Jim Kirby, Photographer for Magazines, Agencies, and Corporations, Speaks to OLLI's Photography Club on Backpacking in the Canadian Rockies, December 9
Reminder: the Language, Literature, and Theater Program-planning Group is meeting at 10:00 on Thursday, January 12, at Tallwood in TA‑1. Please come and share your ideas for future courses, or contact Nancy Scheeler, Bill Taylor, Katie Mitchell, Jackie Gropman, or Rala Stone.
The Tallwood office is closed for the holidays and will reopen Monday, January 6.
The next edition of OLLI E-News will be published January 13. All submissions must be received no later than 6:00 Tuesday, January 10.
OLLI President's New Year Message: A Bit of History By Ray Beery, President
Friends in OLLI,
Year end is the time, par excellence, for renewal based on tradition. Let me take us back across the years, before we were OLLI. We were the Learning in Retirement Institute, part of the Elderhostel Institute Network.
Yes, I'm referring to Elderhostel, now Road Scholar, where we go for outstanding tours. Early on, that group also created Life-long Learning Institutes (LLIs), which today number over 400 … and we still belong.
An LLI is a community of peer learning in which members learn from and teach each other. LLIs offer noncredit college-level educational experiences, but with little or no homework and at a fraction of the cost. Classes are taught by members, retired and active faculty, and outside experts with knowledge of a particular subject. But perhaps best of all — the life experiences of all members elevate the discourse.
Members of the LLI Resource Network are committed to:
Learners having significant involvement in developing college-level educational programming;
An organizational structure that distinguishes the Institute as an educational community of older learners;
An educational purpose of providing college level course work, usually on a non-credit basis;
A membership organization with structures (by-laws, committees, etc.) that create an entity with identity and purpose;
Open membership by involving members in decision-making, determining curriculum, recruiting new members, financing the Institute, and developing social programming; and
Co-curricular programming that encourages participation without regard to previous levels of formal education.
That’s our heritage, and it is an inspiration to have these guiding principles before us as we slide right into the New Year.
OLLI’s annual talent show will be held during the ice cream social and Hawaiian luau on Friday, February 10, from 1:00–3:00 at Tallwood in TA‑1. (The snow date is Friday, February 24, same time and place.) Space is limited, so be sure to register for event #1102.
We are looking for new acts (no repeats from the 2012-2015 shows, please), and a Hawaiian theme is preferred but not required. There is a five-minute time limit for each act, and the MC will once again be the hilarious Manny Pablo.If you’ve got talent, please contact Manny at [email protected] and provide a description of your act. Thank you!
Our next casual get-together will be at 9:30 on Friday, January 27th, at Tallwood in the Social Room annex. In addition to coffee and cookies, we’ll have an opportunity to swap unwanted holiday gifts. Bring those orange Harley Davidson socks from Cousin Bubba and the avocado slicer from your niece Petunia, and trade them in for something better . . . hopefully.
During the winter term, Member Services is going to be launching a prescription-bottle recycling program. Please save your empty bottles rather than throwing them away, and, if possible, remove the labels. (Most peel off easily.) We’ll give you more details about this new program soon.
Solstice Musing
Perhaps like the bears we would like to hibernate.
Perhaps we, too would rather rest.
Not do all the shopping, not go to all those parties,
forget the baking and the decorating.
Perhaps we would rather sleep the winter away,
miss the ice storms and the loss of power,
the cold winds that penetrate our skins,
the struggle to conserve what warmth we can.
And what do we do when we sleep?
We dream in the delicious dark.
Germinating like seeds to spring back to life.
We succumb to the dark to find our inner sparkle,
our own soul’s sweet treasure
The seasons make their circle
with or without our consent.
We can only try to tease out
the mystery of the long midwinter nights.
Ellen Dierdre Mulrenin Ellen Mulrenin, who recently became an OLLI member and was to teach a genealogy course, Family History Rewards and Challenges, during winter term 2017, died on December 12, 2016. Besides volunteering to teach the course, she served on the history and current events program-planning committee. A funeral mass was celebrated at St Anthony of Padua Church in Falls Church, VA, on December 16. More information is available in her obituary at this link.
Mary Nell (Nellie) Lawrence
Former OLLI member Nellie Lawrence passed away December 21 in Alexandria, VA. She had been an elementary school teacher and served as a docent at the Woodlawn Plantation, Frank Lloyd Wright Pope-Leighey House, and the National Portrait Gallery. She was a member of OLLI from July 2012 through August 2014. Nellie is survived by her husband of fifty-two years, John Frederick Lawrence, two sons, and six grandchildren. More information is available in her obituary at this link.
