April 13, 2018

• Alerts & Notices
• New Sculpture at Tallwood
• Opportunities to Meet Board Candidates
• Calling All Theater Lovers
• The Tom Swift Squad Needs You
• Murals at Mason are Up!
• Obituary: Susan Schram
• Computer Club
• Poet’s Corner
• Help Needed: Distribution of Copies of OLLI Ink
• Have You Considered Volunteering for the Dirty Knee Club?
• Arts & Music at George Mason
• Meetings & Clubs
• About OLLI E-News

Alerts & Notices

• Board of Directors Meeting, Signal Hill, Loudoun, April 20, 10:00. All OLLI members welcome.
• Super Salad Social, Reston, Rose Gallery, Community Center, Lake Anne, April 20, 12:30–2:30. All OLLI members welcome; candidates for Board election will be present and take questions (see article below). Candidates’ statements available here.
• The next issue of OLLI E-News will be published April 20; regular deadline for submission of items is Tuesday, April 17, at 6:00.

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New Sculpture at Tallwood

You have probably noticed the new “turn-able” black marble sculpture on the walkway outside the OLLI Tallwood office (photos by Susan Van Hemel, April 2018), and we thought you might want to know something about it. The piece, inspired by the female figure, was donated to OLLI by an anonymous benefactor. It was sculpted by Mirella Monti Belshé, a sculptor who has a studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in old town Alexandria. This bio is from her website:“Mirella Monti Belshé was born and nurtured in Tuscany, Italy, and completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Hawaii. There she became a tenured associate professor. In the last 41 years she has had a studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center. She also works in Pietrasanta and Florence in Italy, where she carves and casts larger sculptures which return to studio 27 from where the models originated.

“Her work includes sculpture, collages, multimedia portraits, body casts, and restorations. Commissioned work is widely distributed in the US and abroad. Much of her work is neoclassical and evolves from fragmenting and juxtaposing the human form. Mirella is on the board of the Friends of the Torpedo Factory Art Center.”

In 2013, Belshé was one of three honorees to be named a “wise woman” by the local chapter of the National Organization of Italian American Women. Read more about that at https://www.torpedofactoryartists.com/tag/mirella-monti-belshe/. You can see examples of Belshe’s work at her website, http://mirellamontibelshe.com , and at the Torpedo Factory, studio 27.

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April 20, 9:30, LOUDOUN – Social time before the Board of Directors meeting. Candidates will be introduced at this meeting, but there will be no formal statements or Q and A.

April 20, 12:30-2:30, RESTON – Super Salad Social at Rose Gallery, Community Center, Lake Anne. Candidates will provide brief introductions, followed by Q and A.

May 4, 10:00-12:00, TALLWOOD – OLLI Annual Meeting and Picnic. Candidates will provide brief introductions, followed by Q and A.

Ticket cost is $23 for seniors. To get your tickets before they are sold out, phone 703-476-4500, X3, or go online to restonplayers.org. We carpool and have optional dinner after the show.

Planning ahead: OLLI will join the Shillelagh Travel Club for two trips: one to Cape Cod and the other to New York City. We will go to Cape Cod for Pops by the Sea from August 10–13, 2018. The trip includes a Pops by the Sea concert, guided tours of Provincetown and Hyannis, Sydenstricker Glass Gallery, and more. The package includes hotel, motorcoach transportation, meals, and ticket to the concert for $969. Contact the club at 703-242-2204 or email trevorm@shillelaghtravelclub.com. Tell them you are from OLLI.

From October 2–3, we will travel overnight to Broadway with the Shillelagh Travel Club to see My Fair Lady and the opportunity to see a second show on your own. The package costs $475/person and includes transportation, hotel, ticket, and more. For more information, go to www.shillelaghtravelclub.com or phone 703-242-2204. Space goes fast, so sign up now.

All OLLI members and their guests are invited. If you need more information, please email Norma at njreck@cs.com.

The Tom Swift Squad Needs You

OLLI’s Audiovisual Support Committee (a.k.a. The Tom Swift Squad) seeks additional volunteers to help ensure the smooth employment of OLLI’s audiovisual resources. Our primary mission is to help instructors, liaisons, and staff with any audiovisual issues that might arise during the classes we attend.

We’ll be meeting at 2:00 on Wednesday, April 18, in TA‑1. Our activities for this meeting will include training on OLLI’s AV equipment used in classrooms and remote locations. We’ll be discussing future equipment arrangements, and reviewing our materials for volunteer and staff training.

