THE independent seniors at Eureka Shepparton Gardens rental village have put out the welcome mat to new on-site managers, David and Michele Evans. David and Michele have taken over the management reins of the 69-unit village after managing senior’s villages in Geelong for the past decade.
The duo are no strangers to the Shepparton community with the couple having lived in the region for 30 years, before moving to Geelong to embark on a new career path managing retirement villages.
During their time in Geelong where they managed three large retirement villages, David became a popular and welcome face amongst seniors for not only his caring management style, but also for his quick wit and genuine interest in swapping yarns with many elderly residents.
“Everyone has an interesting story and I find chatting to seniors so rewarding. You don’t get to 70, 80 or 90 years-of-age without having a good yarn or interesting backstory about your life.”
Curious by nature, David also has an interesting backlog of yarns from his diverse career that included being ‘tossed and flung’ around the country as a professional bull rider leading him to being asked to compete in the USA; through to working at SPC and Stuart’s Smallgoods in Shepparton, followed by a long-time career with the Shell Company where he worked his way up the ranks to become Shell’s area manager for Victoria and New South Wales.
David said, “As a younger fella, it was great at the time and allowed me to travel extensively but it is a young man’s game and the profession didn’t attract the sponsorship rewards that it does today, so moving to the USA really wasn’t an option for me then.
“I think my early days of bull riding have shaped my career path where nothing is impossible if you take the ‘bull by the horns;’ pun intended.”
David and Michele made the move back to Shepparton as they always loved living in the area so when the opportunity arose to manage Eureka Shepparton Gardens, they didn’t hesitate.
David said, “We were keen to manage a smaller village that was geared towards independent seniors who could choose to live as independently as they liked and Eureka ticked all those boxes.
“As Eureka is a rental village that caters for independent seniors who do not own their own homes, I believe it fills an important void over traditional retirement villages where residents need to buy into a village. There are very few independent seniors villages that offer rental units and Michele and I both feel very passionate about being able to help fill a much needed gap in Australia’s rental housing sector focusing on seniors.”
