Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Gardening (Spring)

Happy New Year!

I remember my mother would begin planning her English garden in January. She would spend hours peering through seed catalogs contemplating new gardening projects. The postman would arrive in due course bearing packages wrapped in brown paper. It was exciting opening up the parcels and finding little envelopes of seeds, and boxes of bulbs and tubers wrapped in straw. Next, donning her gardening clothes plus a red silk headscarf and wellington boots, my mother was ready. She would head off across the lawn to meet various appointments with recommended planting times. On returning from her garden adventures and making herself a nice pot of tea, she would then catalog her aches and pains. If only Ellen Gibson from Maine AgrAbility had been around in those days! Ellen's "Garden Ergonomics: Help for the Avid Gardener" might have saved my mother from a slipped disc and eased her arthritis. This is a good time of year to plan some limbering-up exercises for the gardeners at your senior college! Read more about Ellen Gibson's work and find out how to contact her in the article below.

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Upcoming events

• Katahdin Valley Boys - Bluegrass Band - Concerts at Jewett. UMA Senior College

Guest feature

• "Garden Ergonomics: Help for the Avid Gardener" with Ellen Gibson, from Maine AgrAbility

Save the Date 2020!

• MSCN 2020 Statewide Conference - May 2, 2020

Anne Cardale

Program Director. 

Maine Senior College Network

University of Southern Maine

Looking for a great lecturer to visit your senior college? 

Meet Ellen Gibson, from Maine AgrAbility!

Ellen's presentation:

"Garden Ergonomics: Help for the Avid Gardener"

  

Untitled (farm workers)

The sighs of well-being were audible at the meeting of the Boothbay Region Garden Club as the presenter, Ellen Gibson, from Maine AgrAbility led the group through some simple stretching exercises, all doable from a sitting position. She showed us that there are safer and more comfortable ways to farm, or in our case, garden, even when creaky joints and arthritic aches and pains come a calling.

The Maine AgrAbility Program is a partnership with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Alpha One Center for Independent Living. Funded by the USDA, this is an  outreach program offered to farmers, gardeners, fishermen and forest workers with disabilities or chronic illnesses to ensure that they can continue to work safely and productively even as time and injury take their toll on the body.

	Ellen Gibson

As a member of the Maine AgrAbility staff, Gibson provides practical information on  ergonomics that gardeners put into use all throughout the year. She has a Masters degree in rural community planning and training in Holistic Management practices to improve farm

viability and environmental health. She applies these principles to her own work on her family  farm, where she raises Nubian goats, gardens, and cooks.

For the hour-long gardening presentation, Gibson focuses on the two major issues: lower back problems and arthritis. Back problems are brought on and exacerbated by bending and  stooping. Arthritis pain is often the result of years of repetitive stress on the joints.

In addition to demonstrating how to bend and to lift safely, she talks about the difference  between exercise and physical activity. A simple exercise program-even a few minutes-will  help increase flexibility, strength, endurance, balance and range of motion, and help oil the

joints to prepare for the days' activities. This will help avoid pain and injury while engaging in  physical activity such as gardening.

It's easy to become fixated on completing a particular task - if I can just get all these leaves  raked up! It's better to be mindful of how the body is feeling and stop to rest, to breathe, to  stretch, to change tasks, or to call it a day.

More tools in Gibson's ergonomic basket include shovels designed specifically for women,  garden seats, power wheelbarrows, and padded handles. She demonstrates how the principles of work simplification and energy conservation can make a big difference to those who want to continue to farm or garden in spite of some diminished capacity. 

How to invite Ellen to your Senior College

If you or someone you know needs farming or gardening assistance or would like more  information on ergonomic gardening techniques go to the Maine AgrAbility "Presentations and Training Possibilities" web page. Fill out the online form to request Gibson's presentation. 

Thanks to the press corps of the Boothbay Garden Club for their write-up. esg

University of Maine Augusta Senior College

UMASC Brown Bag Lecture Series

January & February - Tuesdays, Noon - 1:30 pm Klahr Center, UMA

UMASC's Brown Bag Series encourages people to attend weekly presentations in January and February at the UMA campus. The series begins the first week of January and runs for 8 weeks.

UMASC members and guests are invited to bring their lunch to each session at 12 noon on Tuesdays, to see and hear a different presentation each week. Lectures are held at the Michael Klahr Center which is connected to UMA's Katz Library, and last for 60-90 minutes.
There is no admission fee.

Money Ball

JAN 14: MANAGE YOUR OWN FINANCES ... NO BIG DEAL 

Presenter: Chet Day

In my Senior College course next semester, a participative workshop of the same title, we learn to be "number crunchers" using 4th grade arithmetic, mostly in our heads. We will pretend that we are financial advisors to "Dick and Jane", the "median family" in the U.S. We identify their five biggest investments over their lives: auto, student loans for education, 529s for their kids' career educations, savings for retirement, and eldercare. We develop a lifetime financial plan and calculate the value of their estate. This Brown Bag will present the course results ... but with minimal math!!!

JAN 21: THE LIBRETTIST VERSES THE COMPOSER 

Presenter: Peter Rosenberg

For the success of a song, which is more important, the composer or the Librettist? I will present two librettists from the Golden Age of Broadway.

JAN 28: OAK GALL INK AND "WE THE PEOPLE" - Presenter: Andrea Ostrofsky

This is the story of what has been called the most important ink in western history. Oak gall ink was used by medieval monks, as well as Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Dickens and crafters of the Declaration of Independence. You will see the ingredients, share recipes and have a chance to write your name with quill and oak gall ink.

FEB 4: NO GREATER LOVE: THE LIFE OF JONATHAN DANIELS - Presenter: Mike Bell

A young seminarian from New Hampshire, Jonathan Daniels gave his life for another person at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It's a moving story that needs to be remembered.

Submitted by  University of Maine Augusta Senior College

University of Maine Augusta Senior College

Early February Events

  

University of Maine Augusta Senior College

Forum on the Future
Sunday Afternoons at 2:00 pm 

February 9, 2020

(snow date 2/16)

This series of forums and panel discussions is jointly sponsored by UMA and UMA Senior College. Primarily aimed at senior citizens, the program's goal is to provide a wide variety of topics of interest to the community at large as well. Forum topics range from healthcare to Maine's economy.

Visit UMAS Lectures and Seminars web page for location and additional information

Submitted by  University of Maine Augusta Senior College

Plan Ahead - Save the Date! 

  

Coming in 2020! 

MSCN 2020 Statewide Conference

"2020 Vision for Maine's Senior Colleges"

May 2, 2020.

• Thanks to the generosity of the University of Maine Hutchinson Center and the Senior College at Belfast we will be holding a statewide conference at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center on May 2, 2020.