 Peggy Moore, OLLI at UNC Asheville College for Seniors instructor, will lead a meditation based on Universal Life Energy Techniques related to our physical bodies and our chakra system. To learn more about Peggy and the work she is doing go to her website
. Also on the website you can download a free Meditation Class slideshow. Go to the link called MEDITATION. Scroll down and click the black box. You can watch the slide show and/or download it to your computer.
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Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 726 8736 491
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All OLLI members are welcome to join
our Zoom Meditations.
Meditation SIG Contact: Sally Ekaireb
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The Forum SIG - Virtual Edition!
Friday, June 26, 1 p.m.
Online
June 26: How can we help Asheville recover from the current situation?
July 3: Current events and selection of topics for July.
The weekly Forum encourages a free-flowing dialogue designed to enrich and expand participants' thinking on a wide variety of topics; the group frequently focuses on current events. All OLLI members are welcome to attend. Contact
Beth Johnson, the Forum SIG coordinator, to get a link for the meeting: johnson1ea@earthlink.net
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Death Cafe: Online
Let's Talk About Death and Dying
Friday, June 26,
5 - 6:30 p.m.
Since the onset of the
Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,
Death Cafe
has moved from the Reuter Center to online.
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If you encountered a bear walking in the woods or along your neighborhood street, would you know what to do? Do you want to learn more about our neighborhood friends and hiking trail partners? You'll learn everything you want to know and get answers from an expert! Ashley Hobbs, Assistant State Black Bear and Furbearer Biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission will be speaking
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Poem of the Month Club
A project of the Wilma Dykeman Legacy
2nd Thursday of each month, 7 - 8 p.m.
Next Zoom discussion: July 9, 7 - 8 p.m.
Register by Monday, July 6, 5 p.m.
Since the beginning of language, poetry has evolved as a way for humans to tell stories, to share humor and belief, and to respond to the pain and beauty of this world. Epic poems -
The Epic of Gilgamesh,
The Iliad and
The Odyssey,
The Mahabharata,
The Aeneid,
Beowulf,
The Song of Roland - celebrated heroic deeds in the midst of tragedy. Their poetic structure allowed memorization and recitation of these lengthy narratives down through the generations. More recently, shorter lyric poems - whether rhymed or unrhymed - have allowed the common man and woman to speak to us in their own voices.
During this extraordinary time of quarantine, the Wilma Dykeman Legacy is sponsoring a new way for us to share the power of the written and spoken word: the Poem of the Month Club. On the 2nd Thursday evening of each month, through at least December 2020, registrants will gather via Zoom teleconferencing to hear and discuss a preselected poem. This "poetry hour" - our response to the pandemic - will be hosted by the Wilma Dykeman Legacy and led by an experienced discussion leader. You can attend as many discussions - or as few - as you like.
If you would like to register, just send an email BY END-OF-DAY MONDAY, JULY 6 to Jim Stokely, President of the Wilma Dykeman Legacy, at
stokely.jim@gmail.com
. We will then send you a standard copy of the poem with suggestions for reading and rereading in advance of the Zoom discussion.
Participation per gathering will be limited to 24, because that is the maximum number of participants who can be seen at one time via Zoom's Gallery View. In this virus-dominated time, we need to see each other and come together in community. What better way to do that than with the help of language crafted to take us beyond ourselves?
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How We Are Coping:
OLLI Members Report
The Zoom Family Gathering
by David Langdon
Many OLLI members have been learning about the Zoom video and teleconferencing system as it is associated with College for Seniors summer classes and other OLLI events. Beyond being a great tool for education, Zoom has been taken a couple of steps further by OLLI member Sam Harben who has begun using it for inter-family communications.
Sam and his wife Robin host occasional Zoom gatherings with family members in five cities and two countries. "Robin and I invite all eight of our grandchildren and three godchildren to Zoom with us." That makes eleven children and their parents all on Zoom at once. Sam says they enjoy just sitting back and listening to the family dynamic as the families talk among themselves. He and Robin learn a lot about their family without saying a word.
Sam has now become so proficient with Zoom that he's looking forward to organizing a high school class reunion. He and Robin have also spent time in isolation reaching out to friends around the country that they would never have been able to see without Zoom, especially in isolation.
One positive outcome from the isolation of COVID-19 is the learning experience we all can take advantage of using Zoom or FaceTime or WhatsApp. A free Zoom account allows you to hold a meeting with 2 or 3 people for 40 minutes at no charge. We're learning that the connection we miss as OLLI members can easily be transferred to family and friends.
