Later life adventures with Tuesday Rostrum
AUTHOR, businessman, elder care consultant and self-confessed social activist Henry Spencer is the entertaining and highly recommended speaker who has been invited to lunch with Tuesday Rostrum next month.
You don’t have to be a member of the ‘thinking women’s club’ to attend the lunch and to hear Henry’s light-hearted talk, ‘Adaptive Ageing – Adventures in Later Life’.
It takes place at Mbango on Tuesday, September 9, at 12.15pm. The costs are R115 for members and R190 for guests. Men are always welcome to attend the luncheon meetings as guests. To book, contact Denise Millar at 039 3172600.
Henry, who lives in Pietermaritzburg, is married to Ruth and they have two daughters. His interesting, varied and successful career has seen him hold 26 jobs in five different countries and to live in many different homes. Ruth, it is rumoured, is in line for a special medal.
In 1993, after a successful business career, mainly in the fields of production management and industrial engineering, Henry took a radical change in direction. He entered the non-profit arena as the chief executive of Tafta, a leading charity, whose focus is the care of the elderly and vulnerable.
He started his academic career late in life, attaining a BA Degree in psychology in 1997, at the age of 55. This was followed by a Master’s Degree in Applied Ethics (Cum Laude) from Stellenbosch University. This year, at the age of 72, he is doing his PhD through the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which certainly qualifies him to talk about ageing adventurously!
After nine years at the Tafta helm, Henry and Ruth left for the United Kingdom where Henry worked his way up, literally from the bottom, to assistant home manager for a 30-person dementia home, then home manager for people with profound learning disabilities and, eventually, operations manager for eight of these homes.
In 2007 the Spencers returned to South Africa and he was appointed live-in manager of Sandown Retirement Village. He retired the following year, served as a consultant for some time then moved to Pietermaritzburg where he is still involved with elderly care, managing a sub-economic 100-bed home.
He has been a member of a number of profession organisations and service clubs and has served as the vice-president of the National Council for the Aged (KwaZulu-Natal) and president of the South African Association of Homes for he Aged. One of his many achievements includes being actively involved in drafting sections of the South African Aged Persons Act.
However, his main passion is writing and he is the author of three books dealing with different aspects of ageing.
