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News From CALL January 2022
CALL-A-Buddy – Alice in Wonderland
T’was brillig and the slithy Toves….
So opens Lewis Carroll’s immortal poem Jabberwocky. As Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice, brillig is four o’clock in the afternoon when you begin broiling things for dinner and, of course, slithy is a portmanteau word combining slimy and lithe and as for Toves you can read more about them in Through the Looking Glass.
Zina Rosso and Melvin Pasternak have formed a CALL-A-Buddy team and have been delightfully exploring the zany whimsy of the Mad Hatter and White Rabbit for the past several weeks. Both report getting much more out of the text when it is read aloud and then discussed. They meet by telephone every Sunday for about an hour.
Forming a two-person Call-A-Buddy pair is easy. You can suggest any topic under the sun which interests you and might appeal to another member of CALL. Submit your proposed topic to Adrienne Kertzer. Adrienne will post it anonymously to the CALL a Buddy page, and when she receives expressions of interest in your topic, she will put you and your buddy in touch. Questions? Contact Adrienne.
Coming Events
Check the CALL website for details of the following events. Registration is required for all these events. You must be a member to register. Join or renew your membership now and watch for email announcements for programs and events.
For Zoom events, please register at least a couple of hours before an event to ensure the registration confirmation email with the event link arrives in your inbox in time.
January Events
Science and Environment
It’s Time to Save Ourselves from Daylight Saving Time
Tuesday, January 4, 7:30pm by Zoom
Presenter: Dr. Michael Antle, Department of Psychology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the U of C.
Our government put up a referendum for the recent election asking if we should go on permanent daylight saving time. This has been a topic of some biannual discussion with different positions taken regarding the economic, health, safety and social issues. The science behind these issues has rarely been discussed but our speaker was extensively consulted in the run up to the latest vote. Dr. Antle’s research over the last 25 years has helped us understand how to this clock works and how we can adjust it.
For more details and to register, go to the Science and Environment page.
CALL Evening Bridge Pilot Project.
Thursdays from January 6–March 31, 6:30–8:30pm. Online by Zoom
All bridge players are welcome to join us on a drop-in basis for CALL Evening Bridge. The platform, BridgeBaseOnline (BBO), will be used to host 20 boards at 5 tables every Thursday from 6:30 pm–8:30 pm. Duplicate boards will be used so participants can learn by comparing their bidding and playing to others after each session. This activity is for individuals, not pairs. You will play 4 hands at a table and then move to a new table with a different partner and different opponents. BBO now has video so players will be able to see and speak to one another, as they like.
The technology is easy to use on any device. No advance registration is required. If you feel like a couple of hours of bridge on a Thursday evening, you can register on BBO a few minutes ahead of time. For further information and/or to add your name to the player list, go to the CALL Evening Bridge Pilot Project for information and to contact the facilitator Lorna Jamison.
CALL Café Online
What Do We Mean When We Say That Aging Is a Women's Issue?
Monday, January 17, 2:00–3:30pm Online Via Zoom
Speaker: Pat Armstrong
Do you long for the days when we could meet in person for CALL Café? While we wait and wonder when that day will be, we are excited to announce the return of CALL Café in a virtual format. Like the old CALL Café, CALL Café Online will offer speakers on a range of topics. One advantage of meeting virtually is that some of our speakers will be from outside the Calgary area.
Connect with your fellow CALL members and expand your lifelong learning at CALL Café Online. And remember to bring your own coffee or whatever your favorite beverage is. Each event will require a separate registration. It will also allow you to invite a friend (or friends) to join you (you can add them as guests when you register).
The first Café will take place at 2 pm, Monday January 17. In it, Pat Armstrong, Distinguished Research Professor in Sociology at York University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, will highlight the further questions that arise when we say that aging is a women's issue.
You must be a member of CALL to register for this event but the registration process allows you to bring 1 to 4 guests.
For more details and to register go to the CALL Café Online page.
