A NEW project aimed at improving the lives of older people is to be pioneered by Ashbourne and District 50+ Forum.
Using technology developed for police Neighbourhood Watch schemes across the UK, the 50+ Messenger project will be piloted in Ashbourne and three other areas before eventually being rolled out across Derbyshire.
The scheme, which leaves short messages either by phone or e-mail, will provide greater access to important and interesting information, allowing members of the forum to receive much more news about issues and events relevant to them.
Christine Price (pictured), chairman of the Ashbourne forum, has been at the forefront of developing the project after she realised a lot of information received by the forum was not reaching it’s members.
She explained that increasing postal costs limited the amount of extra mail-outs the forum could issue, leaving notices about things from changes in public transport to local cinema times stuck in the offices until they were out of date.
After liaising with Derbyshire County Council and accepting help from the IT company behind the Ringmaster scheme used by many Neighbourhood Watch programmes, Mrs Price was delighted to hear that funding for the project had been secured for two years. The Messenger 50 project will see a team of editorial staff compose short, informative messages containing advice, public notices, information and events which will be distributed via recorded messages to the telephones and email addresses of Forum members.
As well as Ashbourne, the project will be on trial in the areas covered by forums in Alfreton, Ripley, Long Eaton and Glossop for 12 months, before expanding it to the other 11 50-plus forums in Derbyshire.
The scheme will be tailored to ensure that messages will only contain information relevant to members’ particular area and older people can join quickly and easily by completing an application form and returning it to Jo Ellis at Derbyshire County Council.
Mrs Price said: “The proposed 50-plus Messenger is such an innovative and unique service that if anyone wishes to become a 50+ member in order to benefit from this scheme please contact Andrea Cooke on 01335 345269 or by emailing her at acdcfour4@uwclub.net.”
