News From CALL April 2020

From the Board

By Ron Foyer, President of CALL

It was rather easy for the CALL Board to decide to close all our programs. The restrictions on the size of groups that could meet face to face made it that way. But it was a sad one, as our Interest Groups and Speaker Series events mean so much to many of us. Not only the focus of the groups and lectures, but the opportunity to meet with other CALL members, many of whom have become our friends.

We want to see CALL thrive when we can’t meet face to face. It has been inspiring to see the number of groups that have decided to meet virtually. It is the way CALL has grown to where it is today – from the bottom up. Almost every Interest Group has started because of the interest and initiative of CALL members.

We aren’t sure how many groups have started to meet again. We are collecting that information and will put it on to the website, which has had a bit of a redesign.

How can you help?

Work with your own Group Facilitators to see how the group can function in ‘the new normal’

‘The new normal’ is new and is different. New programs? New ways to deliver? If you have any, please pass them on to either the Program Committee at program@calgarylifelonglearners.ca or the Board executive at executivecommittee@calgarylifelonglearners.ca. Use the spirit of the CALL Cares program to help CALL members who may be struggling a bit.

Heads Up – Changes made to the CALL Website

The hard working CALL webteam has made some design updates on the website to highlight the activities that are continuing to run online within CALL. They have also provided some help for using Zoom. The website is your source of up-to-date information about what is happening in CALL so check regularly to keep in touch.

Zoom help
Interest Groups online

Needlecraft

The newsletter would like to showcase our Interest Groups.
Please send photos to newsletter@calgarylifelonglearners.ca

Your CALL Newsletter

The CALL Newsletter is our way to communicate what is going on in our community. Usually we communicate to members about upcoming events, however, since all CALL gatherings are postponed for an undetermined period of time, we decided to use the newsletters as a way to ‘peek behind the curtain of CALL’, to give some general information about CALL groups and members. In this edition you will find:

• a link to a virtual CALL Café with fascinating and timely information about The Anatomy of a Coronavirus
• some information about the creative solutions that CALL groups have used to continue ‘lifelong learning’
• an article about a presentation in the Public Policy Speakers Series and a description of how an Interest Group evolved from an idea to four new groups

You are invited to send your ideas and suggestions for future issues to newsletter@calgarylifelonglearners.ca. Let us know what your Interest Groups are doing and your strategies for coping with this situation in which the whole world finds itself. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity; not every submission will necessarily be published.

Special Online Café: The Anatomy of COVID-19

Although the Café is closed during the health emergency, all CALL members can view a special video presentation online, featuring:
Guest Speaker: U of C virologist and coronavirus specialist Frank van der Meer, DVM PhD
Topic: The Anatomy and Evolution of COVID-19

It’s a full-length Café guest presentation, so grab a coffee, a comfortable chair and click to view. And there’s no time limit or restriction on when or how often you can view it.

Federalism – a Controversial Topic in Alberta

By Mary Ndlovu

Fortunately, the first of a three-part series of lectures on Canadian Federalism in the Public Policy series was able to take place on March 11. Before the second one could be held, though, CALL’s cancellation of lecture series took effect. But Dr. Audrey Doerr had already given us a comprehensive summary of the factors that have shaped our federation during that first session. Speaking from her academic background in political science, and her wide experience at various levels of government as well as university teaching, she discussed four key influences on the development of our governing practices.

First, not surprisingly, was the constitution put in place by the British North America Act of 1867. At the time the American looser federation of states was deemed to have been a failure. Thus, when delineating the relationship between the member provinces and the federal government the “fathers” of Canadian nationhood provided for far greater control from the centre.

Secondly Dr. Doerr identified the developments during the great depression and the Second World War, when the federal government gradually assumed greater powers, eventually using sole responsibility for personal income tax, to create Canada-wide institutions such as Old Age Security and the Canada Pension Plan. Equalisation and transfer payments became contentious, and push-back from the provinces grew.

The third determining factor has been our cultural duality. From the 1960s, Quebec led the push for a constitutional change that would give them a separate status, while some Quebecois called for secession from Canada. Indigenous governance also became an issue, starting from the early 1980s, a matter still to be resolved.

