South­ern Rhode Island at Home was a player at the Octo­ber 30th “Con­fer­ence and Expo for Seniors” pre­sented by the Senior Agenda Coali­tion of Rhode Island and enti­tled “Get Involved – Make A Dif­fer­ence for the Com­mu­nity and Yourself”.

The day-​​long pro­gram at Warwick’s Crown Plaza Hotel included keynote and lunch-​​time speak­ers, the pre­sen­ta­tion of sev­eral Senior Agenda awards, and a diver­sity of speak­ers and work­shops devoted to issues and chal­lenges involv­ing the State’s – and the nation’s – older and aging citizens.

SRI at Home, rep­re­sented by Vice-​​President Pro Lyon with the help of Pres­i­dent Dan Davis, par­tic­i­pated in a “Com­mu­nity With­out Walls” morn­ing work­shop which was repeated in the after­noon. Also included in the work­shop panel were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Boston’s “Bea­con Hill Vil­lage”, from a Providence-​​based start-​​up “Hamil­ton House/​At Home in Rhode Island”, and from recently orga­nized “Stay at Home in Lit­tle Compton”.

The 90-​​minute ses­sions were led by a mod­er­a­tor and allowed for descrip­tive pre­sen­ta­tions from each of the four groups and for follow-​​up ques­tions from an audi­ence com­pris­ing some 50 indi­vid­u­als in the morn­ing and some 25 per­sons in the afternoon.

Always glad to share our mod­est expe­ri­ence in orga­ni­za­tional devel­op­ment, SRI attracted inquiries from inter­ested indi­vid­u­als (poten­tial mem­bers?), from three similarly-​​focused orga­ni­za­tions (with whom we may develop an infor­mal asso­ci­a­tion for occa­sional meet­ings), and from a poten­tial SRI part­ner (the Lit­tle Comp­ton group).