After three years as part of the Time to Shine team, I have decided to move on from this role toward a career change. I have discovered I have a joy (and a knack) for helping people with various IT-related problems, so I am looking to move into a customer support role for a software company. My tagline is going to be “bringing social work skills to the tech sector.”

It has been such a pleasure to be part of Time to Shine and to help make Leeds a more age friendly place. I am enormously proud of the work the Age Friendly Steering Group has done via various consultations to improve services and activities in Leeds, and especially on Come In and Rest. To date we have had approximately 175 premises around the city sign up to the scheme, and it is only going to grow.

As a programme we have learned a great deal about what helps to make Leeds a more connected and less isolated place for older people. As the slogan on the back of our t-shirts reads: Getting older shouldn’t mean getting lonely. I know that the work we have done and the things we have learned will go a long way in making sure that is true.

Many thanks to all my colleagues, our delivery partners, our volunteers, our participants, and most of all to the members of the Age Friendly Steering Group. It has been an honour to work alongside you during these years and I do hope our paths will cross again.