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The Future of Intercollegiate Athletics
Webinar Recording
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The Future of Intercollegiate Athletics |
Webinar hosted by Larry Griswold |
If you missed this webinar on June 17 or would simply like to watch or listen again, you are in luck. Click on the image above to watch the recording.
Have you wondered what the landscape of intercollegiate athletics will look like this fall and beyond?
UNC Asheville Director of Athletics
Janet R. Cone was
joined by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham and North Carolina A&T's Athletic Director Earl M. Hutton III in a Virtual 101 Webinar, hosted by Larry Griswold, formerly with Sports Illustrated and sports history instructor at the College of Seniors.
Larry writes that "Janet Cone, Athletic Director of UNC Asheville came up with the idea and the panelists for it, and asked me to host.
My job was mostly to get it started, and then keep all the panelists involved until it ended 57 minutes later.
The first 3:40 is five slides UNC Asheville created and I narrated their presentation.
Then the four of us appear on screen and I spent just over two minutes on the history of intercollegiate athletics and
their size in terms of participation today.
By design, Janet was the first panelist to speak starting at 5:50. When it was over she was very happy with it.
Bubba Cunningham of UNC Chapel Hill was the last to speak, just after 10:00, but quickly had everyone laughing which
was good.
Earl Hitlon represented North Carolina A&T which is the largest historically black university in the country."
Thank you, Larry, for connecting OLLI to the rest of the university and helping us all understand the ways that sports and higher education are adapting in these unprecedented times. We know that it is challenging to have to make decisions that have such an enormous impact, but we are happy to see that everyone found something to smile about.
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Pan Harmonia
Shares Past Performances
Change is Coming!
This month we revisit a performance from 2006 Keowee Chamber Music Festival featuring Undine Smith Moore's Afro-American Suite
(1969) along with works by Adolphus C. Hailstork, Otto Luening and Ernst Bacon interpreted by Kate Steinbeck, flute, Tim Holley, cello, and Dewitt Tipton, piano, listen and enjoy!
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| Undine Smith Moore - Afro-American Suite (1969) - I. Andante |
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Staying Together Apart
We would all like things to be "back to normal" as soon as possible, to be back in our "home away from home." We also realize that the best way to stay safe is to stay home except for essential travel as long as the number of cases and hospitalizations in our community continues to rise. We here at OLLI are trying to make the most of this challenging time by finding ways to use technology like Zoom and social media platforms to stay connected and to understand "creative retirement" in new ways. We encourage you to try all of these new ways to capture a feeling for our OLLI community even while we have to stay apart.
We all look forward to being back together at the Reuter Center, but until then, we want you to feel connected and to continue to look to OLLI for great opportunities to learn "together apart."
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Gray Matters: Creating Connections
Video Rollout Continues
Gray Matters: Creating Connections video rollout continues as an energetic Bobbi Laratta tells of the experience bonding with her son as he completed his goal of running 50 marathons before his 50th birthday. Click on the image below to hear Bobbi's story.
Help connect with other OLLI members by telling your own story: It could be a Witness to History experience, or a unique, compelling personal life story of your own Please contact Kathleen Mainardi (
kkmainardi@gmail.com) or Judy LaMée (
judylamee@gmail.com)
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| Bobbi Laratta: Witness of History |
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The Leadership Is In
Tuesday, June 30,
2-3 p.m.
We are entering a new phase of our programs that is at least temporarily very different from our familiar territory. We want to find new ways to hear what you are thinking and to talk about our OLLI community's plans, our hopes, and our challenges. Our first two calls went well, and we hope to continue for a while.
During these sessions members of the OLLI staff and steering council will share their ideas about planning for the future. You don't have to have a question or idea.
Feel free just to stop by to say hello.
We want to know how you are thinking, feeling, and coping, and to stay connected to the organization that we create together.
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What's Next for OLLI at UNC Asheville
UNC Asheville has received approval from the UNC System Office for its fall plans, reopening with community expectations that everyone will do their part to minimize the threat of the disease.
Click here to read the university's fall 2020 plan. OLLI's plans are included at the end of the document. We have, in consultation with our colleagues, made the difficult decision to offer only remote instruction in the fall.
