Age Concern NZ would like to congratulate the following people for being listed in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2016, it is great to see their service to older people acknowledged in this way:

Ms Constance Margaret Dando- Service to Senior Citizens (Queen’s Service Medal), Ms Billie Kowhai Jordan- Service to Seniors and Dance (NZ Order of Merit) and Ms Adrienne Fay von Tunzelmann- Service to Governance and the Community (Queen’s Service Order).

Ms Constance Dando has made a huge positive contribution to older people in Otago by setting up “Steady as You Go” (SAYGO)- a falls prevention programme which now has about 1400 members in Otago and, through Ms Dando’s training of regional co-ordinators, has spread to Tauranga, Thames, Whanganui, Christchurch, Ashburton, Invercargill and New Mexico in the United States. She has worked tirelessly to develop SAYGO in to a successful self-funding peer-led programme, training individuals in the class to lead sessions themselves. Ms Dando won Age Concern New Zealand’s Dignity Champion Award for Community in 2015.

Ms Billie Jordan has done great work in changing people’s perceptions of age and what older people can and can’t do. After the Christchurch earthquake she quit her job and moved to Waiheke Island and re-set her focus on improving the lives of older people. She set up the “world’s oldest flashmob” (a Guinness World Record) and then challenged her “crew” further by entering them in to the World Hip Hop Dance Championship in Las Vegas which was captured in the award-winning documentary film Hip-Hop-eration. Since then, the group has competed in Taiwan and in the New Zealand national hip hop championships three times. There is a core group of seven members, aged 71-96.

Ms Adrienne Von Tunzelmann is Vice President of Age Concern NZ- a position which allows her to contribute her experience in shaping economic and social policy to ensure a good later life for New Zealand’s older population. She serves on various other boards including Age Concern Tauranga and Osteoporosis NZ. Ms Von Tunzelmann is an active member of the community in Tauranga. She has served as President of the Tauranga Region Chamber of Commerce, and led a revitalisation of the Chamber’s Business Women’s Network. She is a patron of the Tauranga Community Housing Trust, which provides housing for people with disabilities and was a Trustee of the Bay of Plenty Community Trust.

ENDS

© Scoop Media