Developing skills and making friends

Seniors College of P.E.I. gearing up for fall semester

While the menu featured summer favourites such as strawberries and ice cream, conversation at the recent Seniors College of P.E.I. summer social was all about the college’s upcoming 2025-26 season.

More than 140 classes covering a variety of topics will be on o€er during the fall (October-november), winter (January-february), and spring (April-may) semesters. Online registration for the classes opens on Wednesday, Sept. 3. Beginning in the first week of August, the depth and variety of courses can be viewed online at seniorscollege.ca.

Peter Benson was urged to get involved in the Seniors College by his daughter, Kim Landry, after Peter and his wife, Doris, moved to Charlottetown in 2023 from London, Ont., where he was a partner in an accounting firm.

“She knew I would have di•culty sitting around and not doing much after working on average 60 hours a week in my former profession,” said Benson.

He signed up for painting classes and is now the newly elected president of the college. Benson says his daughter was correct; the college has helped him add structure to his life, learn new skills, and meet new friends.

Tory Kennedy, provincial coordinator for the college, says of the approximately 140 college programs, 30 are new.

“We’ve got some new facilitators, and all around some new blood coming into the Seniors College, which I think is great.”

VARIETY OF CLASSES

Similar to the college’s many traditional o€erings, the new classes are widely varied and include an introduction to Argentine tango dancing, Bach (suites and partitas for keyboard), hiking, E-biking, landscaping, an introduction to heritage retrofit carpentry, a tour of the former Bog in Charlottetown, and a guide to “thrifting and gifting.”

In addition to in-person classes, the college also o€ers online courses via Zoom and other options. That is especially useful when weather and driving conditions are challenging.

“It allows many people to attend courses from their living rooms,” says Kennedy.

A partnership with the Tantramar Seniors College of Nova Scotia adds to the menu of online course o€erings. Forty of the Tantramar courses are open to Seniors College members.

Past president Shirley Pierce says it is never too late to learn.

“People are always amazed at what they learn. For example, the industry courses, they come away from them and often say, ‘I didn’t know that.’”

SHARING EXPERTISE

Speaking at the college’s strawberry social held at the Stratford recreation centre, Mayor Steve Ogden said the college is not only a great vehicle for lifelong learners, it o€ers an opportunity for people to learn from each other and socialize. He said it helps fill gaps in their knowledge about things they were always interested in, but didn’t have the opportunity, or time, in their earlier years because of careers or work.

“The seniors population has some great things to add to our society. Their expertise, their experience, their ideas, their enthusiasm,” said the mayor.

Blair Corkum is a semi-retired CPA and financial planner, and Kennedy says his courses are always well attended. In an interview at the social, Corkum says there are two questions he gets all the time.

“People are concerned, if they go into a nursing home situation, whether they lose their finances.”

He said the other question surrounds estate planning.

“How to give your assets to your children, or to your favourite charity, and what are the tax implications? What can you do and not do … you can’t give everything away to avoid taxes, and so many people don’t know that.”

Corkum says rather than try to tell people how to make more money, he explains how people can keep more money.

The registration fee for Seniors College is $170, similar to the past few years. The courses vary in length, with some being a one-time event, while others can last several weeks.

Benson says it’s important that people get registered as soon as possible, which will allow them to review the list of courses when they are made public online because many of the popular classes fill up quickly.