By Dongyun Kwon
The 2023 Over 50s Festival has lately lifted the curtain with the theme ‘Learn. Love. Live’ with some of the over 100 events heading locally.
It is a statewide annual festival and Yarra Ranges has many local events from 1 to 31 October.
Yarra Ranges Council Age-Friendly Community Officer April Paterson said a diverse range of activities would be offered by the council and local communities across the Shire.
“Things such as music, performances, art exhibitions, social bike rides, walking sports, arts and crafts,” she said.
The activities are rotating around the Shire which helps the seniors not to travel far to attend their chosen events.
There are two ways to look up the events list for people to find any interesting activities that would suit them.
“We have all of the events listed on Council’s website so people can pop onto the website and just search Over 50s and the event will be there,” Ms Paterson said.
“Alternatively, we also have a festival booklet available from all of our community links and local eastern regional libraries.”
One of the Council’s main events was launched on 28 September at the Lilydale Civic Centre.
17 local residents participated in Poetic Portraits which is available until the end of January 2024.
“Over the last few months, they have been working away on their poems which hadn’t been edited by a professional poet, then we’ve exhibited those along with a portrait taken by a local photographer Kathy Reynolds,” Ms Paterson said.
Ms Paterson recently had a conversation with members of Healesville U3A where she listened to the members who shared their recent interest in pickleball.
“It’s really great to see something like that thriving in the Healesville area,” she said.
“Eight members recently started playing pickleball at the Healesville High School Basketball Stadium and now it has 26 members and continues to grow.
“Some of the participants may have played tennis or other sports in the past which are a little bit harder on the body as they get older whereas they don’t have to move around as much when they play pickleball.”
Living Stories Project is one of the significant upcoming events that Ms Paterson encourages locals to attend.
The event will feature stories of people from the Yarra Ranges with a lived and living experience of mental health challenges.
The attendees will have a chance to listen to the stories by guest speakers on how they deal with the challenges with their own mental illness or caring for someone living with a mental illness followed by a Q&A session.
It will start at 2pm on Saturday 14 October, located at Japara Neighbourhood House, 54-58 Durham Road Kilsyth.
