Newsletter, January 2013

New year, new resolutions, new format for our newsletter.  We will send the newsletter via email and post it on our website.  We will have village news and vignettes, a member or volunteer spotlight, and some numbers and statistics to see at a glance the services we provided.  We will also have links along the left sidebar providing more information about Nauset Neighbors.  We hope you like it. 

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Sandy Wonders, to the right in the picture, recently spoke at a Wellfleet Forum presentation, “I’ve Retired.  What Now? What Later?”  She related that a friend once asked her if after her long career as a clinical psychologist didn’t she feel it was a waste now to merely drive people around?  Sandy thought not.  She was helping another person like herself stay in their home and contributing to their quality of life, and that was as important as anything she ever did.  Also in the picture are Evelyn Savage, another Nauset Neighbors volunteer, and Suzanne Grout Thomas, Executive Director of the Wellfleet COA.

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Phil Marshal, one of our volunteer drivers, is helping us in another way, too.  He spoke with fellow members of the Orleans Men’s Club about Nauset Neighbors, and when we saw him at the last Nauset Newcomers general meeting, he said that several members expressed interest in becoming volunteers.  Thank you, Phil.  

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Great success at the Nauset Newcomers meeting in December!  Twenty nine people expressed interest in becoming volunteers for Nauset Neighbors and wanted to learn more.  They have been invited to a New Volunteers meeting in January, along with about twenty other potential volunteers.  Over the next few months, that will take care of our waiting list!  It was an amazing response from Nauset Newcomers, and a heartwarming expression of support from the organization in which we began.

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We have had two “regional” volunteer meetings, one for Wellfleet and Eastham and one for Orleans, Brewster and Harwich, where volunteers can talk about their experiences in Nauset Neighbors, provide feedback to representatives of the Board, call managers and Services Assessment Committee, and get to know one another.  We plan to hold more regional meetings, so be on the lookout.  In the picture are Margaret Newman and Ronnie Muellers chatting at the meeting in Ronnie’s house. 

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The presidential election has come and gone, but here’s a story worth telling.  Five of our volunteers, Nancy Gustafson-Smith, Elizabeth Delima, Portia Kornilakis, Susan Bruce and Dot Oberding, signed up to take members to the polls in our five towns, and no members requested a ride!  Perhaps we didn’t get the word out sufficiently that the service was available.  We hope everyone in our community took the opportunity to vote.    

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Pat Zeiss, our Director of Member Intake, told us a great story.  A while ago, she did an intake interview of an Orleans woman who had recently moved from Brewster and could no longer drive.  The new member confided in Pat that she missed her weekly lunch with her friend who still lived in Brewster. They would get together on alternate weeks in each others’ homes, but her friend was also no longer able to drive.  Pat assured the woman that she could now have lunch with her friend once again, and Nauset Neighbors would help her get there and back. The woman was thrilled.  Fast forward a few months, and Pat was doing another member intake interview, this one in Brewster. This woman mentioned that she had a friend in Orleans who had joined a few months before.  After some discussion, Pat exclaimed, “Oh my goodness, you’re the friend!”  Both women have been seeing each other now on a regular basis, thanks to Nauset Neighbors.  

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Carol Mainville, one of our call managers, was talking with Louise Schatzle, a member.  Louise mentioned that she had originally heard of Nauset Neighbors from her daughter, who lives in Australia.  She had been speaking with her cousin in New York.  Word gets around…

-Esther Elkin

We now have 150 members, in 128 households.  They are being helped by over 200 volunteers, about two thirds of whom have been active within the last three months.  November services were near an all-time high, but December declined a bit because of the holidays  This fall, we have been delivering between 120 and 150 services per month.  The total in the past 52 weeks is 1451. 

  

Volunteers are now filling about 2/3 of all services via online signup, reducing the number of calls and emails that need to be sent out.  Members are now giving us requests for rides to medical appointments well in advance, which helps fill them online.  We have 76 open future services and 49 future services with volunteers assigned.

The waiting list for membership has had about thirteen people on it.  We expect to offer membership to all these people before the end of January.  We have about 40 potential volunteers in the pipeline, waiting for one of the two new volunteer orientation meetings in January.

-Dick Elkin

It is sobering to think that Rev. Gerald Gilmore was born in June 1914, a few months before Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot and the war to end all wars began.  When chatting with him, you know you are in the presence of a clever and good soul who has accomplished much in his life.  

After graduating from Harvard College in 1936, Gerald went on scholarship to graduate school in Paris, where he met the woman who was to be his wife for 51 years, also on scholarship from the US. They returned to the states the year Hitler attacked Poland. The war to end all wars…didn’t.  After a four and a half year stint in the Navy, Gerald enrolled in Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, VA, received a Master of Divinity, and thus began his distinguished career as an Episcopal Minister.

  

Rev. Gilmore served various parishes, retiring as Rector of the Parish of New Haven, and he and his wife came to Orleans.  From Orleans, he was called by the Episcopal Church to serve a world ministry, and for a time was based in Geneva and served in the Philippines helping to publicize problems under Marcos. 

How does one encapsulate a long and rich life?  One can only hit the highlights.  Rev. Gilmore was a principle in the Gilmore Human Rights Fund, a founding member of the Friends of Pleasant Bay, and sponsors the Gilmore Garden of Hope on his property in Orleans, where volunteers from the Lower Cape Outreach Council grow fresh produce for their clients.  He loved sailing his 40-foot yawl for about 35 years, and was a long time member of the Boston Yacht Club in Marblehead.  

Rev. Gilmore lost his first wife in 1990, and five years later married a lifelong friend, who died early in 2012.  What he misses most now are those two wonderful women with whom he says he was extremely fortunate to share his life.

  

Four years ago as a young 94-year-older, Rev. Gilmore campaigned for Barack Obama, and regrets that he was unable to help out in 2012.  His eyesight is getting weaker, and Nauset Neighbors helps him with his mail and paperwork, and reads to him from time to time.  We also take him to doctor’s appointments and on outings for local shopping.  As part of our formal process, we call members after each service to find out how it went.  Informally, we also hear from volunteers.  Everyone enjoys their time with Rev. Gilmore.  Everyone wants to go back. 

-Esther Elkin