SummerLecturesclub.caSelect ‘Register 2025’ and follow the prompts. Membership for 2025 is $55.00.Presentations are Live at Trinity United Church, 400 Stevenson Street North, Guelph and and virtually via ZoomOn indicated Monday mornings from 9.15am (social and coffee) for lectures at 10am.
MARCH 10THPresident of Guelph “GoGoGrannies” Sya VanGeest will introduce Guelph’s GoGo Grannies, the work of this colourful organization, their past achievements and goals for 2025. Sya assures us that African grandmothers continue to need our support!
MARCH 24THMaria Chester, addressing us from Scotland, will share "La Belle Époque:Introduction”. La Belle Époque emerged in Paris, the city of light, in the last decades of the 19th and first decades of the 20th centuries. After the 1870/1871 Franco-Prussian war, life was meant to be lived! Modernity became the moving spirit.
APRIL 7THMaria Chester continues her presentations with "La Belle Époque:The Birth of Cinema, in 1895”, a very attractive presentation, filled with one minute films made in Lyon by the Lumiere Brothers and other producers in this new technology. Not to be missed!
APRIL 14THMaria Chester continues with "La Belle Époque:Les Ballets Russes”.Russian aristocrat Sergei Diaghilev brought to Paris Les Ballet Russes, a troupe of disciplined Russian ballerinas. He broke the rules of classical ballet and influenced fashion. Then suddenly it was over. On June 28th 1914, the Austria-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and WWI was about to begin.
SCHEDULED PRESENTATIONS
MAY 5THTo mark the first day of National Mental Health Week Alison De Muy, Director of Strategy and Community Engagement, Wellington Branch of Canada Mental Health Association will describe the important work of the association.
MAY 12THMaryLee Jensvold presents “Signs of Caregiving in Canada's Chimpanzee Sanctuary” near Montreal. Since 1997 Fauna Foundation near Montreal has provided care for over 30 embattled chimpanzees and monkeys. MaryLee Jensvold describes life in the sanctuary and reports on two of the chimpanzees' famed use of sign language.
JUNE 2NDWin Wahrer co-founder of The Justice for Guy Paul Morin Committee, The Ten Year Guy Paul Morin Saga” describing how his wrongful conviction in the murder of nine year old Christine Jessop gave birth to the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (now Innocence Canada) and how the association’s work has led to Bill C-40, the David and Joyce Milgaard Act, creating an official body to review possible miscarriages of justice.
JUNE 16THGrandmothers from Canada Connecting with, and Learning from, Grandmothers in Africa. Robin Scobie, of VanGogo, Vancouver, feels privileged to have been on the 2025 Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF) Trip to Eswatini and South Africa. Today she will share her firsthand view of the incredible cour-age and resilience of African grandmothers (“GoGo’s”) in action. Grandmothers in Canada stand in solidarity with grandmothers in Africa!
JULY 7THA behind the scenes look at wildlife rehabilitationChantal Theijn,founder of Hobbitstee Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre near Lake Erie will talk frankly about what happens to injured wildlife. She will highlight common preventable human induced issues/mistakes and how they can be prevented.
JULY 21STGorilla Conservation Coffee, saving gorillas, one sip at a time. Lawrence Zikusoka, Business Development Director at Gorilla Conservation Coffee social enterprise, will join us via Zoom from Uganda, to explain how single origin, 100% Arabica coffee farming helps to protect the gorillas in the Bwindi Impene-trable National Park.
AUGUST 11THA Representative of Law Enforcement will join us in response to Win Wharer’saddress of June 2nd to demonstrate the meaningful steps taken in the light of the tragedies inflicted on David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin and others to reduce or eliminate wrongful convictions.
AUGUST 18THSocial Integrations of 500 and counting, chimpanzees at Chimp Haven: Challenges and Triumphs Amy Fultz, co-founder of ChimpHaven, Louisiana, will join us remotely, to showcase the largest community of chimpanzees outside Africa, including the integration this spring of 34 additional chimpanzees from the NASA facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
SEPT 8TH“How can you mend a broken heart. The times they are a-changin’ ”Guelph Heart specialist Dr. Dan Schwarz will join us to share a brief summary of the remarkable recent advances in treatment of hypertension, atrial fibrillation, pacemakers, valvular heart disease and coronary artery disease.
SEPT 22ND“Our Last Presentation of the Summer”A representative of the Stephen Lewis Foundation will join us to recognize the continuing impact of the Guelph’s GoGo Grannies and the work of the GoGo Grannies Association to support grandmothers in Africa.
Celebrating Our Tenth YearIn celebration of our tenth year we have added a charity theme.$10.00 of your 2025 membership fee will be donated to Guelph’s GoGo Grannies associated with the Stephen Lewis Foundation, helping African grandmothers (GOGOs) to raise children who have lost their parents through AIDS).REGISTER
Countdown to 2025 Summer Series!
Summer Lectures ClubMember of the Third Age Network Since 2016