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How We Are Coping:
Cloth Face Coverings
While Personal Protective Equipment is still in short supply and surgical masks should be reserved to those in health care settings, there is a growing acceptance of cloth face coverings when we have to be in public settings like the grocery store or pharmacy.
Click here for the CDC's explanation of this guideline.
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Masks in Progress by Karen Witt
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Karen Witt tells us that she misses the opportunity to take "Mask Making" with Louis Gire this spring at OLLI. So she is exercising her creative side and making a very different kind of mask shown here as works in progress. She will send us images of the final product, but I can imagine that wearing these masks of a bear, wolf, rabbit, or bison to the grocery store might encourage social distancing (and a great way to start a conversation).
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What Can I Do?
Many of our members are in the age considered to be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. We have included some information about options for volunteering, but in-person volunteering can be risky at this time. But you can call someone you know might be alone. If you are going to the grocery store anyway, see what you can pick up and leave on the doorstep for a neighbor. Share your wisdom about where to find garlic or rice with the other folks on OLLIChat. Think about your family and use this quiet time to put photos in order or write down and share some of those stories you would like to go to the next generation, whether that's in your family or somewhere else.
If you need help, ask a friend who might be able to assist. Sometimes the greatest gift we can give is to trust someone else to ask for their help.
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The Astronomy Club of Asheville
When the Reuter Center is open, we count The Astronomy Club of Asheville as one of our best programming partners. They meet usually on the first Thursday of the month with interesting speakers and presentations, The club also offers star gazes, with club members on hand to advise and assist participants in the basics of astronomy and the techniques of observing celestial phenomena.
We wanted to pass along this message from Knoxe Worde, President of the Astronomy Club of Asheville.
"Normally, the Astronomy Club of Asheville is very active with public outreach events, including nighttime and solar viewing. We are requested by local schools and organizations quite frequently. One club member is very active working with local Girl Scouts helping them earn their Astronomy badges. There are telescopes available at local libraries that anyone with a library card can check out and take home. Pack Library, downtown Asheville, has three; Nantahala library system has one at each of their branches with three at the Macon County branch.
"Nationally, the Astronomy Club of Asheville is usually one of the top five (and often top three) organizations in the country in the number of events offered to the public.
We try to keep people entertained and informed with our club website, Facebook page and newsletter, The Asheville Skies (which one can sign up for on home page of our website).
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During this time of school and closures of public areas there is still much anyone can do to learn and enjoy the night sky and everything Astronomy. Click here to go to the website for the Astronomy Club of Asheville.
The "Resources" tab has links to numerous educational and informational sites for all ages.
There are good free planetarium programs for your personal computer that can be downloaded so that anyone can view and study the night sky while stuck at home.
Stellarium
is a good one.
There are numerous good apps for your phone that can also be downloaded. Sky Safari is a favorite among some of our members.
"NASA has many education and informative links for all ages. The agency has made its entire media library, pictures and videos, publicly accessible and copyright free! You can view images of our Sun in real time at NASA SOHO mission website.
"We encourage anyone who has an interest in Astronomy to be proactive in discovering and exploring the many opportunities that exist even from home. We hope that
soon we will once again be able to gather at public meetings and star gazes. Meanwhile, throw down that TV remote, explore and enjoy with your family and children those options freely available for discovering more about our vast and amazing universe.
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Staying Informed
Where Can I Go to Enjoy the Spring
We ran this last week, but thought it might be helpful to run again. We know that this is a beautiful time of the year here in Western North Carolina. Many of us may feel drawn out of our regular schedules and "cooped up." As we seek to find ways to stay active, we may have wanted to get out to our favorite trails and parks, with the reminder to keep appropriate social distance. Some parks have had to close, however, as people crowd outside,and it has been hard to allow people to maintain physical distance. A
ll Asheville City
dog parks, playgrounds and outdoor courts have closed;
greenways and walking trails will remain open. Check the following websites before you head out to hit the trail. Be aware that even if parks are open that facilities may not be.
See other blocks in this newsletter for information about restaurants that still offer takeout and shopping hours for older adults at some local markets.
Also see information in this newsletter about how to join OLLIChat. Members of that group have been actively sharing their experiences trying to find the most sought-after items.
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The Meditation SIG - Virtual Edition!
Zoom Meditation from Your Safe Space
Monday, April 13th at 4:30 - 5:15 pm
Dream Yoga Meditation: A Shaman Guided Journey Practice with Linda Go
This period of social distancing is a great opportunity to get quiet and meditate. However, group meditations are even more powerful than individual ones. So let's stay connected via ZOOM. Zoom is an easy-to-use meeting platform you can access via your phone or laptop and allows you to participate in video or audio.
Linda Go will be sharing a sampling from her "Night School" Dream Yoga Meditation Practice with a few fun and possibly challenging lucid dreaming practices that may help you to:
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improve memory and brain function
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stimulate creativity
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achieve power of intent and problem solving
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dispel hidden fears and traumas
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attain forgiveness
Remember, to access this conference call one has to pre-register with Zoom.
All OLLI members are welcome at our meditation programs.
Meditation SIG contact: Sally Ekaireb
skekaireb@gmail.com
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The Odyssey Project:
The Journey Home
"Beyond the Seduction of
Violence as Virtue"
Gareth Higgins, Thomas Griggs, and Avery Sosebee
Thursday, April 23, 7-9 p.m.
It was originally to be a face-to-face event, taking place on March 19th, but due to the pandemic, we are holding it as a webinar instead. Everything else remains the same: the topic - "Beyond the Seduction of Violence as Virtue" and the speakers Gareth Higgins, Thomas Griggs and Avery Sosebee, although the group plans to include some reflections on our current health crisis. The webinar will be held on the Zoom platform, and participants will receive an invitation to join the webinar nearer to April 23rd. Please contact Sophie Mills directly (smills@unca.edu) if you have more questions.
"The Odyssey Project" is a series of interactive community dialogues using Homer's
Odyssey as the context for exploring some of the most fundamental
societal challenges we face. The series is sponsored by the
NC Humanities Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, UNC Asheville, The Mankind Project, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UNC Asheville, and Odyssey Community School.
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| From Getty Images, via NPR |
Learning More about Coronavirus
Many online newspapers are making all information on the coronavirus available, even to those without a subscription.
 OLLI member, College for Seniors instructor, chair of OLLI's Life Transitions Committee and active member of the Aging in Place Special Interest Group, Meridith Miller sent along a link to
TED Connects: Community and Hope. As the authors of the website explain, this service
features experts whose ideas can help us "reflect and work through this time with a sense of responsibility, compassion and wisdom." If you missed these conversations last week, you can still hear them and sign up for updates with recommendations for talks from the vast TED library.
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Watch for details about an online meeting
OLLI Celebration of Community
We have traditionally held a Town Hall Meeting in the spring term
to review the highlights of our committees and programs, to review
our finances, to discuss our member survey, and to present our slate
of officers for the coming year. This year we will shift the title and
the tone of this meeting to celebrate and engage as many people
as possible in planning for the future of our organization. Come to
share ideas, ask questions, learn how OLLI works, and celebrate our
community. We will share our meeting agenda and questions soon.
We are working now with our student worker Fatin Ishraq to set up a Facebook Live event. Stay tuned.
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Dear OLLI Members,
We had used our Sunday newsletter to tell you about upcoming events, most at the Reuter Center. At first, we just kept reminding you that events had been postponed. But thanks to the resilience and creativity we are all finding in ourselves, a number of organizations are moving events online. See information in this newsletter about the Meditation SIG and the Odyssey Project.
Now we are using the Sunday newsletter to share what you are doing in this unprecedented time of social distance. In Friday's newsletter we had a block on how to create a video or send a picture. Let us know how you are staying active or intellectually engaged. What are you eating? What may have changed or improved for you. Many of you responded to our poll that it is community and connection as much as learning that make OLLI important. Let's use new ways to build and sustain connections.
I was thinking of the ways technology, social media, and tools for remote working have utterly changed our ability to manage this pandemic. When I got home on Friday, after five Zoom meetings in one day, I realized that being able to see myself as well as others on a meeting is more exhausting than an in-person meeting. It's going to get worse as time away from the hairdresser increases. And I recognize that in addition to the technology, we are all adjusting rapidly to a new way of working and communicating in a time of uncertainty, when all the things that make us, successful, planning, anticipating, organization, are hard to maintain.
But technology can be the thing that gives me new energy. My friends in Pembroke, NC set up a Zoom cocktail hour and invited my 95-year-old Chapel Hill neighbor (why haven't we been doing this for ages?). We spent a long time on the call admitting that our lives were not much different, since most of us are homebodies. We all have enough food and other comforts (including wine and toilet paper) and we have people who watch out for us. My Chapel Hill neighbor is currently enjoying Erik Larson's "The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz," as she recalled her own experiences during the war We were also on the call with a friend who has taught history at UNC Pembroke, who has a passion for Churchill (and Napoleon, but that's another subject). These are the kinds of conversations that we have not had in person for a really long time. We now have a standing Saturday night "meeting" planned. Being "together apart" has reminded me of what's really important.
We are truly thankful for the wonderful community we create together, even when we are apart. We miss you and are eager to learn how to connect while we are apart and also eager to gather together again.
