Now in its fifth year, the Aegon Retirement Readiness Survey studies the retirement preparedness of workers and retirees in countries spanning Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia, including Canada.

This report presents a five-year trend analysis and finds a lack of progress in retirement readiness across the globe. A notable Canadian statistic pulled from the report shows that Canadians' retirement readiness is low: The Aegon Retirement Readiness Index measures retirement preparedness on a scale from 1 to 10 with scores of 8 and higher considered to be high retirement readiness, scores of 6 to 7.9 as medium, and less than 6 as low. Canada's score in 2016 is 5.9 with a slight decrease from 6.0 in 2015. 

In addition to a wealth of valuable data, the report outlines key areas warranting attention including the need for: sharing the responsibility for retirement preparation, inspiring a world of habitual savers, making retirement plans more inclusive by design, facilitating the new flexible retirement, and promoting active living and healthy aging in retirement.

This webinar will provide insights into promising strategies and models of community change and will identify practical applications for achieving effective change at the local, regional and national level. Questions to be addressed:

• What changes have shown the most promise to enhance community age friendliness?
• What are some promising approaches to making communities more age-friendly?
• What challenges do communities face in becoming more age-friendly?
• What can and should be done at the local, state, and national levels, and what additional knowledge and information are needed?

One of the common challenges with online grant applications is how to have your online application stand out in a sea of applications. This webinar will address how to create a concise, compelling and competitive application. Key takeaways:

• How to make your application stand out in an impersonal online process
• How to grab your reviewer's attention
• How to use character and word counts to your advantage
• How to create a consistent story across all your application components

• Develop and implement an evaluation strategy to determine risk factors, experiences and reduction of social isolation of older persons within the populations of interest to the partners.
• Create a developmental evaluation framework for the overall collective impact initiative and develop assessment tools for assessing baseline and post-intervention outcomes for each project based on project goals related to reducing isolation and a means of evaluating the collective impact of the PEGASIS initiative.
• Support the project leads in implementing shared assessment tools in their project evaluations and collaborate in the analysis/interpretation of collected data.

• Develop an overall framework of risk factors for isolation of the groups of marginalized seniors represented by PEGASIS partner organizations.
• Develop methodological approaches and analysis for each project based on project goals related to reducing isolation; and those meant to evaluate collective impact of the PEGASIS initiative.
• Support the analysis/interpretation of collected data and the writing of final reports and other technical documents.

Remember to check out the Seniors' Week Calendar of Events for information on fun and informative activities taking place around Edmonton.

The June roster of family caregiver workshops includes hospice and palliative care, falls prevention, Alzheimer's family caregiver training, community infection prevention and control, food safety, and Parkinson's training.

All workshops are open to the public, seniors and family caregivers as well as health care professionals and caregivers. Preregister by calling 780-439-9990 (Home Instead West Edmonton) or 780-465-5373 (Home Instead East Edmonton).

GLBTQ, Transgender, Cisgender, Genderqueer...what do these mean? Gays and Lesbians (and many others) have burst out of the 'closet' and into our midst. This session will go over words like those above and the social changes that have 'unlocked' the closet door. Presented by Michael Phair- Sage Board member and GLBTQ Activist. Pre-registration suggested. Call 780-423-5510 ext. 301 for information.

Celebrate Pride Week with live music from Northern Heart, fun performances, tea, strawberry dessert and more. Call 780-423-5510 ext. 301 for information.

GeriActors & Friends invites you to a performance and filming of two of their recent plays:

• We Decide interweaves text from Shakespeare's King Lear with personal stories about agency, caring for your family as they age, and choosing, for yourself, how you want to live and die.
• Trains We Remember is a montage of reminiscences about personal experiences with trains from childhood curiosity to World War II and beyond. This play showcases the journeys we've all taken, the goodbyes we've had to say and how trains of all kinds have gotten us to where we are today.

RSVP by phone at 780-248-1556 or by email at [email protected].

A group of local organizations is hosting an event to mark World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Displays will provide information on resources available to professionals, seniors and family members. The GeriActors & Friends will perform a play with the theme of ageism and how it is a contributing factor to elder abuse and why people failed to get involve. An official proclamation of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day will be made by the City of Edmonton and the Honourable Lori Sigurdson, Minister of Seniors and Housing will be in attendance.

Everyone is welcome for a hearty chili dinner, live entertainment, 50/50 raffle and more. Call 780-496-2997 for information.

The Drama Club will be the entertainment for the event. Call 780-451-1925 for more information.

SCONA members will model fashions by Alia Tanjay. Lots of fun and great food! Call 780-433-5377 for information.

Learn about wills, powers of attorney and personal directives. This presentation is open to the public and no registration is required. 

If you didn't have a chance to participate in the drop-in sessions the City of Edmonton hosted during the past couple of weeks you can still provide feedback by completing online surveys. By completing the surveys, you are providing valuable information that will help the City of Edmonton develop an integrated network of open spaces that meets the needs and priorities of Edmontonians.

BREATHE: Edmonton's Green Network Strategy is a transformative strategy to make sure that Edmonton will be supported by an accessible network of green space as the city grows over the next 30 years.