Kirkhaven Project Progresses

Here I am "entertaining" residents on the Special Care Unit.

I've been spending a fair amount of time lately with the Kirkhaven Replacement Project, but I must admit, it is exciting and fun. This past week we were busy sharing the findings and pictures from our recent site visit to Wisconsin. Amanda and I reviewed this with the Kirkhaven Senior Leadership team and then again with the Board. We also compared notes with Karen (Food Service Director) and Etta (Assistant Director of Nursing) who recently traveled to Minnesota to participate in an educational session entitled "Life happens in the Kitchen". Last week, a group of us also met with a food service consultant who specializes in health care to brainstorm and receive advice on our design and operation vision as it relates to kitchen design and food service. We have a few more site visits and reviews to perform, but we are getting very close to understanding and developing our design vision.

I thought the Board meeting last week was great! There was very positive activity and time well spent on exploring and understanding our strategic vision for Kirkhaven. Good questions, dialog and a sense of consensus. The Board support is very strong and obvious as indicated by their approval of our moving forward with a land purchase offer. I'll keep you posted on any developments with this exciting leg of our journey. Any offer will include many contingencies related to the work and long journey that remains ahead of us and includes: finalizing the design, ensuring project financial viability, certificate of need submission and approval, HEAL-NY grant application and approval for equity funding, project financing approval, local zoning approvals. We then can begin development of construction documents, initiate construction request for proposals, implement capital fundraising campaign, start construction. Did I mention we still have a lot of work and a long journey ahead of us.

I met with Jim Genthner (Chair of Development Committee) this week and we had a good discussion pertaining to a strategy and what needs to be done now to prepare us for a major capital campaign to raise funds for the Kirkhaven Replacement Project. We agreed to pursue the assistance of a consulting firm out of Seattle, Washington called Benevon. I was introduced to the firm and its Founder/CEO when I attended their sponsored educational session at our State Association's Spring Institute in Saratoga. I was very impressed with their campaign strategy and approach. They offer a very reasonable training program and extensive resources to assist organizations with their own campaigns. We will proceed to investigate and prepare ourselves for what could become a 1-3 million dollar major capital campaign to roll out in 2009.

Haven't spent much time with Valley Manor the past few weeks, but Cheryl and Jim have things well under control. I did touch base with Greystone and they assure me they are working hard on our project. We have scheduled a meeting with them and a select group of key board and leadership staff to hear and discuss the preliminary recommendations prior to taking same to the full Board. That meeting is scheduled for July 22 and I am hopeful that it will kick-start some initiatives and strategies at Valley Manor similar to the emphasis currently at work at Kirkhaven.

I worked my routine weekend administrator rotation duty at Kirkhaven this Saturday. It's always hard to squeeze this assignment into an already busy week, but I always enjoy the opportunity to spend time on the floors with residents and staff. As usual I find myself in awe of what great staff we have and how hard they work. I will confess that having recently spent time observing the operations of other "culture change" homes, I notice even more the wonderful growth opportunities we have to improve the quality of life of residents living in our antiquated nursing home. I can't wait to make it different and so much better for all!

Speaking of being busy. Did I mention I'm due for a vacation. Time sure does fly and I haven't been on an extended vacation (week or more) since a year ago last July. I had a nice 4 day vacation after Christmas when Jen and I spent time with my family down in Williamsberg, but that's about it. So I'm looking forward to spending July 2-13 at our cottage on Indian Lake. My daughter's family is joining us for a few days and can't wait to have them and the grand kids with us. We have planned a nice family reunion for my parents who are coming up to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. I hope to also spend time just boating, swimming, golfing, hiking and sitting by the open fire in the evening down by the water with an adult beverage and a moon-lit sky. Nice...........

When we return, our newest grandson (Logan) has his baptism at our church on Sunday, July 13. Then I'll be back at work, rested and recharged to jump back into the fun. I so appreciate knowing that I have such a capable team to keep things moving smoothly with or without me. Have a great week everyone and I'll be back on my Blog upon my return.