New Web Postings For June
MANAGING YOUR LLI
ILR
CEO or Civic Engagement Opportunity Day
B.I.L.L.
Members Speak Out
Focus
on Committees
OLLI
Spring Courses
Spring
Saturday Seminar Series
The
Theatre
Government
101
LLI News
LLI
News for June
Under LLI CELEBRATIONS
LLI
Celebrations for June
USING EIN RESOURCES
Most of the programs know that EIN is here to make the job
of running an LLI easier. Board and Committee members change, however,
and new members might not know that we have resources available on our
web site to help them with many different issues. So do them a favor
and tell new members about our web site – www.elderhostel.org/ein/intro.asp
and our email - nancy.merz-nordstrom@elderhostel.org.
Stress that our services are there for their use. Save them the trouble
that one new Board member recently went through in trying to get the
EIN logo for their newsletter. Instead of going directly to EIN he went
through regular Elderhostel channels. Elderhostel is a huge organization
and valuable time was lost while staff tried to figure out how to help
him. One quick email to EIN and he would have had what he needed. So
put EIN on the agenda of your next Board meeting. Thank you.
CREATIVE HOUSING CONFERENCE
The North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement in Asheville is sponsoring
a day-long conference on July 28, 2006, about creative housing for older
adults entitled Creating Intentional Communities for the Second
Half of Life. The conference is for people interested in alternatives
to gated and age-qualified communities or CCRC and who welcome more
cooperative living arrangements that are also environmentally friendly.
Cohousing, elderhousing, Eldershires, Naturally Occurring Retirement
Communities, and other innovative types of housing will be explained
and explored. For more information please visit http://www.unca.edu/ncccr/CIC_conference/index.htm.
NC FESTIVAL OF THE BOOK
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University in North Carolina
was proud to help sponsor the 2006 North Carolina Festival of the
Book: It’s About the Story, in April. This festival brings
together writers who represent the changing face of North Carolina and
the South. Following the theme “It’s About the Story,”
festival programs asked authors to share the stories behind their writing.
Featured speakers included Allan Gurganus, Ann Patchett, Anne Rivers
Siddons, Barbara Kingsolver, Craig Marberry, Charles Randolph-Wright,
Kaye Gibbons, Pat Conroy and Doug Marlette.
U3A INTERNATIONAL
Joint projects with overseas programs are run by a group of U3A enthusiasts
who want to encourage lifelong learners all around the world to use
and communicate via the Internet. They make contacts, exchange information
and set up joint projects with programs everywhere. Log on to www.worldu3a.org
and expand your horizons.
POTLUCKS
Potluck dinners are an excellent way for members to get to know one
another. Just ask the membership of the MSU for Seniors program at Minnesota
State University, Mankato. They hold four “all member” pot
luck dinners throughout the year as a way for the membership to meet
and greet.
WRITING FOR GRANDCHILDREN
This past winter, members of the Academy for Lifelong Learning at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh created a different reminiscence each
week written to their grandchildren. Typically, essays described their
early life, information about ancestors, family stories or anything
else the writer wanted to pass on to future generations. In past classes,
writers often bound their stories together as holiday presents. Stories
were read and commented on each week.
Members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University
in Virginia also concentrated on writing for grandchildren. Your
Grandchild: Hero of the Story You Will Write, was the title of
a course give this spring. Using family photos, members learned how
to use them as the basis of a simple story about a birth, birthday,
trip, holiday or other family occasion. In this four-session course,
the main purpose was to capture the excitement of an occasion centered
on a grandchild.
COURSE NOTES
The Lifelong Learning Institute at Harper College in Palatine, IL has
created a useful handout for members. On the first day of each course,
each student receives a "Course Notes" sheet. This is to encourage
students to take notes or write down a question for the instructor.
On the back side, they have listed the courses for the semester and
the registration phone number for students to call. This inexpensive
handout serves as a learning tool for the student and a marketing tool
for the Institute.
SEEING EYE TO EYE
During the spring the Academy for Learning in Retirement at Empire State
College in New York collected used eyeglasses, cases and frames which
were donated to the Lions Club Eyeglasses Recycling Center. For more
than 80 years the Lions Club has been collecting, cleaning, repairing,
classifying and distributing used eyeglasses and frames to those in
need in developing nations. The college partnered with ALR in this worthy
effort.