Catherine Frank
Executive Director
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| Jeff Jones (top row, center) conducts his beginning Spanish course using Zoom |
What's Next for College for Seniors
The fate of summer programs at UNC Asheville and at OLLI remains uncertain, but we continue to plan and hope. A couple of our instructors are experimenting with offering courses online. The picture above shows Jeff Jones who on his own is offering his Spanish class to participants who signed up for the spring term.
We have a couple of other instructors who have agreed to trial runs with online presentation and will begin to test and experiment. We have the challenge of learning how to manage the two Zoom licenses alloted to us through the university and figuring out the many logistics of working with instructors to get them up and running in a way that is safe and secure and easy for our members to use. We hope to test platforms other than Zoom and also to begin some larger and more intimate virtual gatherings.
We are optimists. We anticipate that we will come back with the potential for both online and in-person courses. We are considering how we will have to pay for and charge for new services and who is best equipped to help us navigate a "new normal."
Our staff has been dedicated to creating a community of people who have had the luxury of gathering in person to learn and connect. We may have taken for granted the luxury of having a space designed and built for our use by staff and members who were able to dream big and achieve their goals. Now we realize that we can still dream big and be part of a community of learners, but that will look very different in the future. 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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Send us your favorite online resources!
Every Wednesday we will send out emails while our planned activities are suspended and provide links to resources to encourage you to continue learning and satisfying your intellectual curiosity. We can use your help. Send us your favorite podcasts or other fun shareable media.
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Food and Shopping Options
Special Shopping Hours and Delivery Options
Who Is Still Offering Takeout?
The
Asheville Independent Restaurant Association
(AIR) has compiled a list of area restaurants offering takeout and delivery services - as well as those offering free meals for kids in need. Check it out here!
Please note that businesses are changing daily so it makes sense to call ahead to make sure that your favorite is still offering takeout (and if you order ahead, many places will bring your food curbside.)
Farmer's Markets
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For COVID-19 updates:
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This Day in Sports History
by College for Seniors Instructor Larry Griswold
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Lew Alcindor |
April 5, 1976: Nine years after banning the dunk shot from college and high school basketball games, the National Basketball Rules Committee announced
dunk shots would be legal again starting with the 1976-1977 season. Sometimes called "The Lew Alcindor Rule," many people believe it was established
because of the dominance of UCLA player Lew Alcindor who, after converting to Islam, began using the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971.
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar |
April 5, 1984:
In his 15th professional season, the Los Angeles Lakers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ties Wilt Chamberlain's NBA record of 31,419 total points,
and then surpasses Chamberlain in the Lakers 129-115 victory over the Utah Jazz. When he retired after the 1988-89 season, Jabbar had scored
38,387 points, a record that still stands today.
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How OLLI Members Are Spending Their Time as They Maintain Social Distance
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Jim Carillon |
Nancy Gordon is a stellar volunteer and participant at OLLI and often shares her beautiful photos of sunrise and sunset. Today she sent the following image, with the comment "Today's dawn was like a painting."
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| Dawn, April 5, 2020 by Nancy Gordon |
Nancy accompanied the image with this quotation: "It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in her rising, but doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it."
Thoreau, "Economy," Walden (1854). And Nancy concludes "
Stay safe and be well. Virtual hugs." We second that emotion.
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Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein
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OLLI member Kay Lowe writes to tell us that she has been reading The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict. Click here to read Kay's review and commentary on a book that takes her out of the present to another time.
Please keep sharing stories of how you are staying in . We want and staying safe and learning. We would love to hear from you.
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Bill McKibben |
Many thanks go to Dave and Lin Brown and The Ecology Wildlife Foundation for providing support to continue to bring such prominent speakers to our community!
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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.
To get started, send an email to
OLLIChatAVL@gmail.com, and the OLLIChat volunteers will send you an invitation.
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We are postponing making decisions about this program until we know more about the ongoing impact of COVID-19
Visit olliasheville.com/exploring-ccrcs for more information.
"Exploring Continuing Care Retirement Communities" will meet for eight sessions over the course of seven weeks. Three of the meetings will be held at the Reuter Center where we will set a context for better understanding the advantages and challenges of life in a CCRC. For the other meetings, participants will travel to representative communities to hear both from marketing directors and from residents to gain a clearer understanding of quality and character of individual communities.
Click here to register through OLLI's online registration system.
For more information, contact Hannah Furgiuele at hfurgiue@unca.edu
or
828-250-3871
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POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
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STEM Lecture
"Ethical Issues in Science and
Technology"
by Melissa Burchard, UNC Asheville Professor and
Chair of the Philosophy Department
Monday, April 6, 4:30 p.m.
The STEM Lecture Series is interdisciplinary with a focus on science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics. The 2019-2020 series
theme is "Science vs. Science Denial." This topic is especially
important in light of the current environment of science denial. It is
important than ever to emphasize the benefits we receive from
science and and to expose the detrimental effects of
denying science.
This lecture is free and open to everyone.
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