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, Estate and Long Term Care Planning, 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. Please join us for another exciting NEST Speaker series! All programs will be held at the Homer E. Wright Event Center and are open to all St. James residents.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025 - 3:00-4:30 pm
Speaker: Jeff Moss, College H.U.N.K.S.
It is easy to wonder what life may be like after you move here, leave friends and family, retire, lose a spouse or partner, become medically compromised or otherwise challenged. Navigating this next chapter may present opportunities you never expected. Jeff Moss, our speaker, was a former combat helicopter pilot and veteran, as well as a corporate executive, entrepreneur, and author who will show us how to use an inspiring eye in creating a new path for this next chapter! Change is constant and not to be feared but embraced. Hear about his amazing life experiences and how they shaped his journey.
From this session you will learn to:
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Define resilience
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Identify your legacy
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Put gratitude first
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View life through different lenses
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Learn the lessons of the "Savannah Bananas”
This will be an energetic, humorous and thought-provoking session filled with tips on how you can live your best life and create a legacy for you, your family and community! For anyone living in St James this is an exciting and timely session filled with great information to assist you in navigating change!
The Mind Body Connection to Health and Wellness
Monday, November 17, 2025 - 3:00-4:30 pm
Speaker: Nasrin Falsafi, PhD, RN, Mind, Body & Soul Holistic Therapies
Health is one pillar to remaining active, present and fit for the next chapter in our lives. You may have heard or read that a strong Mind-Body connection is foundational to our health. The stronger you make this connection the healthier you become. Like almost everything related to health and wellness, it must be practiced on a daily basis. A strong Mind-Body connection should be embraced and have a clear routine. Come learn how to strengthen your connection though daily practice.
From this session you will learn:
- The often-overlooked importance and benefits of a strong Mind-Body connection
- The impact of stress on the Mind-Body connection
- The Mind-Body connection and physical activity
- How to incorporate Mind-Body connections into a daily routine
Come to this meaningful and insightful presentation from a fellow St. James resident and healthcare professional on how to strengthen your Mind-Body connection! These simple tips will assist you in living your best life while focused on your health!
Advanced Medical Directives: Guidance for Loved Ones and Peace of Mind for You
Tuesday, January 20, 2026 - 3:00-4:30 pm
Speaker: Dr. Cyril Barch, MD
Medical decision making at age 50 can look quite different than medical decision making at age 70. While this can be an uncomfortable discussion, making sure your medical agent understands your wishes is key to peace of mind and reduces family conflict and guilt. Many people do not realize that Advanced Medical Directive documents are dynamic in nature depending upon life circumstance. These directives need to be revisited regularly as relationships change, people move, and personal situations change.
This presentation will show you how to look at previous Advanced Medical Directives, and make sure they remain relevant to your current situation. It will also be useful for those who have not had this discussion to formulate a plan for peace of mind. That way your inner circle will be updated, informed, prepared, and able to fulfill your wishes.
From this presentation you will learn to:
- Identify or reconfirm a medical agent
- Examine where you are today…what has changed?
- Define the elements included in Advanced Medical Directives
- Eliminate family conflict and guilt
- Review these documents periodically
This will be a thought-provoking discussion centered around identifying the best medical directives that align with individual needs and values, as well as an important refresh for those with directives and an important beginning step for those who have not completed the Advanced Medical Directives document.
Estate and Long Term Care Planning
Tuesday, March 24, 2026 - 3:00-4:30 pm
Speaker: Kara Gansmann, Esq., Cranfill Sumner, LLP
Estate planning provides peace of mind for handling your assets when you are no longer alive or capable of handling assets yourself. A comprehensive estate plan may encompass a broad range of legal strategies, including wills, trusts, and powers of attorney for finances or health. Estate plans focused on asset protection may often be geared toward planning for long-term care needs. Asset protection plans may involve deed transfers, protective trusts, or promissory notes to preserve assets. Planning for any long-term care is a gift that you and your loved ones will appreciate.
Get more information about these important topics from an experienced Elder Law attorney. This session will help you:
- Understand essential estate planning tools, asset protection and long-term care planning
- Powers of Attorney and how to determine if yours is “hot” enough
- Wills versus Trusts and determining which one makes the most sense for you
- How estate plans from out of state impact you in North Carolina
- The best steps to take now to protect your assets for long term care
- How to find and pay for quality long term care
This program is back by popular demand - you won't want to miss this important and informative program!
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!