SENIOR COLLEGE SPECIAL EVENTS
This past spring members of the Senior College at the University of
Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast were treated to two very special
programs. The first was a slide-talk by a landscape gardener. The subject
of gardens, garden history, social history, a little poetry and some
humor about turn-of-the-20th century life in Southern Maine entertained
members. The presenter has written a book entitled Sarah Orne Jewett’s
Journey on the White Rose Road.
The second program was an appearance by a musician fresh from a Carnegie
Hall concert. Lee Knight is a “Man of Two Mountains” –
the Adirondacks and the Appalachians – who goes to original sources
to find his music. A folksinger, raconteur, folklorist, teacher, master
of several traditional instruments, and a whitewater rafting and canoe
guide, Knight entertained the membership at a free performance.
ODUILR COMPLETES FIRST STRATEGIC PLAN
The ILR at Old Dominion University in Virginia completed its first Five-Year
Development Plan this past winter. The program has been existence for
almost 13 years and during that time has grown from 12 to almost 700
members. Their steady growth caused the Executive Board to consider
ILR’s future. They wanted to be able to accommodate an increasing
membership while insuring that they serve their current members well
with continuing high quality programming.
Thank you too, to ODILR for devoting a section of their spring newsletter
to the EIN web site. The article suggested members explore the site
and learn what other programs are doing in the way of classes and activities,
and see how they solve problems. If something piqued their interest
they were urged to tell one of the ILR Board members. Our web site is
there to make your jobs easier.
NEW BOOKS FOR LLI COURSES
Thanks to OMNILORE at California State University Dominquez Hills
for this book suggestion which appeared in their March 2006 newsletter.
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion
in a Paris Atlier, by Thad Carhart. This is definitely a book for
music lovers (especially piano players). Carhart is an American writer
who with his family, resides in Paris. Near his apartment he discovers
a little piano shop that comes to play an important part in his life.
This is an account of his finding a piano to purchase, and relearning
how to play it. In the process, he tells the history of the piano, provides
technical explanations on how a piano works, and discusses the fine
art of piano tuning.
Thanks to the McGill ILR in Montreal for the following book suggestions
taken from their February, 2006 newsletter.
Charles Darwin, by Janet Browne. A biography in two volumes
now out in a paperback edition.
Mozart’s Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music, by
Jane Glover. Hot off the press in paperback, this is an entirely fresh
look at Mozart’s life and work.
Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life (2006), selected
letters translated by Robert Spaethling. Gives the lie to the popular
misconception that Mozart’s letters are childish and scatological.
An intimate and moving insight into the life of the great composer.
NEW WEB SITES FOR LLI COURSES
A READER'S COMPANION TO AMERICAN HISTORY: CONSCRIPTION -
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_019500_conscription.htm
An overview of the military draft in the United States from the American
Revolution through the 1980s (when compulsory draft registration was
instated). Includes a short bibliography. From the Houghton Mifflin
Company.
TAJ MAHAL: MEMORIAL TO LOVE –
http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/taj_mahal/tmain.html
Tells the story of the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum that "immortalizes
one man's love for his wife and the splendor of an era." Includes
information on Shah Jahan, Mumtaz Mahal, the Mughal dynasty, and architectural
antecedents (Humayun's tomb, Akbar's tomb at Sikandra, Itimad-ud-Dualah),
and explores the mystery surrounding its design. From the PBS site Treasures
of the World.
THE ERIE CANAL: A BRIEF HISTORY - http://www.canals.state.ny.us/cculture/history/
"The Erie Canal was the engineering marvel of the 19th Century."
This is an account of its planning and development, including the initial
idea from New York's then-Governor DeWitt Clinton, the canal's role
in increasing commerce and westward migration, and its designation as
a national heritage corridor. The site provides a link to a longer account
of this history and to the music for the Erie Canal song. From the New
York State Canal System.
BRITISH HISTORY ONLINE - http://www.british-history.ac.uk
A "digital library of text and information about people, places
and businesses from the medieval and early modern period." Searchable,
or browsable by type of history (administrative, ecclesiastical, local,
London, and parliamentary), place, or source. The site includes items
such as a 1550 map of London and House of Commons journals from the
16th and 17th centuries. From the University of London.
That’s all for this month.
Nancy Merz Nordstrom, M.Ed.
Elderhostel Institute Network
Nancy.merz-nordstrom@elderhostel.org
www.elderhostel.org/ein/intro.asp
617-457-5564
Learning is like rowing upstream. Not to advance
is to drop back
…Chinese Saying
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