The Age UK Clubmoore Centre Visit

On Monday 9^th January 2012 Team 1 which at this point onwards only consisted of me Colin Ambrose and Elle Murray visited the Age UK Clubmoore Centre at 179 Townsend Lane, Clubmoore, Liverpool, Merseyside, L13 9DY. The computer course itself started at 10am and then took a 30 minute break from 11am to 11.30am, before continuing for another hour from 11.30am to 12.30pm. After visiting the course we would find out that a number of students were only able to attend the course for 1 hour and not the full 2 hours, as they found studying for a long period to be too strenuous at their age. We also discovered that the course only took place on 1 day a week, and the course ran for a period of 6 weeks. Whilst at the centre both the students and tutors told me and Elle that there was a long waiting list to get onto the course, but they were unable to give us a specific time period.

Myself and Elle introduced ourselves to all involved on the course and agreed to interview them whilst on their break as not to interrupt teaching and their precious study time. I had made consent forms and got all the interviewees to sign them giving us their permission to film them and record their interviews. At this point Sandra Owens the centre manager raised a point regarding a possible legal grey area which may occur, and one that could become a problem for the peoples stories website and Hurricane Films in future. She explained that a minority of the older generation had guardians (usually their children or other family members) who held third party mandates over what they could do. This meant that some older people didn’t have legal control over their own lives, due quite often to their failing health involving such problems as Alzheimer’s disease which often meant that they didn’t have control over all their faculties, and were legally no longer responsible for their actions. She also suggested that some guardians could possibly take legal action in future against the peoples stories website and Hurricane Films, if they thought the people under their care were being taken advantage of. This point never occurred to me or Elle and it would be wise of the peoples stories website and Hurricane Films to consider it in detail and the possible ramifications it could represent. Team 1 thanks Sandra Owens greatly for raising this point and making us aware of this possibility.

Elle had prepared a questionnaire for all involved on the Age UK computer course and I had a number of extra questions which I also wanted to add to the interview process in order to cover as much as possible. We agreed to interview everyone during their break in the common room whilst they had a 30 minute window. They also agreed to letting Team 1 get some cutaway shots of their classroom activities during the second study period after break.