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COVID-19 Town Hall - June 18, 2020 |
The university plans to reopen for undergraduate education, beginning on Monday, August 10, and ending the fall term on Friday, November 20, with the hope of minimizing the times when large groups of students will be leaving and returning from campus by eliminating fall break. Our university's senior staff is managing a staggering number of decisions and details to maintain the university as a vital and important institution in our community. University leaders have to manage best and worst case scenarios that include enrollment numbers, finances, and state appropriations. They are working with guidance from the UNC System, UNC Healthcare, MAHEC, and Mission Health to make good decisions about safety protocols based on the best available data and our community's capacity to care for people who contract the virus. They are designing classrooms for social distance and safe entrances and exits, designing and ordering masks and hand sanitizers, creating protocols to serve food and manage libraries, and planning how to manage outbreaks of the virus when they occur.
College for Seniors program manager Herb Gunn and our curriculum committees are working on fall plans as well. At this point 40 instructors have agreed to offer remote courses. To manage the impact on our enrollment numbers, we will be reaching out to communities who have not traditionally participated to see if we can make up for the members of our current community who either cannot or do not wish to join in remote courses. We are reaching out to audiences at some of our area continuing care retirement communities and to communities like those at Asheville Terraces Apartments. If you are willing to help and are connected to communities you think would enjoy OLLI Online, please let us know. We are learning a great deal about remote learning that will help us serve a broader community during current pandemic conditions and also after we are able to return to face-to-face instruction.
Our finance committee is considering how to price our fall courses, and we are working with our registration software providers to configure new options for registration. We are setting some priorities for our Special Interest Groups who offer learning opportunities that will be interesting to a wide audience. Our Fab Friday committee is working to adapt their programming for this new learning environment, and we are considering other learning opportunities. While this is not necessarily the way we would have designed an online learning program if we were starting from scratch, we feel we are preserving the best of what we have done and moving to learn new things. We hope that you will want to join and contribute to this time of experimentation and growth.
We know that many of you will be disappointed if we cannot gather face-to-face. Some people have already told me that if the university opens we should open, even if we have a very different financial model and different epidemiological concerns. People have said they won't participate as long as we are online only, since online instruction is not as "good" as in person. Many people have hesitated about their privacy on Zoom or the challenge of joining online. As we assessed the challenges, cost, and feasibility of putting health and safety protocols in place, the health concerns of our population, and the challenges of a small staff and volunteer management that has always been at the heart of our work, we concluded that the risks to our population outweighed the benefits of providing an experience that would not have been what we are used to. We wanted to focus on our remote opportunities for now.
We know that many members of our community will not for a very long time feel comfortable returning to shared public spaces. Throughout the UNC Asheville campus, faculty and staff over 60 and those with underlying medical conditions, are hesitant to return to campus as long as there is no cure and no vaccine for Covid-19. I have been so grateful for the positive and entrepreneurial spirit that so many members of our community are showing as we work to remain vital and engaged. I am also grateful to those who ask challenging questions about how we are making our decisions and who remind us of the great value in the ways we have traditionally gathered.
We can still dream big and be part of a community of learners, even if temporarily that may look different than populating the Reuter Center. We will always strive to preserve the best of who we are, and we are learning all the time about the possibility to add new communities and tools to the work we do. We have always relied on community, and we hope that the ties of that community will last through this challenging time. Thanks so much for your patience and creativity as we enter a new phase of lifelong learning.
Stay tuned. Stay positive. Stay together apart.
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Sharing the Talents of OLLI Members
Click here to read poems by Wallace Bohanon, Karen Depew, Roger Munch, and Gail Snowdon.
Many thanks to OLLI members Jay Jacoby and Nelson Sartoris who compile this weekly showcase of the work of our talented OLLI poets. We have asked each of the poets to give us a short biography and to tell us why they have chosen to share their specific poems. I also want to thank our poets whose words and images help us to think differently about the times we are living through and in some sense experiencing collectively and also in isolation.
Please keep sharing stories of how you are staying in; just send them to me at cfrank@unca.edu. We want to know how you are staying safe and learning. Pictures and even videos are encouraged. We would love to hear from you.
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UNC Asheville, Healthy Aging NC, the NC Center for Health and Wellness, and UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC have created the Social Bridging Project that connects isolated older adults with trained volunteers for a friendly check-in, referrals to community resources, and help troubleshooting basic technologies to stay connected.
I
f you or someone you know would like to receive a call as a check-in, to get some training on technology that helps you connect to others or allows you to take advantage of telehealth opportunities, or if you need access to resources and are not sure where to begin, please contact Dr. Tasha Woodall
at (828)771-3445 or send an email to
Tasha.Woodall@mahec.net with your
phone number and preferred day and
time for a phone call.
