Our podcast guest today is herself a podcaster – Adriane Berg.

Adriane has a fascinating background and has spent much of her life in front of a camera, microphone or in a courtroom as a lawyer; radio presenter, and a tv presenter. She was a pioneer of elder law, worked on US syndicated radio and hosted one of the first money programmes on CNN.

Less than a year ago she and her husband of 52 years set up The Ageless Traveler, which is born out of Adriane’s passion for travel and wanting to make lifelong travel easier for us all. She strongly believes that travel, tourism brings us to life no matter what our age, and wants to enable people to continue to travel throughout their life.

She shares how she was involved in one of the first TV shows to talk about financial planning, helping people to learn how to save for their retirement. Although she doesn’t like the word ‘retirement’ as you’ll hear.

Adriane explains various things people can overcome – one being how other people impose their fears on you.

We talk about how technology can be used to enhance the Ageless Travelers’ experiences. We also discuss how the travel industry needs to wake up to the fact that there will be 1.6 billion trips taken by people over 60 in the next 25 years – yet the focus of marketing is generally aimed towards younger people.

You can contact Adriane on her website: https://agelesstraveler.com/
Her free eBooks:

https://CaregiversTravelGuide.com

https://luxurytravelforless.info

You can contact us at the following:

Dr Carol Sargent: https://sargentgroup.consulting/

Dr Tom Adler: https://getbide.com/

Our guest today is Louise Hunt Skelley PLY, a Paralympic wheelchair tennis athlete, who now has developed an exciting portfolio career. She is involved in a range of many different things, including commentary, tournament directing, consultancy, working with young people, and public speaking – all with a focus on disability, inclusion and sport.

Recently she has launched a new company, Enable Rise with another friend, Samantha Bullock, also a wheelchair tennis player. Louise talks about how their passion around inclusion in various areas made them realise they could join forces and work towards making everywhere inclusive.

Having been involved in sport from a young age, Louise talks about how taking part in tennis helped her socialise and made her feel both powerful and capable. Later it gave her opportunities to travel the world and meet other amazing people.

She talks about how her involvement in sport has opened many, many doors in her life in terms of her own confidence, but also in terms of raising her profile.

Louise also talks about her passion for tennis, explaining why she loves this sport specifically.

We talk about the gender gap in sport when Louise’s passion is that sport is for everyone. She thinks that boys and girls should have access to the range of all sports at school, from a young age; for example, not only girls play netball and only boys play football.

Whilst talking about the challenges involved in making sports more inclusive, we discuss how in fact people playing disabled sport need to have much broader skill sets to be able to play at an elite level. And then go on to talk about how these skills can be transferred to the workplace.

Louise explains very clearly what inclusion means to her; everyone should have the same experience, but for wheelchair users and people with disabilities, some adjustments need to be made. Therefore, it’s about managing a situation, so you get to the same outcome and the same experience.

You can contact us at the following:

Dr Carol Sargent: https://sargentgroup.consulting/
Dr Tom Adler: https://getbide.com/

You can contact Louise at:

Mobile: 07733021123
Email: louiseannhunt55@gmail.com
Website: www.louisehunt.co.uk
Linked in: Louise Hunt Skelley PLY

Today’s guest, Gavin Neate, joined Guide Dogs for the blind, where he served as a mobility instructor for 18 years. Previously, he had spent 10 years as a military policeman.

During his time working as a mobility instructor, where he worked on people’s independent mobility, he became very involved in the entire process of helping clients find ways to interact with society. He recognised the many day to day challenges facing people and he wanted to help find solutions to those issues.

We discuss how much of the problem solving should be left to the problem holders. Gavin talks about how history is full of people who have invented solutions that didn’t necessarily answer problems, therefore, when it comes to inventing solutions to help people with their mobility problems, it is crucial that they are involved.

His has great advice to young innovators who want to help people: dedication, commitment, belief and the ability to keep going even if you have to give everything up because you truly believe in what you’re doing.

Gavin’s innovation is the WelcoMe app. The font of the last two letters of the word are changed so that when reading it, people see it as, welcome me. The reason behind this is that when it comes to customer service, and interacting with other humans, disabled people often feel they aren’t welcome.

He talks about how as a mobility instructor he would run ahead of whichever venue his client was visiting and talk to the people in that venue – telling them how to welcome that client. He would give them 5 bits of information that meant when the client walked through the door, they felt welcomed into the venue, and that the venue understood their needs

The WelcoMe app means people can communicate with staff members before walking through the door of a venue.

We talked about our focus for this week being Disabled Access Day and asked Gavin why he thought we needed the day? Part of his answer was it should be every day, not just one day and he sees the day as one where you should be looking at what you’ve done in the past year and what you are planning to do this coming year.

You can contact us at the following:

Dr Carol Sargent: https://sargentgroup.consulting/

Dr Tom Adler: https://getbide.com/

You can contact Gavin at Website https://www.wel-co.me/

Links https://linktr.ee/welcome.cs

Gavin Neate https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-neate?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Our guest today, Anthony Blackburn has a passion for golf – but not just for playing the game… he has set up Golf in Society.

Starting his business six years ago, presently he has 23 venues where golf clubs are put at the heart of local communities. What that means is, they are open for people facing challenges later in life, for many different reasons and they are given a great day out at a local golf club. There are two and a half thousand golf clubs in the UK – imagine if those spaces could be used as national venues…

As an entrepreneur Anthony aims to have a network of age friendly golf venues across the UK, but at the moment they are mainly in the north and Scotland. The company have regional leads – people who organise the sessions in their area. These regional leads often come to Golf in Society after their first career – bringing their experience and talent with them.

