Chairman’s Note

I was elected to Chair the Caerphilly Borough 50+ Forum nearly three years ago with the specific tasks of modernising the image of the Forum, making more residents and organisations aware of the Forum’s existence and its capabilities and expanding the membership.

We are run by and for those who are 50+ and live or work in the county borough.  We have expanded our membership to over 300 Caerphilly residents but we want to provide support and information to many more of the 50,000 older people living in the borough. So we are actively looking at how we can increase our membership to help us be a more representative voice for local 50+ residents, giving you a chance to influence the way services are delivered to those who are 50+.

Over the coming months we will be visiting a number of organisations that would like to hear from us. If you belong to an organisation and would like us to come and talk  about the 50+ Forum, please send us an email telling us the name of the organisation and we will get back to you.

We have been extremely fortunate to to have an  active and energetic Events Coordinator join the Steering Committee. We have been able to put on a number of diverse events over the past few months, including digital inclusion training, consultations on Council budget cuts and a brilliant social event co-hosted with Pengam School. It is our intention is to develop our events programme over the coming months.

I hope you are finding the development of the website provides you with valuable information. Our Facebook page is intended to provide you with interesting content, almost daily. This is intended to be a mixture of lighthearted fun mixed with more serious information.  We have recently been on a training course to improve our skills at “Engaging Online”, so watch out for the improvements !!

As you can see we are trying to influence things in a range of ways. I hope this information will encourage you to consider joining us. If you are interested in helping, we can always do more to help Caerphilly Borough residents if we have more active members. Please complete our membership form and indicate that you would be interested in an active role.

It also helps us if we can attract a large membership. We have a good reputation with other organisations, including Caerphilly Borough Council. They take our views and representations very seriously. It helps to be able to demonstrate that we are supported by a significant number of Caerphilly Borough residents. So, even if you do not want to be more actively involved, please join us by completing a membership form. If you provide us with your email address on the membership form, we can keep you up to date more regularly with what is happening and what we are doing.

Regards

Ralph Stevens
Chairman, Over 50 Caerphilly