Category: Meetings

Speaker Richard Bradie, who addressed the club at its Nov. 17 meeting, came laden down with gifts designed to make club members safer.

Mr. Bradie represents TRIAD, a cooperative program involving law enforcement agencies, community groups and senior citizens, working together to protect seniors.

Club members were given “Files for Life,” a kit containing a chart for listing a person’s medical conditions and medications. The file is magnetic so it can be affixed to a refrigerator door. A sticker for a window or door will alert first responders in the event of an emergency, so EMTs can have life-saving medical information even if the patient is unable to communicate. Mr. Bradie said all local first responders have been trained to look for a “File for Life.”

In addition, Mr. Bradie offered members power-failure lights, motion-detecting night lights, magnifying lenses and other items and literature designed to make seniors more secure.

The speaker demonstrated a Guardian Alert 911 system, which a senior can use to summon help at the touch of a button. The system has the advantage of not requiring a monthly fee. Triad provides the systems at no cost, but asks for a $150 donation to defray costs.

The Orange County Triad program is a joint effort by the sheriff’s office, AARP and local seniors.

The speaker at the club’s Nov. 17 meeting will be Richard Bradie, who represents TRIAD, a cooperative program involving law enforcement agencies, community groups and senior citizens, working together to keep seniors safe from physical and financial crime and to promote their safety and welfare.

Triad and its parent group, the National Association of Triads Inc., has two goals: (1) To reduce crimes against the elderly and (2) to reduce the unwarranted fear of crime that seniors often experience.

A local Triad conducts organized programs and activities to meet its objectives. Some examples are: Files of Life, wherein magnetic refrigerator cards are distributed to the elderly that capture information for use in case of emergencies; educational talks given to senior groups on crime prevention, scams and schemes, or personal safety; senior visitations or adopt-a-senior; and inter-generational programs.

Mr. Bradie graduated from Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., in 1958 with a degree in psychology. He served two years in the U.S. Army as a photo interpretation officer.

He spent the next 40 years working for a civilian firm  as a contractor to several government agencies, retiring in 2001.

He and his wife, Kathleen, moved to Lake of the Woods in 1999.

Since retiring, Mr. and Mrs. Bradie have been engaged in volunteer efforts, among them, TRIAD, the AARP and the Orange County Visitors Bureau.

The meeting will take place at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 17 in the Community Meeting Room of the Woods Center. Visitors are welcome.

More information about TRIAD is available at the Web site of the National Association of Triads, Inc.

Dick Bradie will speak to the club about TRIAD, a program involving law enforcement agencies, senior agencies and volunteers to keep seniors safe from crime, both physical and financial. The meeting will take place in the Woods Center.

The club’s November Steering Committee meeting will be held a week early in order to avoid the conflict with Election Day and to allow more time preparing for the big day. The meeting will take place at the home of Chair Sharon Allen, 124 Eagle Court. Sharon’s telephone number is 972-9037

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The frightening prospect of poisoned water, radioactive food supplies and despoiled countryside emerged as Orange County dairy farmer Bill Speiden narrated an enlightening and information-filled presentation on uranium mining at the club’s Oct. 20 meeting.

Mr. Speiden, a member of the legislative committee of the Orange County Farm Bureau and a former chairman of he county’s Planning Commission, gave club members the benefit of a decades-long study of the environmental dangers of uranium mining and milling.

The presentation was timely because Virginia’s General Assembly, which will convene in January, is expected to consider lifting a 30-year ban on uranium mining under instense pressure from industry lobbyists.

Mr. Speiden’s comments were illustrated by graphic photographs of mining operations in the West and Midwest. He descibed the horrific experience of whole towns that had been destroyed by heavy metals and contaminated groundwater leaching from mining tailings.

Mr. Speiden congratulated the Orange County Board of Supervisors and Sen. Edd Houck for reaffirming their support of the mining ban, but expressed concern that some legislators cannot be depended upon to resist the heavily-funded lobbying by mining interests.

Twelve thousand acres of land from Orange County north through Fauquier County have been identified as potential mining sites. Should the ban be lifted, mining and milling would become legal anywhere in the state.