Australians are now recognised worldwide as the most enterprising and most travelled executives in the aged care and retirement village sectors, thanks to Judy Martin and SAGE.

Her SAGE educational tours, which is a company jointly owned by ACSA, LASA and Thomson Adsett, builds one off educational tours of other countries for executives. The objective is to seek new village and care opportunities internationally or to expose executives to alternative business models and ideas.

Over the past three years she has hosted tours in China, USA, UK, Europe and Scandinavia. We are now in South Africa.

The delegates range from Not For Profit and private CEOs to Residential Operations Managers to Chairmen of public companies.

Partnerships with operators, local governments and service providors are being formed.

Operators are leveraging our mature legislation and operating systems, along with our time zone, which is accessible to many underdeveloped countries.

Over seven days here in South Africa nine facilities have been visited across two cities (Durban and Cape Town) plus remote towns and villages. Over 600 kilometres have been travelled by coach.

Along the SAGE journey fund raising has also developed to help people in real need. Photographed is Judy Martin and Andrew Larpent (CEO, Southern Cross Care SA & NT) with a linen press donated to Emsini care facility 300kl from Durban – funds raised in a chook raffle, plus water tanks paid by SAGE delegates.

Recognising the Australian impact on the international care scene, the International Association of Homes and Services for the Ageing (IAHSA) will be staging its next international conference in Perth next year in conjunction with the ACSA National Conference. Their last venue was Beijing. (IAHSA President Margie Van Zyl is next to Judy in both photos).