Carol Altmann – The Terrier

More than 100 membership applications* for Lyndoch Living will be hand-delivered to Lyndoch on Friday by Jim Burke, thanks to those who have stepped forward and signed up.

The next step is for the Lyndoch board to decide who from the community, if anyone, is accepted.

This is an opportunity for the board to right a wrong, because surely it is wrong that there is not one single member of the general community among Lyndoch’s current membership. Not one.

And, as far as I know, Lyndoch’s membership still doesn’t include any residents, or family of residents.

This means that aside from a handful of executive staff (about six) and the seven people on its board, Lyndoch doesn’t have any other members.

If that situation has changed in recent times, we don’t know about it.

The situation at Lyndoch is very different to other community owned, not-for-profit residential homes like, for example, Boandik in Mt Gambier.

Members of Boandik (which is about half the size of Lyndoch) are those who have donated to its work in the past fin year, or are a resident.

In theory, you can apply to become a member of Lyndoch if you are over 18, of sound mind, and agree to its main objectives.

In practice – for the last couple of years – anyone who has applied without being invited has been rejected.

Lyndoch now has 100-plus chances to change that.

[*The final figure will be known by Friday when last-minute forms roll in. What a great effort by everyone who has been involved.]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

A simple but unsettling question underpins this Sunday’s membership drive for Lyndoch Living: why is Lyndoch so scared of the community it serves?

Why has it not allowed one single person from outside Lyndoch to join its membership ranks in the past two years, if not longer?

A not-for-profit, community owned organisation is normally hunting like a hungry Scottie for members who care enough to at least, on a good day, turn up to the AGM.

Speaking of the AGM, here’s another curly question: why are there no annual reports available on the Lyndoch website, other than the most recent? Odd.

And why, in the past two years, has Lyndoch not advertised to fill any board vacancies as they arise?

Every single vacancy has been filled by invitation only.

Is it you?

Is it, gulp, me?

Are we so terrifying that we must be kept at arm’s length from poking around and tearing a hole in the delicate fabric of the Lyndoch Living image?

Surely the community is not that scary, after all, we are talking about the same people whose parents, aunts, uncles, friends and families helped to create Lyndoch in the first place.

Without the community, there would be no Lyndoch.

Believe it or not, the community still owns it.

Admittedly, I don’t expect to be on Lyndoch’s Christmas drinks list. I have never met the CEO and I have never received, like one journo, a string of love hearts on Facebook from a board member. I get that I am never going to be allowed in.

But YOU – as a member of the wider Warrnambool community – YOU should be welcomed with open arms.

So why has Lyndoch – metaphorically – gone and changed the locks while you weren’t looking?

Perhaps, and this is only a theory, Lyndoch is nervous of the potential power of members.

Under its constitution, members can, if they like, ask questions.

Maybe Lyndoch is also twitchy about members being able to call general meetings, where they can pass resolutions, like, say, a vote of no confidence.

Members don’t have to do these things…but they can.

Members, as a group, can be powerful.

Perhaps that’s why Lyndoch is so scared of the community it serves, because its comfort zone has become a place of total control and losing control is, well, terrifying.

If you apply to become a member of Lyndoch on Sunday, and I really hope you will, this theory will be tested.

Applying to become a member does not mean you will be accepted, and therein lies the challenge.

We shall see how many, if any, make it through.

[The sign-up will be held this Sunday, August 15, Civic Green, 11am to 1pm. No fee required. Forms provided. Bring a pen, wear a mask. You can find a membership form in advance here, and the Lyndoch constitution here.]

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Time to get busy: the Lyndoch Living AGM is coming up in October, so next Sunday I am running a “sign up” for Lyndoch membership day.

The plan is to collect as many applications as we can – 20? 50? – to try and put the “c” (community) back into the heart of Lyndoch.

As I have written before, Lyndoch has no general members who come from outside Lyndoch.

All of the general members – around six or seven – are employees of Lyndoch.

In the past 18 months, a string of applications from the public have been flatly rejected by the board with no reasons given.

Who would have thought our aged care home would become such an exclusive club?

And speaking of the board, Lyndoch has had two board vacancies since May, but there has been no call for nominations – the spots remain empty. (The nine board members are separate to general members.)

It’s all very strange and completely at odds with what has been the community spirit of Lyndoch for the past 60 years.

This gatekeeping also removes a grassroots layer of scrutiny because members can – if they want to – do a number of things, including ask questions at the AGM, call general meetings, pass resolutions, run for the board, and vote on board nominations.

With the AGM now on the horizon, I believe the time is right to “test the gate” and see if it remains firmly locked to the uninvited.

Prof James Dunbar and Jim Burke, from the “Keep Lyndoch living” group, will be helping me out next Sunday.

If you would like to be a part of this push, pop down to the Warrnambool Civic Green between 11am and 3pm and look for the not-very-fancy terrier table.

I will have membership forms ready to go, it’s free to apply, and I will deliver them all to Lyndoch once we are done.

We will then wait and see how many people, if any, make it through.

[Sunday August 8, Civic Green, 11am to 3pm. Covid-safe protocols will apply. Please BYO pen and wear a mask. If you would like to bring your membership form already filled out, you can download it here].

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Tonight, two photographs.

The first was taken around 1pm last Thursday 24 June and posted to Instagram by building company Nicholson Construction.

It shows members of the Lyndoch Living executive and board whooping for joy at the turning of the first sod for the $22 million medical clinic to be built on site as of this week.

Nicholson Construction is building the clinic, which as we know, despite being a $22 million project, was not put to tender.

Instead, Nicholson was appointed automatically, having previously built the $13 million Swinton Wing extension.

The second photo captures a message sent from within Lyndoch less than three hours later.

This photo shows Lyndoch’s nursing staff pleading for help to fill shifts.

They needed help to cover not one, but 12 shifts across Swinton Wing and elsewhere. Twelve.

I don’t think Lyndoch’s nursing staff were whooping for joy.

Like them, I find it hard to celebrate the turning of the first sod on a $22 million clinic that has no discernible benefit to the  vulnerable and frail residents.

A $22 million clinic also won’t fill the empty or understaffed shifts.

This is the reality of life for so many staff at Lyndoch who are either run off their feet, or stressed out, and it’s a reality that I have been reporting on for two years.

In that time, I have watched the slow wearing down and silencing of the voices who dare to question or challenge this reality.

But there is only so much you can silence.

The consequences of these staffing issues were made brutally clear by the aged care watchdog in its report which Lyndoch perhaps hoped we would never see.

As was first reported here, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission spoke of residents in pain, a resident chemically constrained without consent, of falls, of wounds, and of the staff mix being “inadequate” to care for residents.

The commission was not whooping for joy.

And yet the horrors within this report have been all but buried under the first sod of the medical clinic.

This clinic will soak up millions and millions of dollars from Lyndoch and make not one squat of difference to the daily lives of residents living just 200m away.

I can’t stop thinking about the residents in that report, just as I can’t stop thinking about the scabies, or the suffering of other residents whose stories are yet to surface publicly.

This is why we must keep pressing on, in the face of mounting pressure to shut up, to stop being a spoil sport and, instead, whoop for joy.

I will whoop for joy one day: when we have all the answers to all the questions and Lyndoch is once again fully accountable to the community it serves.