DIFFICULTIES IN BRIDGING AGE AND GEOGRAPHIC GAPS

    As a team member she was critical of the training. She felt it was too general for the projects they had chosen, though she recognized that it was hard to appeal to all the different age groups. What worked for older people sometimes left the young people adrift. Her son attended two sessions and dropped out. Unlike some other clusters, the teams did not have meetings to get to know each other before the training started. Since the teams were thematically organized rather than by geography, people found themselves sitting with strangers through a series of lectures and not having time to deepen personal relationships. Nancy had joined the health group run by Cindy Halfen who worked in the clinic near the Servite Center. This group was all women, and the original goal, supported by Nancy, was to focus on women's health issues. However, later they decided to be more ecumenical and not focus just on women. There were three parts to the health project: parish nursing, support groups that used video conferencing, and alternative medicine.