Resident Council - rgplaza.org · Barry Adler Martha Hayes Ken Leahy Renee Perlman Judy Rosenthal Bea Robin Morris Spector. page 6 The Olive Press July Activities Special Events

JULY 2018—TAMMUZ-AV 5778—VOL 18 NO 11

President’s Message ........................ 2Resident of the Month ......................3Resident of the Month, (cont.) ........4Resident Council ..............................5July Activities .....................................6

July Activities, cont. ...........................7July Birthdays ....................................8Health Notes ........................................9Dining .................................................10Marketing ........................................... 11

Resident Council and Executive Function: A Virtuous Cycle

RGP Staff

Resident Council Officers

Resident Council

Committees

RGP Residents

Activities

Dining RoomHistory

Hospitality

Movie

page 2 The Olive Press

Staff

Adrienne Fair, Assistant Executive Director 415-345-5077Ira Kurtz, Executive Director 415-345-5080Eric Luu, Chief Financial Officer 415-345-5083Van Ly, Business Office Manager 415-345-5073Ron Martinez, Director of Facilities 415-345-5088 Candiece Milford, Managing Director of Marketing 415-345-5072Peggy O'Brien, Director of Resident Services 415-345-5082Emily Steen, Director of Programming 415-345-5084Corey Weiner, Director of Food and Beverage 415-345-5069

2180 Post Street San Francisco, CA 94115

415.345.5060 415.345.5061 (fax) www.RGPlaza.org RCFE #385600125

Rhoda goldman plaza

Don AbramsonKaren Aidem David DossetterNancy GoldbergDr. Carl GrunfeldDr. Lawrence HillDavid Melnick Raquel NewmanPaul SiegelVera SteinRonna StoneDr. Anita FriedmanKaren Staller

Board of Directors

RGP Resident Council President Hal Auerbach's Message

Resident Council elections occur in July and I encourage all residents to vote for the five representatives. The Resident Council represents all RGP residents. It’s main mission is sharing opinions and fostering the flow of

communication and feedback between the residents and the management.

The five positions for which residents will vote are the following. The President, presiding at meetings, writing a monthly column for the Olive Press, and representing the Council ensures that meetings happen, that people show up, that minutes are written, employees’ appreciation money is collected and accounted for, that residents’ questions are heard and answered or referred to those who can answer them, and that communication continues to flow smoothly between residents and the administrative staff.

The Vice-President fills-in for the President whenever necessary. The Secretary is charged with taking minutes at the Council meetings and seeing that the minutes are distributed to the residents. The Treasurer is charged with promoting residents’ contributions the Employees’ Appreciation Fund, and reporting on its status. The member-at-large has no specific duties, other than those shared by all board members: to attend monthly meetings participate as a member or chair of any committees, and communicate any concerns or suggestions presented by the residenta.

Our new Board will need your input and our help. With it, the Board’s success, and yours, is assured.

The Olive Press page 3

Resident of the Month—Dr. Maureen SteinbrunerBrains, brain functioning, politics and social processes that provide desired results–perhaps arcane subjects–are entirely within the purview of a think tank director. RGP resident, Dr. Maureen (Mo) Steinbruner, retired as a Distinguished

Fellow of a small thinktank, in Washington, D,C., the Center for National Policy, and was its president from 1993-2003.

Born in San Francisco, Dr. Steinbruner attended Stanford University, studying both the humanities and sciences, and graduating in communications and journalism. She received a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and spent most of her career in public policy. In 2005, she entered the PhD program in Political Science at Georgetown University, graduating in 2011. She worked at state governments in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter Administration. In 1981, she began working at the “start-up” Center for National Policy until her retirement. Dr. Steinbruner’s areas of interest include politics, public policy, and evolutionary biology.

“I find evolutionary biology a fascinating field. The brain–-to borrow an analogy—seems to function something like a ship’s bridge, where captain and navigator communicate directly with the engine room, to guide and power the ship. Although this neat analogy may make the brain function appear uncomplicated to some, the more that is learned about the brain, the more it looks like

a Rube Goldberg machine. Everything that happens in the brain is a small but critical step in the bigger picture, so the body can read the environment correctly and enable the ship to reach its destination, which has to be shared by all aboard. Scientists say the human brain is the most complex thing we have encountered anywhere,” she said.

