Publications > Press Articles 2002

"To serve, not to be served" says 'retired' US seniors chief.

Veronica Sheen, adviser to the national policy secretariat of COTA NSA Partnership reports on a meeting in Washington with internationally respected Horace Deets, the Executive Director of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) for 13 years until 2002.

AARP is one of the world's largest organisations, with 35 million members. Horace Deets provided some worthwhile thoughts about the new COTA National Seniors Partnership.

The AARP was founded in 1958 by Dr Ethel Andrus, a Californian educator who saw that there was a need for a collective voice and collective buying power for older Americans. However from the very beginning Dr Andrus envisaged a broader role for the AARP in terms of collective ability to serve the community. She coined the motto for the organisation "to serve, not to be served".

The new COTA National Seniors Partnership is very conscious of using its numerical strength wisely. The new Partnership's second policy principle is the promotion of sustainable, fair and responsible policies:

The Partnership will be committed to the development of fair and sustainable policies for seniors that take account of the needs of the entire community in the short and long term. It will develop policies which are fiscally and economically responsible and which fairly balance the competing needs and interests of diverse groups amongst the senior population and other sectors of the community.

Horace Deets thoroughly endorsed this principle and believes the Partnership will be on the right track to becoming a respected and influential seniors organisation if we adhere to this principle.

He says that the focus of AARP has always been on active ageing, secured through the activities of AARP in four areas:

• health and wellness,
• economic security and work,
• long-term care and independent living, and
• personal enrichment.

The focus on active ageing sits very well with another of the COTA National Seniors Partnership policy principles:

The Partnership will seek to maximise opportunities for social and economic participation by older Australians, including promoting positive approaches to the contribution of seniors and the ageing of the Australian population, and by breaking down age discrimination in all areas of social and economic life.

The new democratic structures for COTA National Senior Partnership will mean older people can be become part of state and national Policy Councils which make and decide policy for the organisation.

Horace Deets says that it will be critical for Policy Council members to make informed judgements on important and complex issues. In this respect objective research will need to assume a very high priority in the Partnership.

Research has been an important underpinning for the work of the AARP since its inception. It has a Public Policy Institute staffed by a large number of researchers and it has an extensive and well resourced library. I was able to visit the Public Policy Institute during one of my several visits to AARP. It employs some of the world's leading authorities in the ageing area such as Sara Rix who specialises in older workers and retirement issues.

Horace Deets is a living advertisement of the idea of active ageing. Having "retired" from AARP he has now embarked on a major study of business and ageing at the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The study focusses on both the new markets emerging as a result of population ageing and workforce issues.

He recently told the Oxford University Institute of Ageing:

As a public issue, we must look at the aging of society and figure out how to incorporate the longevity bonus into our planning, policies, and social structures. If we don't find ways to allow people to continue making a contribution to society as they get older, an older dependent population will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

NB. Seniors may be interested in exploring the AARP large and interesting website at www.aarp.org. But don't forget the Australian websites at www.cota.org.au and www.nationalseniors.com.au.