Chas Jacobsen returned to the LEADERS SUMMIT this year to provide an open and engaging discussion on how the retirement village world had significantly changed in the past 12 months. Today ‘care’ is both vital for a village to be successful and represents a significant opportunity.
He has 800 residents in his The Village Glen in Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula. Five years ago he had 15 staff; today he has 265.
Chas has had to build a 160 bed care facility and boost care support in the retirement village to remain relevant to the ‘new’ customer.
He says the Living Longer Living Better legislation will only strengthen retirement villages, especially with the introduction of Consumer Directed Care; customer services offered residents will only increase.
Retirement village operators have to innovate. He announced they are researching obtaining home care packages as a consortium of regional village operators to deliver into local villages. He will donate his profit back into the village operations to keep the fortnightly fees down below 30% – his benchmark maximum fee. To do otherwise he described as both greedy and driving away the core market of pensioners.
Last year the $400,000 profit made from his embedded village electricity network was donated back, which equated to $67 per month per resident saving on their village fees.
