[ Return ]

Wendy Brown: Keeping our older generation mobile and independent through regular exercise

April 17th, 2012
By David Armstrong

Being the longest standing employee at the Recreation Centre and for nine years a shelf stacker at New World supermarket, Wendy Brown must be one of the best known people in Motueka. For what she does to help our older people stay fit, she is probably one of the best loved as well.

Wendy is passionate about exercise, sport and keeping fit. With her family of four boys now gone from the family nest, keeping on the move and pushing her body further is what keeps Wendy in love with life.

A lot of work has gone in to get to the point where she is now responsible for many of the weekly programmes on offer at the Rec Centre. After all, she began work there 18 years ago as a part-time cleaner. What she says was an "addiction to aerobics" hooked her into striving for other work there.

Wendy was born in Tauranga in 1960 and raised by adoptive parents on farms in the Bay of Plenty. There's a complicated family tale that could be told there, but Wendy says it would take too long. Although at that time not at all sporty, she loved school because of the friends she made and the things she was learning, particularly about geography, social studies and biology.

"I loved learning about other countries and people," she recalls. "I read lots about the animal kingdom. They were my passion." She had lots of farm pets, her rather unconventional favourite being a large white pet boar.

With a large extended family around, those were happy times for Wendy.

When she was 14 the family moved to Christchurch and Wendy began studies at the Polytech for secretarial skills. At the time her goal was to study until age 17 and then training to be a policewoman. In the meantime she worked part-time as a trainee social worker at the Shiloah Trust which worked with drug and alcohol addicts.

The work involved visits to the men's prison, which "was a big eye-opener for a 17-year-old", she says. "It was a bit scary the first time I went in because they were all whistling and carrying on and I felt vulnerable - though I was accompanied - but having said that, I did enjoy the work."

She did this for about two years, during which she met her husband Hamish who also worked at Shiloah. By this time she had become more serious about joining the police so she started getting physically fitter.

When she was 19, everything changed for Wendy. Her mother, burnt out from social work, had moved to Motueka for a six-month break so she and Hamish came here to stay with her. Mum decided to stay on permanently and so did Wendy and Hamish.

After doing seasonal work for a while, the two finally married in 1981 and had four children. Life for the next 12 years for Wendy was focussed on raising the boys, with ages separated by eight years. Then when the youngest was three, Wendy was offered the cleaning job for two hours a week at the Recreation Centre.

"The reason they offered me the job was because I was always here [at the Centre] at their classes. I was probably taking part in up to eight aerobics classes a week. I loved it, getting fit.

"At that time I was probably one of the least fit people you could possibly meet, but I got addicted to aerobics. I just loved doing it."

In time Wendy was offered more hours at the Centre, with the idea that she could teach the Sit-and-be-Fit classes for exercise for elderly people. She started to become more involved in several programmes as staff left or had leave, and she decided it was time to become qualified.

She took a year off in 2004 to gain the full-time Fitness and Exercise Science certificate at NMIT in Nelson. Although it involved some financially stretched times for the family, she says she loved it.

"I would have done more if it hadn't been for the financial side. It was a very hard year, with three boys still at high school. But I knew I had to focus on my studies and pass. And I did," she laughs.

Since then Wendy has been busy getting several programmes up and running on a more permanent basis. Programmes are run and funded only if enough people attend them, so it is a constant challenge to make them appealing to people in the community.

Those in Wendy's purview include Sit N Be Fit, Silver Sneakers (for older people who have had falls), Move to Music, Indoor Walking Group, Easy Ride for 60-plus, and Drop-in Badminton. At present these occupy her for 30 hours a week.

"I enjoy working with older people because I feel helping them with exercise is needed," she says. "I get more satisfaction out of doing that than I do working in the gym as a trainer. Older people appreciate it and need it more. Exercise for them is important for our community."

She also helps run the social programme held by the neighbouring Weka House for the 60-plus group, which also involves her driving the minivan to pick up group members from rest homes and residences.

Working at the Recreation Centre for so long means she knows a lot of Motueka people, and this is compounded by the fact that for the past nine years - since she had to earn some extra money during her year off studying - she's been a fixture at the New World supermarket on afternoons and evenings. Shoppers there often stop to talk or ask information about programmes at the Centre.

The combination of the two jobs means she is working a total of about 60 hours a week. She admits that at some stage she will have to cut one of her jobs, but not yet. Right now she's really enjoying the challenge.

Personally, she's into her sports even more than ever now. She still attends aerobics classes as a customer and has gym sessions. And she's started running again, taking on longer distances and taking part in local events such as the Kaiteriteri 10k and Run Mahana races.

Over the years she has played several team/ball sports including touch for about 10 years, soccer and league. Soccer was her favourite until she damaged her knee and underwent surgery. But she never had the physical size and presence to make it in league.

Wendy's goals now are to further cement the programmes she has built at the Rec Centre, to do more running, and to enjoy her four grandchildren, two of whom are in Motueka.

 
[ Return ]