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This Day in Sports History
by College for Seniors Instructor Larry Griswold
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Golf champion Betsy Rawls |
June 21, 1952: After graduating from the University of Texas with a degree in Physics, ladies golf professional and Spartanburg native
Betsy Rawls won the Western Open, 1 up, in match play at the Skokie Country Club, for her second major championship. During her
career Rawls won 55 tour events including 8 majors, and was inducted in the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1960, 15 years before she retired.
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Jim Bunning - Hall of Fame Senator |
June 21, 1964: On his way to a 19 win season, Philadelphia's Jim Bunning threw a perfect game, retiring all 27 Mets batters for a Phillies 6-0 win.
It was the first regular season perfect game in 42 years, and made him the first to throw a no-hitter in both leagues since he had done that for the
Detroit Tigers in 1958. Later he served Kentucky as a U.S. Congressman and Senator, and he is the only Major League player to be elected to
both the U.S. Senate and Baseball Hall of Fame.
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GreenWorks 8th Annual Pollinator Celebration Events
POLLINATOR PHOTO CONTEST
Now until June 30
Break out your smartphones and cameras this June and start snapping pics of WNC's native pollinators!
Enter your best photos in our contest for a chance to win incredible prizes, like a $250 shopping spree at Reems Creek Nursery, and to see your photo posted on Asheville GreenWorks' Instagram!
Stream "The Pollinators" and Live Q+A
Live Q+A on June 23, 7- 8:30 p.m.
It's a "movie screening" with a twist... We're offering access to this critically acclaimed film, but you get to watch it from your own home, on your own schedule!
You register, we send you a link, you stream the film between June 19th and June 24th - easy as that. But it gets better - on June 23rd, we're hosting a Q&A with two of the bee researchers from the film: Maryann and Jim Frazier!
Released in 2019, "The Pollinators" is a cinematic journey around the United States following migratory beekeepers and their truckloads of honeybees as they pollinate the flowers that become the fruits, nuts and vegetables we all eat. While the film is focused on honeybees, they take a hard look at the pesticides that impact all pollinators.
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 Leadership Asheville Buzz Breakfast Online:
"Asheville Open for Business?: Next Steps"
Wednesday, June 24, 9-10:30 a.m.
This pandemic is a major stressor on our economy and on our healthcare system. Many people are unemployed or furloughed. Hospitality and retail workers along with artists were some of the first and hardest hit. Unfortunately, it does not stop there. Non-profits, like Leadership Asheville, are also being impacted, as many have had to cancel major fundraising events. Hear from Katie Cornell, executive director of the Asheville Area Arts Council, Liz Tallent, marking and special events director for The Orange Peel, Kevin Westmoreland, co-owner of the Corner Kitchen and Chestnut restaurants, and Lucious Wilson, general manager of the Wedge Brewing Company.
Leadership Asheville is a department of UNC Asheville. Event sponsors are Dixon, Hughes, Goodman, Van Winkle Law Firm, and table sponsors are Explore Asheville, Western Carolina University, and Parsec Financial Wealth Management.
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Wishing They Were Here
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Michael and Robert Meeropol
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In one of the most famous cases of the Cold War, the Rosenbergs were charged with passing classified atomic bomb secrets to the Soviets during World War II, were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, and then executed in 1953. The couple's two young sons Michael and Robert were adopted by Anne and Abel Meeropol, known for writing the iconic anti-lynching song, "Strange Fruit."
Michael and Robert Meeropol argued that their parents' case still has political relevance, and they have been active participants in the long-standing debate over the Rosenbergs' guilt. OLLI, along with
UNC Asheville's Department of Management and Accountancy, the Offices of the Dean of Social Sciences and the Associate Provost, the Humanities Program and the NEH Professorship, all sponsored the event. We were particularly moved by Meeropol's special presentation for a packed classroom of OLLI members, and even more moved when he wrote to say how meaningful it was to be able to talk to a room of people who remembered his parents.
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Join OLLIChat, the replacement for OLLITalk.
It's free for all 2019-20 OLLI members and easy to use. It's also a great way to stay connected as we are all trying to find ways to manage unprecedented challenges.
OLLIChat is an online community where OLLI at UNC Asheville
members may share information of common interest with each other. It is designed to look and function like the old OLLITalk.
Introducing OLLIChat Companion
Several times a week, the volunteers at OLLIChat send entertaining content to our subscribers - humor, old movie clips and games. The service is free. Please email
OLLIChatAVL@gmail.com
and a volunteer will reply and send you an invitation.
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