The Prairies and Quebec Through Their Literature
Tuesdays, January 18, February 1, March 1, 15, 2022. 10am–12noon on Zoom
This group, which includes members from CALL and the McGill Community of Lifelong Learning, will provide participants with an opportunity to increase, through literature, their appreciation of two distinctive places – the Canadian prairies and Quebec. The novels which will be discussed are Under the Ribs of Death by John Marlyn; Volkswagon Blues by Jacques Poulin; Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto; Wonder: A Novel by Dominique Fortier.
For more information and to contact the facilitators, go to the The Prairies and Quebec Through Their Literature page.
(The group is currently full but there is a wait list.)
Treks and Travel
Transatlantic Crossing: Go South 'til the Butter Melts
Wednesday, January 19, 7:30pm via Zoom
Presenter: John Cobb.
Sailors have been crossing the Atlantic for hundreds of years, sailing south along the coast of Africa before reaching the trade winds and turning west towards the Americas. In his presentation, “Go South ‘til the Butter Melts”, John Cobb combines photos and video to tell the story of his 21-day 2019 journey as part of a crew on a sailboat from the Canary Islands to St. Lucia.
For more details and to register go to the Treks and Travel page.
NOTE: Treks and Travels has a full contingent of presentations coming your way for 2022 and are now booking presentations for 2023.
Birth of a Family: A Conversation with Tasha Hubbard
Wednesday, January 26, 7:00pm
Tasha Hubbard, the director of Birth of a Family, will speak about her award-winning documentary about a 60s Scoop family coming together for the first time during a holiday in Banff. While you wait for registration to open, you can view the film for free on the National Film Board website.
Registration information will be posted on the Speaker Events page.CALL for Submissions to CALL Newsletter
The CALL Newsletter group invites members to submit photos, sketches, stories, poems, descriptions of projects etc. for use in CALL newsletters. We know that CALL members are creative. Do you have a photo taken on your daily walk or from your window; a poem written as you reflect on life; a sketch of a scene that catches your eye? Have you turned a memory into a short story or a response to something you have heard or read?
We will keep all submissions on file to use in future newsletters. Send submissions to newsletter@calgarylifelonglearners.ca, include your name and a sentence giving CALL permission to publish in the newsletter.
Coming in February
Science and Environment
The New Trails Act
Tuesday, February 1, 7:30pm on Zoom
Speaker: Jason Unger
From user conflicts to environmental impacts, management of trails on public land in Alberta has been a long-standing challenge in the province. The recently passed Trails Act provides the Minister with a variety of powers to delegate authority over public trails. Our speaker, Jason Unger, will provide a review of the recently passed Trails Act and how trails management and trails legislation could be reformed to create accountability in siting, construction and management of trails. The new act has been decried by environmental groups and legal commentators as damaging to the environment and risks allowing private control of public land.
Jason Unger is the Executive Director and General Counsel of the Environmental Law Centre (ELC), an Alberta based charity focused on legal education and environmental and natural resources law reform. Jason’s practice has focused on issues of water law, legal tools for conservation on private lands, environmental assessment law, species at risk and pollution prevention.
Registration will open in January.
Readers Theatre invites you to Un‑Valentine’s Day
Friday, February 11, 10:30am by Zoom.
"The course of true love never did run smooth…”
– Lysander (William Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene I)
Seldom is any romantic relationship as straightforward as the fairy tale ending – “and they lived happily ever after”. CALL’s Readers Theatre explores the twists and turns as love is sought, found, lost, and, possibly, rediscovered. Join us on Zoom for this (mostly) comedic adventure into the human heart.
Registration information coming soon on the the Readers Theatre page.
NOTE: The Readers Theatre Interest Group is accepting new members. For details and to contact the facilitator go to the Readers Theatre page.
Your CALL Newsletter
The CALL Newsletter is our way to communicate what is going on in our community. It's a way to highlight events of interest, ‘peek behind the curtain of CALL’ and to give some general information about CALL groups and members.
You are invited to send your ideas and suggestions for future issues to newsletter@calgarylifelonglearners.ca. We reserve the right to edit submissions and to determine when submissions will be published.
CALL Newsletter dates for posting:
- January 14, 28
- February 11, 25
- March 11, 25
- April 14, 24 – NOTE: April 14 is a Thursday
- May 13, 27
- June 10, 24
Meanwhile, be well, stay well in every sense of the word.