With more and more seniors comfortable using computers it should come as no surprise that there is also an increasing number who are going beyond just surfing the net, checking email or catching up on Facebook.
Dr. William Mitchell Banks, 85, is one such senior.
“I’ve become enamoured,” says William. “As Bill Gates said, ‘computers are cool.’”
For the past two decades William has been creating websites for companies and individuals, but even before then he had been using computers to organize his work with Rotary clubs.
His first computer, which he “inherited” from his son who was upgrading his work computer, was one of the first PC computers from the early 1980s.
“It was terrific; it was like lightning,” he says. “I just loved it and I loved to code in DOS [the pre-Windows operating system].”
More seniors are comfortable with computers and, as William explains, younger people are always surprised by how tech-savvy the octogenarian is. He uses his smartphone calendar app to sync his appointments with his tablet computer to stay on top of his day.
He has teamed up with Heather Harbord to create a website for a Powell River-based seniors’ home care health service.
“I’m doing the words and he’s doing the computer stuff ,” says Heather, who added that she knows how to make websites too but working together on it will be less frustrating.
Heather, who is in her 70s and still very active, is a celebrated local author and adventurer who has written a variety of local history and sea kayaking travel guides for the Upper Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island’s west coast. She is currently working on a book about her trip to Antarctica to commemorate Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1908/09 expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole.
When she is not working on her passion projects she helps pay the bills by working as a copywriter for websites.
Heather and William were brought together by Michelle McIntosh, owner of Powell River Home Care Services, Ltd., who knew both seniors and needed some help herself.
Michelle, a registered nurse with more than two decades’ experience working with seniors, says a few months ago she decided to start her own business that would provide health care services in people’s homes, but she needed some help to put together the company’s marketing.
“We just want to publicize this a little better than what she is doing right now,” Heather says. “I did a brochure for her which was aimed for people in the community and might need the service.”
Michelle has known both Heather and William for several years as they have been her clients and she knew that they understood what she wanted to do with her company.
It is a service that can give families some piece of mind that their loved one is getting the help they may need, Heather says. And it helps seniors stay in their home where they want to be, she adds.
“There are a lot of adult children in various parts of Canada and the world who have parents who live in Powell River,” Heather says. “They can’t just pick up and easily get here.”
Michelle understands the local medical situation, says Heather. She has “a good breadth of experience with old people and she likes them.”
Heather says the website is for the people she is going to be helping and will give them basic information about what kind of services the health care provider can bring.
Michelle has the staff and goes out to assess clients’ needs, makes a plan and, upon the plan’s approval, can keep in touch with the people who are far away, Heather says.
“If they know they can email Michelle when they have a feeling that something just is not right, then she can go check on them.”
Michelle is happy to have been able to create the project for Heather and William.
“They’re both exceptional people and both very interesting as individuals,” she says. “In the course of getting to know people in my business and my career I’ve met a lot of very talented people who still have lots to offer.”
