The first such event is scheduled for Thursday, July 21 when Anne McGowan speaks about protecting elders and their wealth.

President-elect Lindy Hyam is behind the initiative.

“We aim to open up our meetings to the public when we have interesting speakers who we believe may be able to contribute to the knowledge and well being of our community members,” she explains.

“There will be no charge unless people wish to stay on and join us for dinner then that will be $25.00 per head.”

But we do need people to book in advance by emailing murraybuchanan0572@gmail.com, and indicating whether they are just attending the talk, or the talk and dinner, Mrs Hyam says.

She says the guest presenter will start at 6.30pm so interested people need to arrive at 6.15pm.

“Anne’s business background initially began in banking and customer service. She then studied public relations for several years while establishing a public relations consultancy in Auckland and Sydney where she worked successfully on a long term basis with many high profile clients,” Mrs Hyam explains.

“Later she taught business communication studies and was a course coordinator for employment programs with TAFE in the Hunter Valley.

“Today, Anne is the Founder and CEO of Protecting Seniors Wealth, and was first motivated to help after hearing all ‘the people’s stories’, and subsequent investigations into the media reports, research, and many meetings and interviews that followed, all confirmed this was a huge human rights issue that needs to be exposed and addressed.”

“As a result, this advocate group was established to create more awareness of the rapidly increasing and alarming trend.  Wealth abuse of senior elders is real problem and there’s a need for prevention.”

Designed to be a resource to obtain information, Protecting Seniors Wealth provides consulting services and a suite of education services.