"How Understanding Your Brain Can Empower Your Life"

On a recent November afternoon, RiverWoods Fitness sponsored an interactive program for RiverWoods residents called, “How Understanding Your Brain Can Empower Your Life.” Dr. Rutledge and Dr. Walker had a full house and focused attention for over an hour.

The write up of this program has been prepared by Heidi Savage, RiverWoods Fitness Manager, and the photographs have been supplied by Bob Jones.

Dr. Rob Rutledge along with Dr. Tim Walker, co-author of, “The Healing Circle: Integrating Science, Wisdom and Compassion in Reclaiming Wholeness on the Cancer Journey” led an engaging discussion on brain science, coping with the challenges of chronic disease and pain, meditation, mindfulness and how we can empower ourselves to overcome our natural instincts and set an intention every day to live our best life today. Three autographed copies have been obtained for the three campus libraries.

RiverWoods Fitness hopes to have them back again in the future.

Some key elements of the presentation included: 

The women and men who founded RiverWoods all had long histories of community service. They understood the principles of service to others, and wove that into our founding commitments “To be a responsible community that participates in the life of the larger community around it”. One of the many ways RiverWoods carries on that tradition is through our scholarship program, now in its ninth year.

Since the RiverWoods scholarship program inception, RiverWoods has granted 40 scholarships for a total of $83,000. This year, RiverWoods provided nine scholarships totaling $24,800 for our ninth annual student scholarship awards.

These photos were taken during a hiking trip up South Mountain. This was the second mountain hike in as many months with RiverWoods at Exeter residents and staff. The hike was about a mile and a half and when they reached the top of the mountain (elevation 908 feet) the group reflected on their favorite parts of the day.

It's been a busy Presidential Primary season at RiverWoods! The RiverWoods Resident Voter Information Committee invited all of the presidential candidates to speak and field questions from residents.

Recently, Anne Adams, daughter of Tom and Mimi Adams of the Ridge came to Boulders Hall to tell us about her career in television in a program entitled. "Behind the Scenes at CNN and WGBH".

Anne started her presentation by telling us that from the age of 10 she wanted to be in TV, but behind the camera not in front of it. Her dream came true when she received a call from CNN to be part of their new 24 hour news program. Many were saying that 24 hour news would not work. But they made it work learning on the job in 15 hour days.

A big breakthrough for CNN came with the live reporting from Beijing during the Tienanmen uprising. The team in Beijing were reporting from a hotel room utilizing a satellite phone hookup while Anne was part of the team back in Atlanta. Utilizing photos and film clips Anne took us through those harrowing days when the crisis was unfolding on the square and the Chinese authorities were working to shut them down.

As part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the 'RiverWoods Mission Possible' walkers joined more than 1000 other local walkers earlier this month for the annual "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" fundraiser. The three mile walk through Exeter raised more than $110,000 with the RiverWoods walkers raising just over $2,200 for the fight against breast cancer.

At this years wine tasting with Nelson Barber, Associate Professor Department of Hospitality Management Peter T. Paul School of Business and Economics at UNH, we took a "Tour of France".

Dr. Barber has focused his toward understanding consumer behavior and decision theory (demand side research), with particular attention to wine, wine tourism, and the environment. He has published numerous articles in such journals as the Tourism and Hospitality Research, Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management, International Journal of Wine Research, and the Journal of Consumer Marketing, among others. Dr. Barber is a member of the Council of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (CHRIE), the Society of Consumer Psychology (SCP), and the European Wine Economists society.

RiverWoods resident Bill Romaine celebrated his 94th birthday by going out to Hampton Airfield to make a flight where he has been flying a light plane since he moved to RiverWoods. Bill is no longer allowed to solo, so he flies with an instructor, Bob, as co-pilot. However Bill does do all the flying from takeoff to landing.

Bill told me that he learned to fly sometime in the 80s when he built an ultralight with a one cylinder engine. To hear Bill tell it he learned to fly at the Minute Man Airfield in Stow Mass. by “Crow Hopping” his ultralight down the runway, much to the consternation of the man who sold him the kit, until he got the hang of it and finally made a flight around the airport, and in his words, somehow landed. Later he purchased an ultralight with a bigger engine and flew it a great deal.

Jane Kelly of Epping, a licensed raptor rehabilitator recently came to RiverWoods to share her story, and show three of her raptors. She was introduced by Carolie Martin of the Education Committee who arranged for Jane's RiverWoods visit.

Jane brought a Eastern Screech Owl, a Barn Owl and a Great Horned Owl.

She became interested in raptor recovery after seeing a large number of raptors killed or severely injured along Route 101 in a one month period.