“Something like its organic way of gathering and transmitting information also seems to be at work in society, with politics determining what exactly the members of a society have to have in common to function effectively as a unit. Maybe because I come from a large family, I find it reasonable to believe that people can have something fundamental in common but also differ greatly in perspective and personality, and that most of the time it takes more than one perspective to get a valid sense of what is a good and effective thing to do and more than one personality to get it done. This is the story that the brain tells, as well. It’s the old saying that “it takes all kinds……

That’s the argument for tolerating the behavior of other people. However, sometimes the things we tolerate turn out to be bad in the end. They go too far, or too fast, or they are not sustainable when circumstances change. One virtue of the U.S. constitutional design lies with the composition and political organization of the states. The US is a “laboratory of democracy,” as Justice Brandeis famously said. States can try an idea in their own territory and people can see how it goes. And, as in nature, with experimentation, mutations can be tested by circumstance. Sometimes the changes are very productive and sometimes not. We cannot predict with absolute accuracy. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can give up the need to attempt evaluations and judgments. That’s a responsibility we’re stuck with.

(continued on the next page)

page 4 The Olive Press

Resident Council and Executive FunctioningThis month’s Olive Press cover illustrates the interconnectivity and relationships among multiple facets of RGP, as an organization, highlighting the many pathways where communication occurs. Each of the bodies—Resident Council, committees, staff—have specific roles to fill to ensure the organization functions well.

We propose that there is an analogy—brain : body :: Resident Council : RGP community. The RGP Resident Council performs executive-type functions within the community, similar to the brain in a body. (“The executive functions are a set of processes that all have to do with managing oneself and one’s resources in order to achieve a goal.1 )The Resident Council “addresses issues of the resident community, provides communication between residents, administration and the Board of Directors, and utilizes the leadership skills of residents.”2 The Resident Council works with information, develops relationships, promotes cooperation and planning to develop a communication flow among residents and management.

The Resident Council, in other words, fosters community, introduces innovation, and encourages leadership. In a sense, it personifies executive function within the community. Residents have the opportunity to practice executive functions for, with, and by fellow-residents by becoming involved in committees, contributing suggestions, or volunteering to lead a new activity. Bring your ideas and suggestions to Committee chairs and staff members and join a committee. Vote!

1 http://www.ldonline.org/article/29122/2 RGP Resident Council By-laws

Resident of the Month—Dr. Maureen Steinbruner (continued from page 3)

Through reading and focus group research, I have come to appreciate the idea that things generally, like the brain, are more complicated than they appear, and that no one person is able to understand everything about anything, so having ways to incorporate different perspectives is really important, but hard to do. Politics and culture are two of the big things societies have to pull off, this difficult task, with politics ‘regulating’ a set of practices that characterize a specific culture. The executive function of the brain, like the bridge of a ship, or a nation’s government, has the job of integrating varying and often contradictory information about external conditions and internal functioning, with an understanding of what needs to be done and with information about what can, should or must be done, at any given time. The other big part of executive function is to send out signals that will get all the disparate parts working together —a la Rube Goldberg —to get the body, or the whole ship, or the body politic to reach an end point, or goal.

Jewish Family and Children’s Services and Rhoda Goldman Plaza share the commitment to help older adults live with dignity and work together to promote their quality of life.

The Olive Press page 5

Resident Council Candidates

Barry Adler Martha Hayes Ken Leahy

Renee Perlman Judy Rosenthal

Morris SpectorBea Robin

page 6 The Olive Press

July Activities

Special Events 3 Tues 10:15 Tigges Jewelry Repair 6 Fri 10:30 Camp Gan – Challah Making 11 Wed 10:30 Judaisms Book Party with Aaron Hahn Tapper 15 Sun 2:00 Katheryn Allen-Katz Photography Art Opening 18 Wed 1:00 Mensch Up! with Shalom Bayit 18 Wed 4:00 Tea with BAJHC Rabbi 20 Fri 10:30 Camp Gan – Sing Along 22 Sun 10:30 Nails with Julia 23 Mon 7:00 Women’s Book Club 25 Wed 10:00 Creative Writing with Dorothy 25 Wed 3:30 Len Sperry Concert 31 Tues 10:30 RGP Swap PartyOutings 3 Tues 1:00 Cinderella Bakery 5 Thurs 1:00 San Mateo Japanese Garden 10 Tues 1:00 Treasure Island Scenic Drive 12 Thurs 1:00 Asian Art Museum 14 Sat 2:30 SF Botanical Garden Flower Piano 17 Tues 12:00 Lunch at The Spinnaker 18 Wed 4:45 Chapeau! Early Dinner 19 Thurs 1:00 Oakland Museum 24 Tues 1:00 Academy of Sciences 24 Tues 5:15 Che Fico Dinner 25 Wed 6:15 SF Mime Troupe 26 Thurs 1:00 Best Buy & Rainbow Grocery Shopping 28 Sat 1:30 A Thousand Splendid Suns at ACT 31 Tues 1:00 Legion of Honor—Truth and Beauty ExhibitLectures/Discussion Sundays 4:15 Current Events with Jim Mondays 3:00 California in a Gilded Age** 2, 16 Mon 10:30 John Rothmann 11 Wed 1:00 Sports Memories with Ira 5, 12, 19 Thurs 10:00 World Religions with Jim McGarry 26 Thurs 10:30 Truth,Beauty: Pre-Raphaelites and Old Masters Fri 10:30 Roberts Court and the First Amendment Sat 3:30 History of European Art**Classes Committees/Resident Council/Clubs 4 Wed 1:00 Activities Committee 4, 18 Wed 3:15 Memory Loss Support Group 5 Thurs 10:00 Dining Room Committee 20 Fri 1:30 History Committee 24 Tues 10:30 Gardening with Elizabeth 25 Wed 2:00 Resident Council 30 Mon 10:00 Movie CommitteeShabbat Services Fridays 4:00 Shabbat Service with Rabbi Me’irah

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July Activities

Art Classes Mondays 2:00 Ceramics with Jeannie Tuesdays 3:30 Painting with Kimberley 10, 24 Tues 2:00 Collage with Melanie 4 Wed 10:30 4th of July Crafts with Leticia 25 Wed 11:00 Flowers with Bethany Fridays 2:00 Knitting with MaxMusic 1 Sun 3:00 Lovin’ Harmony Concert 4 Wed 4:00 Dave Rocha Jazz Trio 8 Sun 3:00 Moon Glow Duo 15 Sun 3:00 Jack Laschenski Piano Concert 16 Mon 1:00 Sam Reider Concert 21 Sat 2:00 Mark Levy 22 Sun 2:30 City Opera SF 29 Sun 2:00 Yoonie Han Classical Piano ConcertGames Sundays 1:00 Card Games with Eric Mondays 4:30 Crossword 2, 9, 23, 30 Mon 1:00 Bingo Tuesdays 1:00 Rummikub 10 Tues 7:00 Blackjack with Ira 17 Tues 10:30 Scrabble 4, 11 Wed 2:00 Scrabble 13, 27 Fri 10:00 Dominoes 13 Fri 1:00 Scattergories Saturdays 1:30 RummikubExercise Classes 1 Sun 10:00 Morning Stretch with Ashley 8, 15, 22, 29 Sun 10:00 Exercise with Phil 2, 9, 23, 30 Mon 9:00 Exercise with Rowena 16 Mon 9:00 Walking Club 3, 10, 17, 24 Tues 9:15 Tai Chi with Janet 31 Tues 9:15 Tai Chi with Caroline Wednesdays 9:00 Klezmercise! with Bruce Wednesdays 11:00 Open Gym with a Trainer Thursdays 9:00 Exercise with Carl Thursdays 1:30 Chair Yoga with Ilya 6 Fri 9:00 Exercise with Ashley 13, 20, 27 Fri 9:00 Exercise with Phil 13, 27 Fri 2:00 Klezmercise! with Bruce Saturdays 10:30 Chair Yoga with Ilya 7, 28 Sat 9:30 Walking ClubPoetry, and Drama 6, 20 Fri 2:00 Musical Theater with Bruce 10 Tues 10:30 Script Reading with Lauren 20 Fri 1:00 Greg Pond Poetry 22 Sun 10:45 Poetry with Elizabeth

page 8 The Olive Press

Employee of the Month-—Dorie Workman

Dorie Workman, Front Desk Supervisor, is one of the most experienced and qualified people who has held this position. Having been a CNA for fifteen years, working in both hospitals and nursing homes, Dorie understands the

health-related aspects of resident life. While still in high school in Minnesota, Dorie got a CNA certificate and was working in the local hospital and adjacent nursing home. She said, “In small towns throughout the Midwest, privately-owned local hospitals were often the largest employer, paid the best, and contributed significantly to the maintenance of the community. After the 2007-2008 economic downturn, many local hospitals were bought up by larger corporations which ran them as businesses. They closed unprofitable hospitals and communities began falling apart.”