The fourth influence on our federal system has come from the shifting agendas of various governments in power in Ottawa. While Liberals have traditionally made use of federal power to push their programmes, conservatives in recent years especially Stephen Harper, have leaned toward provincial powers. The conclusion was that there needs to be greater balance and co-operation between the centre and the provinces in order to build an effective nation.

The second lecture was to focus on Alberta’s current resentments towards Ottawa and where they might take us, and the third would then examine the issue of Indigenous governance within Canada. We look forward to these two lectures being presented when CALL is in a position to revive the Speakers’ Series. Dr. Doerr is not only a CALL member, she is also the co-ordinator of the Public Policy Series, and we thank her for sharing her vast knowledge and understanding with us.

Interest Group News

Isolation in these COVID times does not necessarily mean no interactions with others. Our CALL members continue to demonstrate flexibility and openness as some carry on their group activities through various ‘channels’. Here are some examples:

• The ukulele groups continue to learn techniques, share lessons and music through Zoom (a cloud-based service useful for content sharing, meetings, webinars, and other similar activities). The 2021 Uke Festival Planning Committee continues to do their meetings through the same service.
   
• The Current Events discussion group held its regular meeting via ZOOM without skipping a beat. Their topic for the first hour was Alberta's "Fair Deal" and the Buffalo Declaration. As usual, one member presented the topic and the rest exchanged views and vented their feelings. During the second hour, when an open discussion was held, the topic was – what else but the coronavirus – and everything surrounding it! Fourteen members of the group were able to connect, either by personal computer laptop or smart phone, and once they got used to the mechanisms of raising their hands, and muting to eliminate extraneous noise, they all agreed that it was a most satisfactory way of continuing our meetings and agreed to "meet" again in two weeks. They challenge all groups to find a way to keep the spirit going.
   
• The Tuesday Sketch Club had a distance learning experience through their Interest Group's Forum capability of the CALL web site. They set a theme and the session's leader posted an overview and examples. After the Sketch Club scheduled time, participants uploaded photos of the drawings they made to the forum site. Although they missed out on the social interactions, they were still working together in spirit. They plan to continue this way as long as they can't meet in person.
   
• The CALL to the Cinema interest group plans to meet biweekly using Zoom until at least the end of June and then reevaluate. They will pick films democratically from Netflix made in 2018 or later.

Reading Suggestions

The Calgary Public Library has an extensive collection of online resources, from ebooks and audio books to courses. This is a good opportunity to check what's available.

CALL is home to many reading groups with wide-ranging genres. Here are some of the books the CALL Mystery Book Club has read this year:

• A Legacy of Spies - John Le Carre
• The Flight Attendant - Chris Bohjalian
• Full Disclosure - Beverly Maclachlan
• Force of Nature - Jane Harper
• Widows of Malabar Hill - Sujata Massey
• Death of a Scholar - Susanna Gregory
• A Matter of Malice - Thomas King
• The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith

The following are the books chosen by the Reading Nonfiction Interest Group for 2019-2020. The first five are available from the Calgary Public Library as e-books and downloadable audio books. A Good Wife is available only as an e-book.

• Patrick Radden-Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. 2019
  “Patrick Radden Keefe’s new book Say Nothing investigates the mystery of a missing mother and reveals a still-raw violent past … The book often reads like a novel, but as anyone familiar with his work for The New Yorker can attest, Keefe is an obsessive reporter and researcher, a master of narrative nonfiction … An incredible story.” — Rolling Stone
   
• Francesco Contu, The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border. 2018
  “A beautiful, fiercely honest, and nevertheless deeply empathetic look at those who police the border and the migrants who risk – and lose – their lives crossing it. In a time of often ill-informed or downright deceitful political rhetoric, this book is an invaluable corrective.” — Phil Klay, author of Redeployment
   
• Elizabeth Hay, All Things Consoled: A Daughter’s Memoir. 2018
  “From Elizabeth Hay, one of Canada's beloved novelists, comes a startling and beautiful memoir about the drama of her parents' end, and the longer drama of being their daughter. Winner of the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.” — Penguin Random House Canada
   
• Kate Harris, Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road. 2018
  “Kate Harris’ travel memoir is compelling, suspenseful, insightful and elegant … The book moves seamlessly between the Silk Road adventure and backstory that led up to it … The book also moves easily between narrative and philosophy … There are certainly adventures” — W. Scott Olsen. The Star Tribune
  “Beautifully written combination of travel memoir, history, science and literature. During a 10 month bicycle trip on the Silk Road Kate examines the meaning of borders and what it means to be an explorer.” — Barb Simpkins, member of the CALL Reading Nonfiction group.
   
