Our theme this year is Back-to-Basics. With all we have experienced over the past year-and-a-half, it’s a good time to return to the notion of living life fully again. What does that mean to each of us, apart from and along with our Parkinson’s journey?
September 8th heralds a new meeting year and a time to reunite as a group, welcome new members, and share with each other—what we’ve been up to; how we are doing; our inspirations, our struggles, and our questions, new and ongoing; and whatever else is on our minds. Meeting time is 1:00-3:00 p.m. in our Reston location.
We have a great line-up of guest speakers beginning in October. In addition to their knowledge and experience, they bring with them tons of information and loads of resources specific to Parkinson’s that we can tap into as we move forward.
Best of all: we are back to seeing each other and welcoming new members—in person again!
Of course, we continue to monitor CDC and Fairfax County guidelines and will follow Fairfax County recommendations regarding masking and other measures, as well as the requirements of the organization whose space we meet in. As of August 4, 2021, the County recommends indoor masking to prevent spread of Covid-19 and will be requiring masks in County facilities beginning August 9. We also ask, for everyone’s safety including your own, that everyone meeting in-person be fully vaccinated and not attend if feeling ill.
Meeting dates, topics, and speakers can be accessed via the SHOW side menu or by clicking HERE
At our last meeting in June, the general consensus was that in-person meetings are preferable to Zoom. A few members expressed concerns about driving and asked about options such as county-provided transportation or hybrid-meetings (having in-person meetings accessible via Zoom to members).
On transportation, one of our members did some research for the group and found that options are specific to zip code and the reason for the requested ride. They are geared toward individual as opposed to group needs. If you are not comfortable driving and looking for a ride, two places to start (click on service name to link to its website): Fairfax County Services for Older Adults (offered by Fairfax County) and NV Rides (a voluntary organization). No experience with either, but if anyone does or has another resource, please let us know. Uber and Lyft, as well as local taxi service, are also options.
As far as Zooming in-person meetings live, as much as we’d love to accommodate this option, it isn’t going to work. We have no Internet service to begin with, and then there’s the logistics of setting up and monitoring Zoom. But more importantly, in the initial post by our founding member seven years ago, What We Are and What We Are Not, she emphasized the most important commitment to the group as confidentiality: “If we really want a safe place to discuss topics we can’t discuss elsewhere, we have to know: What is said there, stays there. Who else is there, stays there.” We don’t want to risk compromising that commitment.
A section of that first post remains on our webpage for new members to access. It’s a reminder of our hopeful beginnings and in our theme of Back-to-Basics, worth rereading.