After graduating from high school, Dorie attended Ohio Wesleyan University, majoring in history, minoring in German Literature and Political Science, and continued to work as a CNA. As health care facilities closed and residents lost their local hospitals and communities, Dorie realized that she could play a part in fixing the situation. She went back to school and received an MS in Public Administration and Health Policy from Walden University. “I was a little bit idealistic,” she said. “I believed I could affect how nursing home policy was made. But in reality, nursing staff was paid a minimum wage, people worked two shifts to make a living, and patients had to travel many miles to get medical care. She realized that employment opportunities were limited so she moved to San Francisco in 2010. Dorie worked for Kaiser as a patient care technician for four years, then moved to a management position at a startup which provided safety training to health care staff. “It was non-stop

July Birthdays

Patricia Covert 4Hadley Hall 8Solomon Zeltzer 9Shirley Drexler 13Diana Variakojis 17 Moritz Altman 21 Don Wiesner 27 Bill MacColl 28Martha Hays 30

change, a lot of uncertainty, and I was working sixty hours a week with no end in sight. When a position opened up at RGP for a Front Desk Supervisor, I decided to apply.”

“What I like best about working at RGP is working with residents, having the opportunity to initiate new processes, and being part of a very supportive team. I love my coworkers and I enjoy coming to work. I really enjoy the creativity; if you have an idea and present it, you are given the autonomy to run with it. I enjoy assisting residents and like having the chance to help solve their problems. I still think I can change things, but in a different way. The best way to effect change is to be a positive leader in your industry.”

The Olive Press page 9

Adrienne Fair, MSN, RN, Assistant Executive Director

Health Notes

The Virtuous Cycle

We often throw around the term “vicious cycle” to describe a situation. But in looking into health with respects to executive function, I actually stumbled upon a “virtuous cycle”.

Having good executive function is largely related to the prefrontal cortex of the brain. It is described as the “effortful control of goal directed behavior”.1 In other words, you have enough brain power to maintain self-control and make good decisions. When you make good decisions for health, particularly with regards to physical activity, your health improves.

A meta-study from 2016 published in Frontiers in Neuroscience 1 looks at how physical activity, in turn, improves executive function. Exercising helps to create new brain cells (neurogenesis) as well as increasing the amount of blood vessels in the brain (angiogenesis). Exercise also increases grey matter volume, reduces inflammation in the brain, and increases blood flow to the brain.

Long story short, the more you stay active, the more you bolster your brain’s executive functioning ability. And the stronger your executive functioning, the better you are able to make smart choices with regards to physical activity.

Of course, I would definitely point out that RGP residents have pretty much mastered the virtuous cycle. RGP residents are active and engaged, and make fantastic, healthy choices. (This is probably because you are all so smart!) It takes a lot of strength and determination (AKA executive functioning) to make it into your eighty’s, ninety’s, and beyond while maintaining physical health and quality of life. Keep that cycle going!

Source:

1 Allan JL, McMinn D, Daly M. A Bidirectional Relationship between Executive Function and Health Behavior: Evidence, Implications, and Future Directions. Frontiers in Neuroscience. 2016;10:386

Positive Health Behaviors

Regular ExerciseHealthy Diet

Quitting Smoking, etc.

Improved Brain Health

Executive FunctioningWorking Memory

Cognitive Flexibility

page 10 The Olive Press

Corey Weiner,Director of Food and Beverage

Dining—Eat to your heart’s content

The Generals in Dining Services

The kitchen is a strange world, with even stranger lines of communication. The resident wants something, they have just decided that chef needs to have known about months and years in advance, even to know how to produce it on demand, even if she was not in the kitchen at the time. How can the chef control the twenty plus people on her team, work with the servers, communicate and feed the residents?

Superpowers! She’s got to have them, in a place where time, dimension, and commonsense have collapsed. The floors of a kitchen are slanted for drainage, making walking a ticking time bomb. She is constantly sticking her face in fire, steam and extreme heat, she has no feelings left in her remaining fingers, there are knives flying all around her, and she’s mad as heck. The reason being the sub-cook didn’t do the production asked, and you dear resident have just ordered the very item she did not produce as requested.

The kitchen brigade as developed in France by Escoffier is a very military organization. There is no room for touchy feely conversations. Orders are given and they must be followed precisely, on time, with speed and urgency. The general commands and cooks respond. There are sous chefs, sauciers, bakers, roundsman, chefs de parti, line cooks, prep cooks, apprentices. In many places none of them share a common language. However, they must function as a single unit in a complex elegant dance.

The servers navigate that shaky area between the apparently normal world as you the resident perceives it, and the chef’s world as she correctly knows it is. You tell the server you really only want the asparagus doubled, and cooked a bit longer, and peeled a bit closer to the end. Does the server dare tell that to the perspiring, agitated, speed demon general in the kitchen, behind the line? No. You will take

your lonely three spears of asparagus as they are; period. Firing … that’s what happens when the server tells the cooks what to do. That alone says a lot.

