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The Grey Tsunami

About 40 residents attended Wednesday's road show at Southgate Centre

Rural Road Show rolls out across Oxford to educate an aging population

8-years from now, 40% of Oxford County's population will be over the age of 50.  It will also mark the first time in the history of the County that more people will be over the age of 65, than under the age of 15.

Those are the kind of stats that have instigated the Oxford Master Aging Plan.

Preparations are already underway for what's referred to as "The Grey Tsunami", as the large baby-boomer demographic moves into their senior years.

One of the new developments of the Master Aging Plan is the rural road show.  It's a series of 24-30 information sessions for older adults.  The first one was held Wednesday at Southgate Centre. 

One of the developers of the Master Aging Plan, Bob McFarland says they'll be bringing this format to pretty much every community in the County.  "We will go and visit every corner of Oxford County so we can go to where the older adult populations are.  The other thing about doing these sessions is we had about 40 people in there (Southgate).  That's the kind of crowd we want, because then they get to ask some questions.  They get to interact with the presenters when we do our coffee break."

Wednesday's road show topics included 211 service, the Alzheimer Society and crime prevention tips from Woodstock Police.  McFarland says every session will have different topics.  "One of the sad but true realities is that we probably, as older adults, spend more time researching our next vacation than we do our next residence we're going to live in...a long term care residence.  What we want to do is get people thinking about some of these issues.  Some of them will be uncomfortable, things like pre-planning a funeral."

The rural road show is free to attend.  

Here's a list of upcoming dates:

Oct. 23 - Tillsonburg Public Library
Oct. 30 - Mount Elgin Community Centre
Nov. 4  - Norwich Health & Wellness Fair, Norwich Community Centre
Nov. 6  - Tavistock Recreation Centre
Nov. 8  - Ingersoll Seniors' Centre
Dec. 9  - Thamesford Library
Dec. 11 - Embro Arena

*More dates TBA

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