The Senior Pen Pal Club

No, unfortunately we’re unable to accept individual registrations for security reasons. At this stage, Senior Pen Pal Club is only open to organisations.

The Senior Pen Pal Club is open to all organisations that cater to over 55s. For example:

• Aged care homes
• Nursing homes
• Retirement villages
• Seniors citizen clubs
• Probus clubs
• U3A centres
   

Anyone currently associated by an organisation catering to over 55s in Australia can register.

When you submit your application, you should receive an email confirmation. If you haven’t received your email after a few hours, please contact SeniorPenPal@auspost.com.au.

No. Each centre or organisation can only be registered once, unless they need to be re-matched.

There’s no cost in registering. The only cost involved is for sending letters. The staff member, resident or volunteer facilitating the program can choose if all letters are sent altogether to be distributed at once or sent individually to each pen pal.

The Senior Pen Pal Club is an ongoing program open for registrations all year round.

No, the program is only available in Australia at this stage. We may look to expand in the future.

Finding a suitable match may take us a little time (likely around two weeks). If we can’t find a suitable match in that time, you’ll be notified via email and put on a waiting list. We’ll email you regularly to keep you updated.

There are a couple of options here:

• If the other group is larger than yours, some of your pen pals could write to two people.
• If the other group is smaller than yours, a few of your pen pals could write to the same person.

You can decide which way you’d like this to work with the co-ordinator that you have been matched to. If you have any questions, please get in touch with us at SeniorPenPal@auspost.com.au.
 

We’ll give you the following details of your matched pen pal facilitator:

• Name
• Email address
• Phone number

They’ll also get your details. You can then get in touch and decide how you’d like get your pen pals to start exchanging letters.

Some questions to think about are:

1. Will you swap information like the number of participants and mailing addresses to get started?
2. Which group will send the first letters and when will they be sent?
3. How long should it take for pen pals to get a reply in the mail?
4. Will the letters be sent as a centre in one envelope for the facilitator to distribute, or will the pen pals send their letters individually? (Note: This is at the discretion of the individual group in relation to the privacy of resident information.)

If you don’t hear back from the other group leader in a reasonable amount of time, please contact us at SeniorPenPal@auspost.com.au, and we’ll get in touch about next steps.

Please send any questions to SeniorPenPal@auspost.com.au