• David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. 2019
  “For a relatively short book, The Uninhabitable Earth covers a great deal of cursed ground – drought, floods, wildfires, economic crises, political instability, the collapse of the myth of progress – and reading it can feel like taking a hop-on hop-off tour of the future’s sprawling hellscape. It’s not without its hopeful notes: in a sense, none of this would even be worth talking about if there were nothing we could do about it.” — Mark O’Connell, The Guardian
   
• Samra Zafar, A Good Wife: Escaping the Life I Never Chose. 2019
  “… A Good Wife traces the heart-wrenching and empowering story of Samra Zafar, a cricket-loving Pakistani Muslim living in the United Arab Emirates, who is forced into marriage at the age of 16 with the promise of furthering her education in Canada.” — Quill and Quire

We also read two other books, which aren’t available in digital form from the library:

• Max Eisen, By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz. 2016.
  “For the better part of 30 years, Holocaust survivor Max Eisen has been on a mission to educate people through volunteer speaking engagements. Sharing his first-hand experiences of the year he was incarcerated in Nazi death camps is part of Eisen’s ongoing effort to fulfill the promise made to his father before the two parted at Auschwitz for the last time: to “tell the world what happened here.” By Chance Alone is another means of keeping that promise.” — Dory Cerny, Quill and Quire
   
• Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State. 2017
  “Wood knows what he is talking about; if you want to read in one place a discourse on the competing branches of Islam, an explanation of its different legal schools, a dictionary of its essential terms, why Sunnis see Shia as having "left the faith," and how Salafi and Sufi Muslims differ, this is your book. But that is not the reason to read it – and that is certainly not why Wood wrote it. No, this book is about his encounters with those who are believers in the Islamic State. What makes it such interesting reading is that Wood sets out in the best journalistic tradition to understand who these people are, where they come from, how they got there, and what makes them tick” — Dennis Ross, NPR/2016/12/24

The Evolution of a CALL Interest Group

By Pat Hogan

As I contemplate setting up the first virtual meeting for Hags and Crones, I can’t help but reflect on how our group came together in the first place and then on how three other similar groups have been formed in less than a year.

Our group started the way most interest groups in CALL begin – with an idea or an interest on the part of one member. In this case the notion was mine. I’d been part of women’s groups in the past and mentally toyed with the idea of initiating one in CALL. I mentioned my interest to another CALL member at an event and she told me I had to meet a friend of hers – also a CALL member. I contacted her and we had tea, cookies and a rich conversation in her living room. We both liked the idea of bringing women together to share our stories, to discuss public issues and personal challenges, and to explore our power and possibilities as elders.

After we talked, I was motivated to speak with someone on the Program Committee. She was also drawn to the concept. The three of us met for coffee and decided to put something up on the website under Are You Interested? Before we knew it 10 others had said they were.

We had our first meeting last June, in the living room where the notion had originated, and soon after there was a waiting list to join the group. It quickly became obvious that a second group was warranted and the Program Committee member set up Hags and Crones 2 the next month. Since then two further groups have been formed from the waiting lists that have accumulated. In each case, those on the lists have been invited to come together and, out of that gathering, one person has volunteered to send out reminders and other information to the members. It was that easy!

So now there are four groups each with a unique agenda that arises from conversation and interests within their membership. What started as my personal need and interest has been taken up by about 60 women. But my story is not an unusual one. It’s how any CALL interest groups can begin, with an idea, an interest, a conversation.

It looks like we are going to have plenty of time in the coming months to generate new ideas. And when we get through this, and we are able to meet in person again, we can talk about our ideas with other CALL members and people on the Program Committee.

Meanwhile, be well, stay well in every sense of the word.