A Perfect Fit: Lindsay and Jacqui’s Move to RSL LifeCare Nowra Community

“Downsizing is often a challenging prospect for many people our age. For over a decade, we had enjoyed living in a wonderful home in Nowra, built in 1900, standing on a 1200 sq. mtr block. How were we ever going to find anything that would even come close to matching this home?

In 2021, My husband Lindsay’s mum, who had lived with us since 2011, was accepted for some respite care at the wonderful RSL LifeCare Jonathan Rogers GC Home in Nowra, eventually becoming a permanent resident. When we first visited the home with mum, we happened to notice some buildings just up the road. On enquiring, we were told these were the first stage of a new development for an over 55’s Retirement Village.

At this same time, our daughter and grandchildren had decided to make the move to Queensland, so would not be able to visit us for school holidays. What were we to do with a huge house and huge garden? Then, we were reminded that the fact we had seen these villas was by no mistake, and so our journey to downsize started to become a reality! We placed a deposit on one of the villas there and found out we would be the very first residents of the village.

The rate at which things moved forward from this point was amazing! We sold our house in a matter of weeks in June 2021 and moved into our new home in RSL LifeCare Dumaresq Retirement Village in July 2021. It was obviously meant to be.

Once a few more residents made Dumaresq Retirement Village their home, we established a residents’ group and held our first meeting in March 2023. This became a regular occurrence and involved the village manager. Fast forward to 2024 and we now have a more formal committee, the Dumaresq Village Residents Committee with hubby Lindsay elected as Chair, me elected as Secretary and Vern Donaldson, a resident on Squirrel Way, as Deputy Chair. This committee is committed to working hard to make sure every resident has a voice and to move residents’ issues along through the RSL LifeCare organisation chain when and where necessary.

There are now 39 villas and a beautiful fully renovated mid-1800’s heritage protected house, Nowra House, now used as the residents community hub with administration centre upstairs, We are blessed to have such a wonderful space to meet as this is one of the original houses in Nowra and perhaps the oldest building in Nowra, set on the highest point in Nowra we believe.

We could not be happier. Having worked with a few village managers in three years of living here, we now have an amazing Village Manager, Michelle Riley. She works hard to ensure that the day to day running of the village is kept on track, working with senior RSL LifeCare management with such things as gardening, general maintenance, and other related matters.

We cannot recommend this way of living highly enough to anyone thinking of moving to a retirement village. We retired from work but not from life! We are loving life now and living the dream.” – Mr Lindsay & Mrs Jacqui Burke, RSL LifeCare residents.

Interested in joining our community? Enquire about our remaining villas today!