BMI opens up to celebrate seniors

THE start of October marks the Victorian Seniors Festival and there’s a range of events on offer across Ballarat and the region.

The theme of this year’s festival is ‘learn, live, love’ with the aim of celebrating new things and embracing new experiences.

Throughout the statewide festival there’ll be a range of events and seniors card holders will be able to travel on public transport for free from Sunday 1 October to Sunday 8 October.

As part of the festival that Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute will be hosting day tours on Wednesday 4 October from 10.30am until 2.30pm.

Knowledgeable guides will share the history of the Institute and the people who have performed there.

“We have three volunteers who will take the tours and between the three of them they have this vast array of knowledge,” said Katrina Hill, events officer at the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute.

“Their seniors themselves so they’ll know exactly what seniors want to know which is wonderful.”

Participants will get to see a range of different areas of the building and their historical aspects.

“The tours take an hour and people can walk around and look at the Ballarat Heritage Library where we have some books that are over 500 years old and some that are very rare,” said Ms Hill.

“We also have basement filled with witch marks which is awesome and a real talking point and they’ll also get to see our beautiful theatre.”

Ms Hill said it was exciting to be a part of this year’s festival.

“I think it’s important we get involved with the Seniors Festival as the majority of our library subscribers are seniors,” she said.

“Those seniors keep as alive to we want to repay them.”

For the full festival program visit bit.ly/455tdOs.