And the Director of Dining Serves, what is she to do? She must back her chef, support her servers, keep the cooks from leaving the building due to a nervous breakdowns, and stop the resident’s from storming the kitchen. The battle is on. And, residents want to pay for their guest’s meal in the mysterious plaza bit coin. No wonder she always says no. It is her only armor behind her sense of humor, which she sometimes leaves at home.

Kitchen without a chef? Nonsense!!! The well-known truth is that the chef and the Director of said Dining Services always show up, through rain, sleet and snow, ahead of those postal workers. They can go postal in a way no postmen can ever match.

So after the apocalypse, and all the chefs and directors are gone, you can call robo-cook, herring-bot, burger-bot and brisket-bot. All you need is a few technicians to keep of them going. McDonalds is opening the first robot manned outlet in Illinois. They plan to do that to all of them. That cuts about 40% of the cost of their business. Kitchen without a chef? McDonalds.

The Olive Press page 11

Candiece Milford,Managing Director of Marketing

The Choice is YoursThe subject of executive function came to my attention at a recent California Assisted Living Association (CALA) conference in Sacramento. Dr. Rob Winningham, Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Professor of Gerontology and Psychology, shared how important exercise, healthy eating, sleep, and social interaction is to maintain the ability to process, organize, make and execute rational decisions. These skills constitute what is called Executive Function which acts like the CEO of your cerebral cortex to organize your thoughts, stringing them together into a cohesive plan, and putting that plan into action.

Interestingly, this information mirrors research that several neuroscientists have shared with me in the prevention of the development or acceleration (if you have it) of dementia. One can also make a case that the fundamental benefit across the wide variety of programming and dining choices at Rhoda Goldman Plaza is the sharpening of our executive function.

Personal stories often paint the most vivid pictures, so I’d like to share two that illustrate how a person who chooses to disengage and one who stays actively engaged have two very different results.

The first is a close relative who retired six years ago, lives alone in his home and

has serious arthritis in his back and hips. His idea of retirement was to “move into” in his Lazy Boy recliner, remote in hand, to smoke and watch TV twenty-four hours a day, catnapping on and off. No, I’m not exaggerating. He refuses support, offer of services and orders his “food” online from Walmart which is delivered to his home . . . in cans. Today, at age sixty-eight, his back pain is excruciating, he uses a walker if he can stand, and frequently falls. His decline is so steep, we predict that in less than two years he’ll be in a nursing home.

In contrast, I am acquainted with a person who resides at The Sequoias, on the skilled nursing floor. Always vivacious and gregarious, this man doesn’t let his health issues be an excuse to disengage. On the contrary. Every night, one of his large personal network of friends wheels him downstairs to the dining room so he can hold court over dinner. He attends concerts, recently hosted a large event (about hundred people) to honor a friend, and regularly attends the M&M party which he created about four years ago. That would be Martinis and Manhattans, by the way! Cognitively he’s sharp as a whip and has not lost his executive functioning because he stays engaged.

I hope these two personal stories make the point that we all have a choice to maintain our executive function which can benefit you personally and, by extension, our beautiful community. Here at Rhoda Goldman Plaza, opportunity is abundant; all types of classes from exercise to lifelong learning are available for residents to stay engaged for a high quality of life and fun.

Rhoda Goldman Plaza

Rhoda goldman plaza 2180 Post Street San Francisco, CA 94115

415.345.5060 415.345.5061 (fax)

www.RGPlaza.org RCFE #385600125

Founded by Jewish Family and Children’s Services and Mount Zion Health Fund

The appeal of Rhoda Goldman Plaza is undeniable. Older adults and their families prefer our unsurpassed assisted living and memory care community enriched by culture and tradition.Residents enjoy superb, “made-from-scratch” cuisine that is always well reviewed by our most vocal critics; our residents! While our dining selections please the appetite, accommodations showcase spacious, private apartments designed to maximize space and comfort. In fact, we’re re-defining your life as Living Well With Assistance — we believe our community is every bit as good as a five-star hotel. And, professionally trained, courteous staff promotes your health and well-being with choices of activity programs both on and off-site.

Our Terrace Memory program provides specialized memory care to residents through therapeutic activities that enhance physical, mental, and emotional health. Both privacy and companionship are afforded on our self-contained Terrace. Living Well With Assistance is more than a promise, but a way of life for our like-minded residents and staff who share the vision of our upscale community.

Visit Rhoda Goldman Plaza today by calling 415.345.5072.

Founded by Jewish Family and Children’s Services and Mt. Zion Health Fund in 2000, Rhoda Goldman Plaza (RGP) was established as a non-profit assisted living facility to provide a better and more secure life for older adults.