Vickie McLennan, Catherine Liscumb and Beryl Croft enjoy lunch at Manitoulin Lodge's Red Hat meeting.
Manitoulin Lodge hosts Red Hat meeting
Wednesday September 19, 2007 -- Deron Hamel
Sixteen residents at Manitoulin Lodge have officially registered as members of the Red Hat Society. The ladies recently had two Sudbury chapters of the society visit the Gore Bay long-term care home for a meeting.

In June, the home’s activity director Gloria Hall was at the Relay for Life fundraiser for cancer research at Sudbury’s Laurentian University when she started a casual conversation with a woman who turned out to be a member of a Red Hat Society chapter in the city.

During their conversation, Hall asked the woman if she and her group would be interested in making a trek to Manitoulin Lodge to visit with the home’s Red Hat group, which is called the Red Hot Grannies.

“I said to her, ‘Wouldn’t that be nice if your group could come and visit with us some time,’” says Hall, who serves as the group’s leader, also called queen mother.

“At the end of June I had an e-mail from her saying that they would like to come over.”

Another Red Had group from Sudbury decided to tag along. The three chapters then met for tea at Manitoulin Lodge.

All told, there were 12 ladies from the two groups who came to the home. The Sudbury chapters did a hat fashion show for the Manitoulin ladies, who range in age from 72 to 98.

“They all talked about their hats and we told a few stories,” says Hall, adding the event was an excellent social function for the residents.

The Red Hat Society was formed in Fullerton, California, in 1998 by Sue Ellen Cooper. The society, which has about 1.5 million members in more than 30 countries, is a social club for ladies over 50. Members wear red hats and purple clothing to society gatherings.

The Manitoulin Lodge chapter began in April with ladies donning red baseball caps. But when a Toronto-area Zellers recently began to sell out its summer stock, a family member went down and brought back red ladies’ hats for the members.

“So then we retired our baseball caps,” says Hall.