Please let me know if you’re planning to attend or would like to become a “Swiftie,” even if you can’t attend this meeting. Contact me by email (preferred) or phone (703-860-9246).

For more information on the Audiovisual Support Committee, see its web page.

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The project realizes the vision of student Fionnuala Fisk and a team guided by Donald Russell, university curator and director of Provisions Research Center for Art and Social Change at Mason. The competition for artists was international. Mason will host additional installations in September, with a second event/reception.

“Street art” is an international trend, bringing dramatic, delightful beauty outdoors in cities all over the world beyond the walls of galleries. The exhibit at Mason will offer Virginians (and any tourists) a free open-air art tour and exposure to a spectacular and growing trend in the visual arts.

See the project website on Facebook for a full description (MuralsatMason). Donations and community volunteers are quite welcome. (They also welcome light-colored, lightly worn T-shirts to tie-dye and sell.)

Information contacts: Fionnuala Fisk ffisk@gmu.edu and Donald Russell drusse10@gmu.edu.

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Computer Club                  

The Computer Club (OLLI Personal Computer User Group, or OPCUG) will meet with its partner, the Potomac Area Technology and Computer Society (PATACS), on Saturday, April 21, at Tallwood. Join us at 12:30 for socializing in the Annex. Program activities begin at 1:00 in TA‑1.

Take Control of Your Digital Legacy: Presented by Joe Kissell
You probably have a will, which states your wishes for what will happen to your money and physical possessions after you die. But what about your digital possessions–e.g., all your online accounts, email, photos, documents, social media posts? In the short term, you’ll want to be sure someone you trust can find your passwords, access your accounts, and take care of essential business. Longer-term, you may want to know your children, grandchildren, and generations to come will be able to learn about your life by seeing your pictures and videos and reading things you’ve written. To make your digital data last virtually forever, you must take steps to make sure it’s properly organized, stored, and preserved. Based on his book Take Control of Your Digital Legacy, Joe Kissell discusses the basics of digital estate planning, including why you need a digital will, a digital executor, and a solid strategy for making sure your data outlives you. Joe has authored more than 60 books about technology, many of which address the Apple ecosystem, on topics such as email, backups, passwords, privacy, security, and the Cloud.

Learn in 30: Password Managers Presented by Jere Minich
Password Manager applications are a vital component in keeping your information and assets safe in the digital world. Jere Minich is a retired submariner, actively involved in computer groups, and writes a ‘Tech Tips’ column for the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), to which OPCUG and PATACS belong.

See full details on this meeting by clicking here.  For information on the Computer Club, see the OPCUG website. OPCUG dues of $5 for 2018 will be collected at this meeting.

Can’t make the meeting in person? Dues-paid club members may attend via Zoom’s cloud meeting service, beginning at 12:45. Send a message to webinarhosts@patacs.org if you plan to attend in this way. Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/2080042114.
Meeting ID:  208 004 2114

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Have You Considered Volunteering for the Dirty Knee Club?

Do you enjoy gardening? Would you like to learn more about pruning, watering, feeding, and the overall care of trees and plants? Would you like to learn which plants thrive in certain soils or in our Northern Virginia climate zone or share your expertise? Or would you just like an opportunity to get outdoors more often and socially enjoy helping to make the OLLI Tallwood campus and its nine named gardens attractive while you are getting some healthy exercise at the same time?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, then you should consider volunteering for the “Dirty Knee Club”—a team made up of about 15 men and women who come together to address the landscaping challenges on a few work days called “call-ups,” primarily during the spring or fall. During the summer, DKC members partner with other members to water, weed, and maintain the gardens during the growing seasons (each two-member team is assigned one week about every five or six weeks).

If interested, contact coordinators Sigrid Carlson (bigsig@cox.net) or Sally Berman (skberman77@gmail.com) for more information. And guess what—gardening expertise is not required (but you will gain some since willingness to get a dirty knee is required), and we clean up well and have some great social events too!

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Meetings & Clubs

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 any time 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).

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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: David Gundry
Weekly Editor Team: Jean Boltz, John Nash, Sheri Siesseger, Leslie Vandivere,
Paul Van Hemel 
Proofreaders: Rebecca Jann, Susan Van Hemel, Shirley Springfloat, Linda Randall,
Gerry Ann Strube
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: ollienewseditor@gmail.com.
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.

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