2025-2026 Speaker Series

Navigating Your Next Chapter

The theme is “Navigating Your Next Chapter” for the 2025-2026 St. James NEST Speaker Series.  Our purpose is to provide services and support to St. James' residents to enhance your ability to make 'aging in place' a reality. Each year NEST supports that goal with current topics the community will find valuable and interesting.  This year’s topics include: The Gift of Perspective, The Mind/Body Connection, Ensuring Your Wishes are Honored with Advanced Medical Directives, and Smart Living Made Simple: Enhancing Daily Life with Home Technology. We have a great line up of speakers this year who are knowledgeable in their respective topics. All programs will be held at the Homer E. Wright Event Center and are open to all St. James residents.

Smart Living Made Simple:  Enhancing Daily Life with Home Technology

Tuesday, May 19, 2026 - 3:00-4:30 pm

Speaker:  Chris Hudson, Connected Home, Inc.

Have you ever fumbled with a light switch in the dark wishing it would just turn on so you do not fall? Worried that you forgot to lock the door or close the garage before you left for the day? Wondering about “Smart Home” Technology and what it all means? Feel like it is overwhelming to learn?

Discover how smart home technology will provide you with safe, simple and a more enjoyable daily living experience. This session will introduce user friendly, easy solutions like automated lights, climate controls, voice assistance, and home security. These technologies are customized to support your independence, safety, comfort, travel schedule, and overall peace of mind. This session is designed to boost your confidence in operating and accessing available technology today.

Real life examples to make you safer in your home and solutions will be demonstrated during this presentation. You will learn how smart home technologies will complement your current lifestyle regardless of your level of technical knowledge and confidence.

From this session you will:

• Learn the benefits of smart home technology in daily living
• Explore the technology and learn what solutions are available for retirees living independently
• Improve your confidence in the use of smart home technology
• Eliminate any confusion in selecting which technology would benefit you at home
• Enhance your lifestyle through smart home technology designed for your safety, comfort, and peace of mind when you are home or traveling

This session is about making your home work best for you and not about you becoming a technology expert. Come learn what devices may work for you, how to get them working together! Smart home devices can run from lights, thermostats, and cameras, to medication reminders and safety alerts and emergency responses. Please attend this one of a kind session to understand your options in smart home technology today!

Please plan to arrive a few minutes early such that the program can begin on time. The program is FREE to attend, but we strongly suggest you pre-register due to limited seating capacity, in order to ensure you are able to participate.

Please register by clicking on the Registration button, or via the Help Desk at (910)250-8388. Registration closes on May 18th at 12 noon. 

In case you cannot attend, following each event, the materials and recording of the presentation will be posted on the 2025-2026 Speaker Series page, under the Events tab on the website.