CARP membership was in decline when Eric Vengroff, son-in-law of Lillian and Murray Morgenthaus, who had run it for years, approached Znaimer in 2007 to take it over. Members had come to look to CARP for three simple ABCs, says Vengroff: advocacy, benefits (discounts on insurance, entertainment and other products) and community (in the form of social events organized by the chapters).
While the recession has made the goal of growing membership difficult (the membership/magazine package costs $34.95 a year), it has now stabilized and a major push will be launched soon via ZoomerMedia products, says Vengroff, the general manager. Most importantly, the average age of membership has dropped from about 80 to mid-60s, Znaimer says.
“I’m personally energized and extremely optimistic about our future now that all the pieces are in place,” says Vengroff. “We’re positioned to really make a significant impact on the Canadian landscape as an advocacy organization.”
Some politicians agree.
“CARP has always been a great organization, but I think that Moses has contemporized it,” says Progressive Conservative MP Peter Kent during a drop-in at Znaimer’s Parliament Hill reception. “I think that CARP in its previous incarnation was much less dynamic and relevant to today’s seniors than it is in its zoomered makeover.”
MP Judy Sgro, the Liberals’ seniors and pensions critic, believes it’s only a matter of time before Znaimer makes CARP as ethnically diverse as he famously made Citytv.
But he has miffed some smaller, volunteer-based seniors groups who are also lobbying for change and fear they will be overshadowed by the Zoomer machine, she says.
This seems to come as a shock to Znaimer: “They all want to be part of this,” he says, “I’m the solution they dream about.”
If advocates for aging issues have one concern, it’s that Znaimer is compromising CARP’s ability to speak freely because of marketing and advertising commitments made by the for-profit Zoomer, which racks up thousands fromanti-aging creams and other products that treat aging like a disease.
“Whenever there’s a change in the way things are done it ruffles feathers,” says Colin Milner, head of the Vancouver-based International Council on Active Aging. “I think ‘zoomer’ is an asinine term, but I have to applaud him because it’s a marketing term that’s getting him attention and changing the way society perceives aging for the positive.
“At the end of the day, Moses Znaimer is trying to make aging sexy and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. The reality is, why shouldn’t it be?”
Susan Pigg focuses on issues about aging and baby boomers.
Keywords: seniors, boomers
