which includes a comfort break with tea and coffee)

Dundalk course:

Venue:               The Imperial Hotel, Park Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth. A91 ND6P

Dates:                Thursdays  27 February, 6, 13, 20 March 2025

Times:                10.30 am – 1.30 pm (which includes a comfort break with tea and coffee)

To book a place on this course, please e-mail Fiona.Holohan@ageandopportunity.ie (or call  01 913 3922)

Please note that this course has been funded by the HSE and is free of charge.  Participation requires attendance at each of the sessions (please do not book a place if you cannot attend on these dates).

Do you enjoy interesting discussions and considering new ideas?

How do you feel about ageing? Do you think stereotypes are affecting how you feel?

Have you thought about living longer as an opportunity and an achievement?

Did you know, how you feel about ageing affects your health and wellbeing?

How about spending some time thinking about positive ageing and giving your wellbeing a boost?

If our questions have sparked your interest, then please join Age & Opportunity for our new free 3-session pilot course, Ageing: Debunking the Myths, for those aged 50+ years. We want to hear what you think.

Venue: Arklow Library, 7 Main Street, Arklow, Co Wicklow. (Community Room)

Dates: Thursdays 7^th, 14^th and 21^st November

Time: 11:30am-1:30pm

To Book: Please contact Fiona Holohan on tel (01) 913-3922 or email fiona.holohan@ageandopportunity.ie  Places are limited and we ask you only to enrol if you can attend all 3 sessions.

The sessions include a coffee break and refreshments are provided.

Full details on the flyer here:  Ageing:  Debunking the Myths!

This November Age & Opportunity is pleased to offer our Creative Exchanges two-day course at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin.  Creative Exchanges is designed for activities coordinators working in residential or day care settings.  It is also suitable for those with an arts background interested in engaging with older people in a care setting.*   Creative Exchanges provides participants with:

• Practical skills to carry out creative activities with people in residential and day care settings
• An understanding of the value of creative activity, particularly in care settings
• Experience of taking part in arts-based workshops

The course is designed to provide meaningful opportunities to engage older people in arts activities and adopts a person-centred approach promoted by, HIQA’s National Quality Standards for Residential Care Settings for Older People (2016). On completion of the course, a Certificate of Attendance will be issued to participants by Age & Opportunity.

VENUE AND DATES
The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, Studios 9 and 10.
Tuesdays:  19^th and 26^th November 2024.  10:00am – 16.00

PRICE/BOOKING
Creative Exchanges costs €380 per participant. As places are limited, fees need to be paid in advance to secure a place. To enrol, please contact Fiona at engage@ageandopportunity.ie or Tel (01) 913 3922.

Full details on the flyer here:  Creative Exchanges, November 2024, Dublin

*If you are a professional artist (working within a creative or interpretive artform as defined by the Arts Act of 2003), you might like to explore either the Artists Care Exchange or the Arts, Health and the Older Person,  training initiatives, we offer for professional artists,  visit: www.ageandopportunity.ie/arts for more detail.