REDEFINING AGEING - SYDNEY 2024

THEME - NOURISHING CONNECTIONS IN OUR 3RD CHAPTER OF LIFE

Join us at the Sydney Redefining Ageing event, where we delve into the transformative power of nurturing relationships in the third chapter of life.

Our speakers share their lived experiences of combating loneliness and Uncover strategies to cultivate meaningful connections, explore the benefits of building a supportive community, and celebrate the opportunities that come with ageing.

Together, let's reimagine and embrace the joys of growing older through the lens of nourishing connections.

CHARITY PARTNER: The Older Women's Network (OWN) NSW

Silver Sirens is honoured to collaborate with OWN NSW for the third consecutive year. Our shared commitment to promoting the well-being of older women creates a strong alignment between our organizations.

Silver Sirens' mission to address and reduce loneliness among older women directly complements OWN NSW's goals of fostering well-being and connectedness.

OWN NSW's understanding of well-being encompasses various aspects of life, including reasonable physical and mental health, social inclusion, and easy access to essential services such as transportation and healthcare. These elements empower older women to engage in fulfilling life projects, promoting a sense of purpose and dignity as they age.

Good physical health, mental health, and social connectedness contribute to a healthy ageing process, further emphasising the significance of our ongoing partnership with OWN NSW.

Conference: 9.30 am - 1 pm

Opportunities for further connection: 1 pm - 3.30 pm

1.30 - 3.30 Gourmet lunch - (additional cost $55 per head)

https://www.silversirens.org/event-details/after-conference-lunch-surry-rooftop-rydges-central

Or, from 1 pm to 3.30 pm, you can have drinks from a cash bar on the balcony with views of the Sydney skyline.

SPEAKERS:

Building Community

Maggie Hamilton

As a writer, researcher, and storyteller, Maggie is passionate about understanding people and the ideas that shape our world. Her work delves into the reasons behind our actions and choices and how we reclaim our past to create a better future.

Maggie is captivated by conversations, life choices, and how our lives intersect. She believes that these interactions add depth and richness to our experiences.

Author of When We Become Strangers, How Loneliness leaks into our lives, and what we can do about it.

Sienna Brown

Sienna Brown was born in Kingston, Jamaica, grew up in Toronto, Canada, and now lives in Sydney, Australia. She was a professional dancer in Canada with Toronto Dance Theatre, Canada’s premiere contemporary dance company. She graduated from the prestigious Australian Film & TV School (AFTRS) and gained a BA in television directing and editing. After graduating, she formed Pine Street Films, through which she produced, directed and wrote documentaries and educational films.

Her debut novel, Master of My Fate, published in 2019 by Penguin Random House, won the MUD Literary Prize at Adelaide Writers Week for the best debut novel by an Australian writer and was shortlisted for the ARA Historical Fiction Novel Prize in 2020.

In 2021, ABC Radio National, the History Listen Series, commissioned her to create Caribbean Convicts in Australia, a podcast based on her research for Master.

In 2022, she was appointed Research Associate at Western Sydney University. Her position is funded by a three-year Australia Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Grant administered through the Writing & Society Research Centre. Under the grant's auspices, she has just completed her second novel, Love Under A Tropical Sun, set in Australia and Jamaica. She developed and co-produced Callaloo & Wattleseed, a unique one-day symposium focused for the first time on the cultural contributions of Caribbean Australians in music, education, literature and performance.

She is working with The History Lab at UTS’s Impact Studios to produce further podcasts on the history of Caribbean people in Australia.

Sienna’s on the Judging panel for the ARA Historical Fiction Novel Prize, which will be awarded in October. And has been invited to be on the Judging panel for the Voices of Women Short Film and Script Festival, with screenings and readings in early February 2025 in Sydney, New York and Kenya.

Sienna is represented by Gaby Naher at Left Bank Literary

www.siennabrown.com.au

Anna Kellerman

Anna is a trained art educator with a Bachelor of Art Education, majoring in Educational Psychology, and a registered clinical art psychotherapist with a Masters in Art Therapy. She has a published thesis about the benefits of working with clay for children with anxiety disorders,, which she presented at the International Trauma Conference in Melbourne, 2022.

Anna has worked with families, children and adolescents with various emotional and behavioural presentations for 15 years. Her areas of interest and expertise include working with children and anxiety presentations, trauma, grief and loss, parental separation, and domestic violence.

Anna also runs art therapy groups for adults in an inpatient ward at a private hospital and at an aged care facility. She uses a trauma-based approach that focuses on empowering clients with supportive coping skills to help manage lifelong issues. These can include working with expressive materials such as clay, paint, and water or other structured activities. The main themes Anna works with relate to safety, building trust and resilience, ways to regulate emotions, connecting with their creative spirit, and having some fun along the way.

Anna is also a successful entrepreneur, having launched two businesses, including her current initiative, Mama Creatives, an online and offline community she has grown from the ground up. This year, they celebrated 11 years! She has hosted over 100 live TED-style evening talks, expert panels, morning tea masterclasses, and creative workshops through the Mama Creatives platform. She has also launched a podcast, The Creativity Couch, and an online course, ‘Your Creative Awakening’. Anna remains supercharged about the future of Mama Creatives and is growing it into a remarkable global community that connects and showcases talented creative mamas and women from every corner of the earth.

Over the years, in her various roles, Anna has facilitated hundreds of workshops, classes and groups with adults, children and adolescents in multiple settings. She loves teaching the art of storytelling as a powerful process for personal transformation.

ENTERTAINMENT

Crones in Cabaret

In 2023, the OWN Theatre Group performed as Crones In Cabaret at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, one of the biggest in the world, with their one-hour show, Not Dead Yet! The show won an award for best cabaret and sold out three shows at the Warehouse Theatre. Since then, they have performed for Mission Australia, International Day Against Elder Abuse for the Inner West Council, and at the Older Women's Network National Conference, as well as smaller shows in Sydney.

Not Dead Yet! follows the success of the group's long-running production, Don't Knock Your Granny, a show highlighting elder abuse. The group performed Don't Knock Your Granny at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2018 to rave reviews. In 2020, it won critical acclaim at the Adelaide Fringe just days before the Covid lockdown. The group has done important work on violence against older women through Granny, which has been used as an educational tool through a campaign and video and has now been seen by thousands, live or on video. It has been performed at conferences, community and council events and for Seniors Week events.

The group’s ethos is to include all women in every aspect of the production, including research, writing and workshopping material, choreography and costumes. Confidence is built by reassuring performers that physical disabilities or mental health issues will never

impact on their ability to be a valued part of the group. The Theatre Group is a safe and welcoming space for older women and an inclusive place to build self-esteem and friendship and, importantly, enhance their social status. Its members come to weekly

rehearsals in Newtown from surrounding suburbs and as far away as Wollongong, the Blue Mountains and the Southern Highlands.

The Power of Female Friendships as We Age

Tracey Spicer

Tracey Spicer AM is a multiple Walkley Award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster who has anchored national ABC TV and radio programs, Network Ten and Sky News. The inaugural national convenor of Women in Media, Tracey is one of the most sought-after

keynote speakers and emcees in Australia. In 2019, she was named the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year, accepted the Sydney Peace Prize alongside Tarana Burke for the Me Too movement, and won the national Excellence in Women’s Leadership award through Women & Leadership Australia.

In 2018, Tracey was chosen as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence, winning the Social Enterprise and Not-For-Profit category. For her 30 years of media and charity work, Tracey has been awarded the Order of Australia.

Highlights of her outstanding career include writing, producing and presenting documentaries on women and girls in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Papua New Guinea and India. She is an Ambassador for Your Side, ActionAid, the Ethnic Business Awards, Emerge Australia, the

Australian POTS Foundation and Purple Our World, and Patron of the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance. Her first book, The Good Girl Stripped Bare, became a bestseller within weeks of publication, while her TEDx Talk, The Lady Stripped Bare, has attracted almost seven million views worldwide.

Tracey’s essays have appeared in dozens of books, including Women of Letters, She’s Having a Laugh, Father Figures, Unbreakable, and Bewitched & Bedevilled: Women Write the Gillard Years. ABC highlighted Tracey’s #metoo work in the three-part documentary series Silent No More, which featured stories about hidden survivors. Her new book, Man-Made: How the Bias of the Past Is Being Built into the Future, was published by Simon & Schuster in May 2023. It has since been longlisted for a Walkley Award and won the Social Responsibility category in the Australian Business Book Awards.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: The Real Tracey Spicer

Twitter & Instagram: @TraceySpicer

Yumi Stynes

Yumi Stynes is a much-loved author and broadcaster working on Gadigal land.

She can be heard on the hugely popular ABC podcast Ladies, We Need to Talk, currently in its eighth season, discussing taboos in women's issues.

Her groundbreaking books, co-authored with Dr Melissa Kang, include this year's ABIA Winner for Book of the Year for Older Children, 'Welcome to Sex'. The 'Welcome to' series of guidebooks has sold over a quarter of a million copies and has been translated into 14 languages.

When life gets too stressful, Yumi has a food podcast called The 5 Minute Food Fix, where she laughs with dear friend and cookbook editor/publisher Simon Davis while sharing recipes, hacks, and tricks for busy people who love food.

INCLUDED WITH YOUR TICKET

1. Welcome beverage & morning tea

2. Five inspirational speakers, a seasoned entertainer, and interactive activities

3. A lush gift bag filled with products from our sponsors

NOT READY TO LET THE PARTY END? - JOIN US FOR LUNCH AFTER THE EVENT!

To keep the party going a little longer, join the Silver Sirens team, speakers, and attendees for lunch. Meet incredible women at the conference and deepen your connection over lunch.

23 November 2024, 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Surry Rooftop, Rydges

Two-Course Gourmet Set Menu FOR $55

Book lunch here: https://www.silversirens.org/event-details/after-conference-lunch-surry-rooftop-rydges-central

Event Venue

Rydges Sydney Central, 28 Albion Street, Surry Hills, Australia