By Tania Phillips
The doors will open – in a Covid friendly way –
at the Oak Tree Retirement Village in Warwick
as part of their scaled-down 10th anniversary
celebrations and plans for the future.
The open days, on 13-14 October, will allow
prospective residents to come and see the facilities and inspect the display villas.
Work is due to begin on the final stage of
the retirement village soon with prospective
residence invited to come along to see just
what is available according to village manager
Mary O’Neill. Mary said the Open Day was a
great opportunity to meet the team and hear
from the residents why Oak Tree is such a great
place to live.
“On Friday the 13th and Saturday 14th from
10-2pm we’ve got the open day so that’s when
people from the public can come in and view
the villas and displays,” Mary O’Neill said.
“And then we have a 10th birthday celebration on the 28 November. We’re actually have
just a small 10th birthday celebration because
of Covid because we obviously have limited
numbers and next year, when numbers allow,
we will have a big open day.”
She said as well as the main days there were
opportunities to come in during the week between 10am and 2pm Monday to Friday.
Mary, who has been manager at the village
for almost six years, said the centre was about
to enter an exciting new stage.
“We will start work early next year on our
last ten years which will see the village at 59,
which will see us completed,” she explained.
“It will good to see the village finished, it will
have a nice entrance, a pedestrian entrance on
Wood Street so you will be able to see the Oak
Tree sign from Wood Street when it’s finished.
We’ll have a caravan storage area – everything
will be finished.”
Offering maintenance-free living and the
safety and security of a caring environment,
Oak Tree specialises in building smaller more
private communities, complete with purposebuilt recreational facilities.
Mary said the Warwick Village has everything a retiree may want including companionship of people their own age – something
that has been important during this time when
many of their relatives have been unable to
visit due to border closures and lockdowns.
“We’ve got a pool, a bowling green, we currently have caravan storage but that will be
improved when the village is finished, we have
indoor bowls twice a month, we have bingo,
morning teas, happy hours, we have an active social club and a men’s barbecue once a
month,” she explained.
“The men get together once a month, we
have a trivia after noon and there’s exercise
classes. There is something for everyone and
it’s been important to have all that – obviously
we couldn’t do it all at the start of Covid but
now that numbers allow part of our community could come back together and that’s what
we’ve been doing.
“It has been difficult not seeing their families – a lot of families live away – and it impacted them as well not being able to come home
and see their parents. People haven’t been able
to travel across the border but it’s also been
the number of people you can entertain. The
best thing about it for the residents though has
been that they’re not isolated – they still have
the people in the village to talk to – that would
be the biggest thing.”
For more information on the Open Day and
the new Villas phone – Phone 1300 367 155.