Golf in Society not only support people with dementia, Parkinson’s, stroke, loneliness and mental health issues, but also gives unpaid carers a well-deserved respite break.

Anthony talks to us about how people underestimate golf, thinking of it as elitist, very expensive and a pastime for the middle-class. He is breaking down those perceptions and talks about its health and wellbeing benefits. Golf enhances strength, balance, grip, lets people enjoy the outdoors, provides fresh air, gives opportunities to socialize, respite care – and so much more.

We compare the current rate for respite care and other therapies to attending one of his Golf in Society sessions – you may be surprised at the positive outcome.

We also talk about transportation – which can be a huge barrier if you have a chronic illness – and how it is one of the challenges society needs to be overcome.

You can find Anthony on:
Website: https://golfinsociety.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-blackburn-37732a170/

You can contact us at the following:
Dr Carol Sargent: https://sargentgroup.consulting/
Dr Tom Adler: https://getbide.com/

Our guest on today’s podcast is Jane Cooper, the founder and managing director of Access and Inclusion UK. They help businesses and destinations to understand the type of challenges that people with disabilities or accessibility requirements might have, and importantly, give them solutions to overcome them, through training, or whatever solution is required – thus providing accessibility for all.

Jane’s passion for her company is based on her own personal experience – of having her eldest child, Megan, born with an extremely rare chromosomal condition, and then also being diagnosed as autistic. After coming to terms with her daughter’s condition and learning how to cope with a life that was suddenly completely different to the one she had expected, she moved away from her previous career and into the one she has now.

Jane shares with us that people with autism are not all exactly the same. Like the rest of us, everyone is individual, and how one person behaves is not necessarily how someone else will behave. She also points out another misconception – that learning disabilities and autism are not linked! You can be autistic and not have learning difficulties.

She does talk about how she finds the autistic world fascinating, because of all the different ways people can be affected. And as she explains this is why it’s so hard to give advice to parents of a child newly diagnosed with autism.

Jane talks very clearly about sensory stimulation and how some autistic people are overstimulated or under-stimulated by different things. And she also explains how she learnt to deal with her daughter’s meltdowns – which was the complete opposite of what she had expected to do!

This is a fascinating insight into living with someone with autism.

You can contact Jane via

Her website : https://accessandinclusion.com/
Email: jane@accessandinclusion.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-cooper-accessandinclusionuk/
X: @accessandincuk

You can contact us at the following:

Dr Carol Sargent: https://sargentgroup.consulting/
Dr Tom Adler: https://getbide.com/

Our guests today are Felicity and David Brown, who own Hoe Grange Holidays in the Peak District and they talk to us about how over the last 17 years they have built an award winning all-inclusive holiday business from scratch on the farm that has been in David’s family since the 1930s.

David talks about how his father, in the 70s, had considered having log cabins on his farm to have holiday guests, but the council weren’t interested. Having taken on the farm and needing to diversify, David and Felicity revisited the idea of log cabins, and after research identified a massive hole in the market for accessible properties. Because they were building from scratch they were able to build the facilities that were needed in a very cost effective way.

They started with 2 cabins, and gradually built up the business. The successful development of their business is down to their ability to listen to people and find out from their guests what their needs were. Over time, they have also built up the various types of special equipment needed and when they have several people ask about something, that’s when they consider adding it to their business.

Originally the farm was a commercial dairy farm, but in 2009 they took the decision to extend their number of cabins and they sold their dairy herd. Their business now is incredibly diverse. Holiday visitors include people who have disabilities, people with autism, dementia and other disabilities, as well as many multigenerational holiday guests, romantic couples or even a bring your own horse on holiday opportunity.

Hearing them both talk, the passion they have for their business is obvious and it becomes obvious that their attitude of listening and developing with their customers has been a huge part of their success.

This podcast is also a must for anyone who is considering setting up a successful inclusive holiday business.

You can find David and Felicity on:

Website: https://www.hoegrangeholidays.co.uk/accessible-holidays-peak-district/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoeGrangeHolidays
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hoegrangeholidays/

You can contact us at the following:

Dr Carol Sargent: https://sargentgroup.consulting/
Dr Tom Adler: https://getbide.com/

In terms of inclusivity, Billal shares his passion and thoughts about how much better the world would be if everyone, from all backgrounds, cultures and societies could articulately voice their thoughts to mass audiences in a clear way. Public speaking shouldn’t be just something for the elite. We also talk about the issues that sometimes arise for those who are aging, are living with dementia and long term conditions, or are from ethnic minority communities when it comes to being heard.

He talks about how having allergies as a boy growing up, and now, he often has to carry his pens around with him in his jacket, as he doesn’t always carry a bag. For other allergy sufferers, there are often issues with their epi pens being out of date, and some also suffer mental health issues because of their constant worry about having an allergic attack. Living with allergies means you are often excluded from social occasions too. It was these various things that pushed him into creating the Kitt Medical

Zak’s dream is that Kitts will be found in any building; schools, tubes, transport hubs, restaurants, hotels, stadiums, offices etc – schools are just the starting point.

Our conversation with Zak, who is passionate about his work, covers travel, and also the importance of having good friends who understand your allergy.

Website:Www.kittmedical.co.uk

You can contact us at the following: