87-year-old Colin Stracey has walked over 100 kilometres in laps around Belrose Country Club Retirement Village to raise money for a charity dedicated to mental health.
Colin Stracey, centre, walked 115km in a month by doing laps of Belrose Country Club retirement village. Here he is with his daughters Kim (left) and Nycolle (right).
Former milkman Colin Stracey has become a familiar sight striding it out on his twice-daily 1.5-kilometre laps around RetireAustralia’s Belrose Country Club Retirement Village, located within Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
Earlier this year, 100-year-old British war veteran Tom Moore made global headlines when he raised around $60 million for the National Health Service by walking laps of his garden. In July, he was knighted by the Queen for his extraordinary effort.
Mr Stracey was part of a family team of eight raising cash for the Black Dog Institute during October, which was Mental Health Month.
His determination has lifted the hearts of other residents in the community, attracting waves and words of encouragement – with his efforts so far raising more than $640.
“I haven’t had anyone else from here join me yet, but they often give me a wave and speak to me as I go past,” said Colin.
He said he was surprised at the distance he had covered.
Although he has always kept himself fit, he had originally only aimed to cover 40 kilometres, but had managed more than double that.
His said walking for a cause had helped to inspire him.
Colin strides out daily, keeping fit while raising funds for mental health charity the Black Dog Institute.
“In my generation, mental health was and, in many cases, still is a taboo subject, but our children’s generation is a little accepting – but men in particular find it hard to talk about,” he said.
“Each member of our family team was aiming for 100 kilometres in October.
“It isn’t so much about the distance we walk, but the conversations we have along the way, the time spent together and the personal goals reached.”
Colin has been joined several times on his walks by daughter Kym Strode, who said she was proud of her father’s achievement.
“Dad has always walked for exercise but even more so now that he is living at Belrose Country Club, which has been a wonderful move for him.
“The family decided to enter this as a team because we believe it is an important cause and a topic that needs to be highlighted.”
Belrose Country Club Village Manager Dianne Bear said Colin’s achievements were a highlight among a range of local activities during Mental Health Month and had become a regular topic of conversation.
“At Belrose we believe staying active and having the opportunity to socialise and connect with others contributes significantly to an overall sense of wellbeing,” said Ms Bear.
Belrose Country Club offers two distinct living options to cater to a range of needs, with 27 care apartments and 200 independent living units. Each strata-titled independent living unit is spacious and elegant with a choice of one, two or three bedrooms while the village’s care apartments, located within the Country Club, offer added peace of mind through daily care services.
Interested in living, walking and have a great retirement at Belrose Country Club?
Ageless Magazine
There’s nothing quite like a story to bring people together.
That’s why we created Ageless, RetireAustralia’s quarterly magazine. Because great stories never get old.
A Central Coast couple married for 63 years but forced to live apart for 12 months have finally been reunited, thanks to Glengara Care’s new approach to aged care.
87-year-old Colin Stracey has walked over 100 kilometres in laps around his retirement village to raise money for a charity dedicated to mental health.
While city folks have therapy dogs for companionship and to enhance wellbeing, they do things a little differently at Newling Gardens Retirement Village in Armidale.
Retire Australia Holdings Pty Ltd ABN 97 141 496 282 and its related companies and trusts (“RetireAustralia”, “we“, “our” or “us“) operate this Website. We respect your privacy. When we handle personal information about you we will comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) which are contained in the Privacy Act.
We may collect personal information, including health information, about you in connection with our services which include the operation and management of retirement villages and related services to our residents.
We collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information principally for the purpose of providing you with our services or processing your application to us for our services.
Other purposes of collection include:
responding to requests and enquiries that you make to us;
providing you with access to our publications;
informing you about important village operational issues and events;
maintaining the quality, amenity and safety of our villages;
day to day administration relating to our villages and services; and
complying with the laws that apply to us.
We collect your personal information directly from you when you deal with us over the telephone or by email or letter, visit our Website and provide your details on our Website, including when you make enquiries on our Website, subscribe to our publications or book a tour of our facilities.
Sometimes we may also collect information from third parties such as relatives, your appointed attorneys, professional advisers, health care providers, contractors that help us perform our services and other member of the RetireAustralia corporate group.
How we collect, hold, use and disclose any sensitive information (e.g. health information) is governed by our Privacy Policy. We will ask for your consent before we collect sensitive information about you from a third party except where the Privacy Act allows us to do so without your consent (for example to assist us to manage an emergency).
If you provide us with personal information about another person, you should make sure that you are authorised by that persons to do so and where possible that the person has been made aware of the matters contained in this Privacy Collection Statement.
If you do not provide all or part of the information we request, we may be unable to send you publications or information, respond to your enquiries, provide services to you or take your circumstances into account when we provide our services to you. However, you can still access other information on the Website.
We may disclose your personal information to:
our employees, contractors and service providers who help us perform our services (for example, IT and administrative service providers);
other companies within the RetireAustralia corporate group;
health care professionals or other individuals (such as family members or carers), with your consent or where required or authorised by law;
your representatives, for example, lawyer or attorney, as authorised by you;
our professional advisers, such as insurers, accountants, auditors and lawyers;
government and regulatory authorities where required or authorised by law to disclose your personal information;
other entities, with your consent (either express or implied).
We do not usually disclose your personal information to entities outside Australia. However some information may be provided to our related corporation in New Zealand. We will take reasonable steps to ensure that any overseas entity to whom we disclose your personal information is carefully chosen and has policies, procedures and systems in place to ensure your personal information is otherwise handled in accordance with the Privacy Act.
Our Privacy Policy contains more details about how the RetireAustralia group of companies handles personal information. In particular it describes in how you can:
access and seek correction of the personal information we hold about you; and
lodge a complaint relating to a breach of the APPs and how we will deal with such a complaint.
Our Privacy Policy can be made available on request or can be accessed on our website.
For further information, please contact the Retire Australia Privacy Officer at:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Donec elementum ligula eu sapien consequat eleifend.
Donec nec dolor erat, condimentum sagittis sem. Praesent porttitor porttitor risus, dapibus rutrum ipsum gravida et. Integer lectus nisi, facilisis sit amet eleifend nec, pharetra ut augue. Integer quam nunc, consequat nec egestas ac, volutpat ac nisi.
Sed consectetur dignissim dignissim. Donec pretium est sit amet ipsum fringilla feugiat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Maecenas scelerisque, orci sit amet cursus tincidunt, libero nisl eleifend tortor, vitae cursus risus mauris vitae nisi. Cras laoreet ultrices ligula eget tempus.
Aenean metus purus, iaculis ut imperdiet eget, sodales et massa. Duis pellentesque nisl vel massa dapibus non lacinia velit volutpat. Maecenas accumsan interdum sodales. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Pellentesque ornare blandit orci, eget tristique risus convallis ut. Vivamus a sapien neque.
