THURSDAY 17 MARCH - Somerset meets Summerset. On the road to Napier.

Richard Catto picked me up for an early start from my hotel before a busy day of visits, meetings and travel.

Our first visit was to the Retirement Vlllage of "Summerset at the Course" at the community of Trentham to the north east of Wellington up the Hutt Valley.


Located adjacent to the Trentham horse racecourse this is one of the first sites developed by Summerset. As with most of their villages the campus includes a carefully designed mix of independent living bungalows, supported living apartments and a care centre offering residential and nursing care.

Following this visit we returned to Wellington City Centre and to Summerset's head offices located in one of the tallest high rise buildings in the Central Business District. Here I was able to spend an hour in discussion with Verna Schofield, Chair of Alzheimers Wellington and formerly President of Alzheimers New Zealand. We discussed the work of the New Zealand dementia care community as well as the UK's developing "Arts and Older People" agenda being supported by the Baring Foundation and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

The next meeting over lunch was with Martin Taylor, CEO of the New Zealand Aged Care Association and John Collins, CEO of the New Zealand Retirement Villages Association. Norah Barlow is also President of the NZRVA. These two organisations are the principal representative bodies for the aged care, support and accommodation sector in the country so it was very useful to be able to make contact and to discuss links between our respective national bodies and with IAHSA.

Following lunch Richard and I set off on the 3.5 hours drive north east to the Hawkes Bay area. On arrival we visited the next village of "Summerset in the Vines" at the community of Havelock North.





By the time we had concluded this visit it was almost dark so in the twilight we went on to visit the newest of the sites under development by the Company "Summerset in the Orchard" at Hastings. This village, which is about 50% complete, is similar in many ways to the other villages with independent living villas but without a care centre on site. We were shown round by torchlight in the dark so no photos were possible. Finally after a long but fascinating day we headed off for dinner and sleep to the Te Pania Hotel on the seafront in the town of Napier. By this time Richard and I had discovered that we both shared a military past so much of the evening was spent in reminiscence mode with the sharing of tales of army days gone by.

Location:Napier