We are an ageing population.  This is certainly true of the "western world" and the more sophisticated and highly developed countries.  It is the inevitable result of family planning and health-care-induced longevity.

So what do this large and expanding group of people do when their children flee the coop, when they pick up a clock or decanter and bid farewell to their work colleagues, when their major weekly excitement might be the trip to the post office to pick up their pension money?

Well, there are a lot of opportunities for them "out there".  More than ever.  And despite some commercial organisations turning their attention from the teenage marketing phenomenon to the expanding third age market, there are also a lot of non-commercial endeavours to turn to, as well as at least one commercial organisation that provides a non-commercial service.

Sep Meyer describes some of these for us.