William Nicholas Ciccolo, Sr.
Bill Ciccolo, an OLLI member from 2001 to 2013, died on August 21, 2016. He was a retired US Army colonel with two tours in Vietnam plus tours in Korea, Japan, Greece, Panama, and Paraguay. After retirement he worked for Systems Research and Applications Corporation as an Oracle database designer and developer. He received his BS degree from Boston University and an MA from the US Army War College. He began teaching at OLLI soon after joining, eventually leading a dozen history and geopolitical courses.
As a retired Army colonel, he was interred in Arlington National Cemetery on December 21. More information is available in his obituary at this link.
Performances, Dec 30 through Jan 16By Shelly Gersten, OLLI E-News Staff WriterFor tickets for either Center for the Arts (CFA) or Hylton, call 1-888-945-2468, buy tickets online through the event calendar (see links below), or visit the venue's box office. For more information, see the CFA ticket pageor the Hyltonticket purchase page.
At the Fairfax Campus Venues
Sax Symposium
Fri, Jan 6, and Sat, Jan 7 Various times and locations; seehttp://cfa.gmu.edu/calendar/853/
Admission: Free.Keyboard Conversations with Jeffrey Siegel: A French Musical Feast
Sun, Jan 8, 7:00
Concert Hall
Admission: $42, $36, $25.
Four Seasons Active Adult Community Exhibition: Visual Expressions
Dec 12 - Jan 29, 2017
The Gallery is open to the public Tue-Sat, 10:00 - 6:00, Thu, 10:00 - 8:00 and two hours before performances.
Gallery Reception: Thu, Jan 12 from 6:00 to 8:00. RSVP to [email protected].
Buchanan Partners Art Gallery
Admission: Free.
Woodbridge Dance Company: A Coffee House Concert Collection
Sun, Jan 8, 5:30
Come to the lobby at 4:00 prior to the concert for complimentary coffee and refreshments during the director’s reception and auction.
Merchant Hall
Admission: Adults, $25; seniors, $20.
Dance Etcetera School of the Arts: 36th Annual Winter Concert
Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 7:00
Gregory Family Theater
Admission: $20.
Center for the Arts Pied Piper Theatre’s: Disney’s Mulan, Jr.
Sat, Jan 14, 2:00 and 7:00
Sun, Jan 15, 3:00
Merchant Hall
Admission until Jan 9: Adults $15; children, $12
after Jan 9: Adults $20; children, $15.
The following list covering the next two weeks is extracted for your convenience from the master online calendar maintained by the office, with direct web links added when available. The list is accurate as of mid-week but to check anytime for the latest information, please view the latest forecast of upcoming events on our website (News/OLLI Calendar). Note: All OLLI members are welcome at, and encouraged to attend, meetings of the Board of Directors, committees and resource groups, kickoff coffees, etc. (bolded below).
Sat Jan 7
10:30am
Tai Chi Club–TA-3
Mon Jan 9
10:00am
What’s In the Daily News cont’d–TA-1
Tue Jan 10
9:30am
10:00am
10:00am
Annex Art–Annex
Spanish Club–TA-2 Humanities and Social Sciences Program-planning Group–TA-3
Wed Jan 11
9:30am
10:00am
10:00am
10:30am
Special Events Committee–Annex
Bridge Club–TA-3
Tallwood Book Club–TA-2
Tom Crooker Investment Forum–TA-1
OLLI E-News was created by Rod Zumbro, who served as its editor from 2005 to 2013.
Editorial Staff
Chief Editor: Paul Van Hemel
Technical Editor: Irene Osterman
Associate Editor: Sheri Siesseger
Weekly Editorial Team: Jean Boltz, John Nash, Sheri Siesseger, Leslie Vandivere,
Paul Van Hemel Proofreaders: Rebecca Jann, Lorna Moran, Marilyn O'Brien, Susan Van Hemel
Backup Chief Editor: Alice Slayton Clark
Submissions. Members are encouraged to submit letters to the editor, letters to Ms. Ollie Ettakit (on etiquette matters), OLLI-related news items, articles and photos. Submit material to: [email protected]. Deadline – 6:00 Tuesday for that week's issue (6:00 Monday for letters to the editor); early submissions are greatly appreciated. Please limit articles to about 250 words. Note: You can view past issues of OLLI E-News on the DocStore. To search the content of issues, use Search Our Site or put your search term in Google followed by "site:olli.gmu.edu/" without the quotes.
