How to run a computer club for an over 55 senior community

I did not fully appreciate the difficulties I would face when I volunteered to help form a "computer club" at our over-55 retirement community. The lessons I learned from this may be applicable to anyone forming a club where age and skill levels are mixed, but seniors and computers do present specific issues.

An over 55 community spans multiple generations. There are people in their 40's (younger spouses of 55 year olds) and of course some well into their 80's or 90's. Their knowledge of technology will therefore vary widely. The first personal computers arrived in the mid 1970's, were common in business use by the early 1980's, but did not reach home users in great numbers until the mid to late 1990's. Many who are now in their "senior years" may never have even seen a personal computer until they were well into adulthood.

This doesn't necessarily mean that people with gray hair never learned anything about computers, email or the internet. Some may not have, but many others may have learned at work or simply because they purchased computers for their young children.

For example, I am almost 64, but was an early adopter in 1977 because I needed something more powerful than a calculator for my business use. I bought my first computer then, taught myself programming and went on to later change my business to computer programming and support. Other folks who are now seniors followed similar paths.

Of course there are some who managed to avoid any contact with this technology. Most would be a bit older; their careers and child rearing years may have been close to completion as personal computers became popular.

Computer Club

The mixture of exposure and knowledge means that a general membership computer club aimed at seniors is particularly challenging. Expectations will vary widely; some members will expect a very basic level and some will expect much more advanced topics.

Instruction vs. conversation

In any computer club, a basic question is whether the meetings will be instructional or conversational. An instructional format might be hands on or presented as a lecture.

Without a computer lab, a hands on format would be difficult. You cannot depend upon all interested members having laptop computers to bring to a class, so the lecture format may be the only choice. It was my choice for the first meeting I led.

I chose the topic of "Email". The meeting was well attended and I launched into my lecture with enthusiasm. Of course I expected that my audience would have varying degrees of knowledge and I thought I had tailored my presentation to provide a little bit for everyone - some very basic advice mixed in with a few more advanced tips.

I suspect I lost half my audience almost instantly. What I thought was "basic" was completely outside of their comfort zone. My advanced tips were met with complete bewilderment. A few people were interested, but most of the faces I saw at that very first meeting have never been seen again.

In hindsight, I should have adopted a conversational style. I began doing that in later meetings and have found it to be much more successful with a mixed ability group. We set a topic, I give a brief introductory lecture and then open up to questions and discussions. When someone is having difficulty with a very basic concept, I ask one of our more experienced members to take them in hand and work directly with them while the rest of us continue our conversation.

This format works better. The mid level remains interested in the conversation, while those who need basic help get it from more experienced members and those more advanced members enjoy helping. However, we have never recovered the attendance level of the first meeting where a number of hopeful neophytes were scared away by subject matter that was too advanced.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes the questions are actually more in the area of troubleshooting - computer problems more than computer questions.

We found that troubleshooting issues sometimes demanded too much time. Our resident experts were getting bogged down trying to solve problems for intermediate users and this would cut into the time we had wanted to devote to a particular subject.

At first we tried setting aside the first half hour specifically for troubleshooting, but that isn't always enough time. We therefore decided to set aside an entirely different night for troubleshooting only.

At those special meetings, a few of our more skilled users show up and anyone else is invited to stop in with their problems and questions. We offer this service to the general community, not just members of the club.

Attendance is variable at these troubleshooting meetings. There have been times where we have had more people than we could handle and other times where no one showed up at all. Those no-show meetings are an opportunity for the helper volunteers to discuss more advanced subjects and to plan future meetings, so we do not mind that at all.

Outside experts

We have invited local computer shops to visit us. We offered to let them talk about any subject they want for any length of time. To my surprise, only one took us up on that offer. That shop has visited us several times and has benefited because members bring repairs to them and sometimes have purchased new computers from their shop.

We also refer more difficult troubleshooting problems to them - we are not always willing or able to fix every issue brought to us.

Learning from mistakes

In retrospect, I would have done this differently. I would have first approached a small group of more knowledgable people to enlist them as the resident experts ready to help other members. At our first open meeting, I would have had the expert users salted at strategic locations and would have used the conversational format with no specific subject matter other than "What do you hope to gain from this club?".

I'm sure we still would have lost some. It is extremely difficult to keep everyones interest when skill levels vary so widely. However, that approach would have been less jarring for many.

As noted at the beginning, the lessons learned are probably useful for any technology oriented club where age and experience vary. A "camera club" that tried to form at around the same time as our computer club soon broke up and that may have been because of the same sorts of problems we have experienced in our club.

Overcoming feelings of intimidation, fear of looking "dumb" and natural confusion is another challenge. Because of my early mistakes, we may never be able to coax some people back into what is now a less threatening environment.

There is also the problem of the more advanced people who don't feel comfortable being one of the helping "experts" but are still looking for more learning opportunities. It's all too easy to bore these people if you pay too much attention to the neophytes.

No solution is perfect, but we are learning and improving. If you have faced similar challenges in a club, I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments.