News from
Academy for Lifelong Learning of Cape Cod, Inc.


November 2021

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In This Issue

  • President's Message
  • Call for Spring Courses
  • Rescheduling Classes

  • Special Event Recap
  • Zoom Works Fine
ALL Contact Information
The ALL Office at Cape Cod Community College is closed temporarily.

Feel free to contact us:
E-mail: lifelonglearning@capecod.edu
Telephone 774-330-4400 (please leave a message)
President's Message

This is the time of year when our thoughts are supposed to be warm and friendly, turning toward colorful leaves on the trees, upcoming holidays, friends, wonderful repasts, and maybe even a party or two. Instead, as I started writing this, I was staring at the forty foot tree lying in our yard. Luckily, it fell away from the house and didn’t hit my wife’s car, either. While we have lost some privacy and shade, we have gained some interesting new landscape options. I really cannot complain, nor should I. Our neighborhood was without power until Friday evening while our generator continued to crank away.

This year is proving to be a challenge on many fronts. The ALL community seems to have had more than its share of tragic losses among our members and their families. As a matter of practice we do not formally publicize members’ passings in order to avoid missing someone. Nevertheless there were two situations that I feel obliged to mention. Our former president, treasurer, current finance committee member, and long-time ALL booster Joe Gill and his family suffered a tragic loss recently when Joe’s son passed. This is never supposed to happen, but it does. Long-time ALL member and good friend Ann Corbett passed away on November 2. An artist herself, Ann oversaw the gallery in ALL’s lobby where members were welcome to display their creations. I often helped her, and the artist, hang the displays -- I brought some height to the project. Her unerring eye for arrangement coupled with her contagious sense of humor made our picture hanging sessions delightful experiences. Outside of aesthetics, I occasionally sought Ann’s counsel on various ALL matters, and she always came through with “spot on” advice and suggestions. I am extremely grateful that I knew her, and I will miss her very much.
 
Jim Lathrop
ALL President

A Call for Coordinators:
Time to Submit Course Ideas for Spring 2022
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There's still time to submit a course for Spring 2022!

Your Curriculum Committee is now accepting proposals for the Spring 2022 semester. We have been contacting former coordinators in hope of adding them to our roster. We encourage our members to become coordinators and share your expertise and interests with ALL of us. We also suggest that coordinators reach out to members of their classes and suggest that they become coordinators. There is so much talent out there! Let’s take advantage of our collective knowledge. Our deadline is fast approaching. We appreciate your kind assistance at this very busy time and look forward to receiving your proposals.

Contact lifelonglearning@capecod.edu for more information.
Miriam Kronish
Chair, Curriculum Committee

Some Classes Missed Due to the Power Outage
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During the recent power and internet outage, many coordinators were unable to hold class or class members were unable to attend.

As a result, the ALL Zoom Team made available one or two class meetings at the end of the original schedule to give coordinators flexibility. Each coordinator will decide whether to add additional class meetings or complete the course according to the original schedule. These decisions will be made at the discretion of each coordinator and may vary from course to course.

If you are currently enrolled in a course, please confirm class schedule adjustments directly with your coordinator.

Thank you.
 
Marilyn Nouri
The Zoom Team
In Case You Missed the October Special Event
Joan Freedman: October 20, 2021
“Women Helping Women on Cape Cod”


On October 20, 2021 at 1:30 p.m., Joan Freedman presented her Zoom event on “Women Helping Women on Cape Cod”. Her event focused on various volunteer agencies and opportunities available on Cape Cod.





Joan has been in elective office, City Council, and on numerous boards. Since retiring to the Cape, she has been active in women’s issues and charity work. Until recently, Joan was a Commissioner on the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. She is also a mediator and a mediation trainer. Joan made our members aware of many volunteer opportunities with groups such as the Dennis-Yarmouth Bay to Sound Neighbors, a version of which also exists in Nauset and Barnstable. The purpose of such groups is to help men and women stay in their own homes as they age. People in the community may volunteer their services to help with gardening, calling lonely people on the phone, taking someone to an appointment, shopping, or out to lunch, and in various other ways.

Other examples of volunteer organizations are Cape Mediation; Cape Cod Council of Churches Food Pantry and Baby Center; Kaitlyn’s Closet in Yarmouth; Flower Angels; Young Professionals; the Family Pantry; Habitat for Humanity; various charity/social groups; 100+ Women; AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP (retired senior volunteer program); and Grandmothers Against Gun Violence. If we are looking for ways to volunteer and help people in our local communities, Joan suggests that we check out one of these groups and find out how we can serve.

Thank you, Joan, for your inspiring presentation.
Diane Hoover
Chair, Special Events Committee

Zoom Works Just Fine
For Many ALL Coordinators
This continues an ongoing series of stories about Academy for Lifelong Learning coordinators and classes. Please let us know If you have a course or coordinator you would like to see featured.
ALL Coordinator John Temple is a retired business writer, lifelong listener, and long-ago concert reviewer and instrument kit builder. His eight previous ALL courses have covered a range of topics in classical music, from Mozart’s piano concertos to chamber and choral works, unfinished symphonies and master classes. His current course, “Music of Deliberation,” explores the creative choices composers made in shaping their works. His new course for spring 2022 is called “Nationalism in Music.”
 
There are many ways to create a satisfying ALL course. My approach is to use each new semester to tackle a different topic within the same broad framework of classical music. Current class members often have great suggestions for new course topics. But for the coming semester, I’m working on an idea of my own: “Nationalism in Music”— a course focused on a few key questions:

  • Given that music is a kind of international language, what is it that makes a piece “sound” like the product of a particular country or culture?
  • How much of this is the composer’s doing, and how much has nothing to do with the music at all?
  • Is this good or bad? Is music just an expression of a culture, or a generator of it? To what degree was Wagner responsible for Hitler? etc.
 
Like my past courses, the new one draws extensively on YouTube performance videos. For me, the combination of the Zoom platform and the vast YouTube library has proved to be one of the happy accidents of the pandemic. Screen-sharing on Zoom, while not perfect, is often just as reliable as trying to bring up the right video while standing in front of a class. In addition, everyone in the class has a great view of the screen while sitting at home. And the caliber of available videos often makes a strong case that when you see more in the performance, you hear more in the music.
 
Using Zoom has also enabled me to open the class to students and occasional visitors from far beyond the Cape, including people from Boston, Syracuse, Monterey, and even Tel Aviv. There is, of course, the Zoom limit of 25 people on-screen together at any one time, but it’s no more restrictive than the capacity rules of the classrooms in the Grossman building at Cape Cod Community College. The result, however, is that some of the courses have had extensive waiting lists.

So if the subject of “Nationalism in Music” interests you, register early!

John Temple
ALL Coordinator

Happy Thanksgiving !
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ALLways Welcomes Comments and
Suggestions about the Newsletter

CHECK YOUR E-MAILS OFTEN.
THE ALL OFFICE IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED. 

Please address your comments or suggestions to lifelonglearning@capecod.edu

We appreciate all our readers, with special thanks to ALL members who contribute their articles and photographs to our newsletters. 

Academy for Lifelong Learning of Cape Cod, Inc.
Cape Cod Community College
2240 Iyannough Rd 
West Barnstable, Massachusetts 02668
774-330-4400
lifelonglearning@capecod.edu