GUELPH – Summer Lectures Club is a non-profit, independent organization operated by a group of volunteers who arrange lectures by people from all walks of life.
The club, a member of Third Age Network since 2016, is primarily for seniors, but all ages are welcome.
Lectures are offered both virtually through Zoom and in person at Trinity United Church (400 Stevenson St. N. in Guelph).
They take place on Monday mornings, with coffee and social time starting at 9:15am and lectures beginning at 10am.
Guelph GoGoGrannies president Sya VanGeest introduced the organization and its work, past achievements and goals for 2025 on March 10.
“Sya assures us that African grandmothers continue to need our support,” Summer Lectures Club officials state.
La Belle Époque
In three consecutive lectures, Maria Chester, addressing the club from Scotland, will share La Belle Époque, a period of French history which 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 FrancoPrussian war, life was meant to be lived! Modernity became the moving spirit,” officials state.
Chester will offer an introductory lecture on March 25.
On April 7 she will offer a lecture on the birth of cinema in 1895, which officials describe as “a very attractive presentation, filled with one minute films made in Lyon by the Lumiere Brothers and other producers in this new technology.”
On April 14, Chester will offer a lecture about Les Ballets Russes.
Russian aristocrat Sergei Diaghilev brought to Paris Les Ballets Russes, a troupe of well disciplined Russian ballerinas.
“He broke the rules of classical ballet; he influenced fashion,” officials state. “Then all on one day, it was over. On June 28, 1914 a Serb student assassinated Austria-Hungarian heir to the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, leading to war with Serbia. The other major European powers piled in, and the world was engulfed in WWI,” officials state.
Mental Health
On May 5, to mark the first day of National Mental Health Week, Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo Wellington director of strategy and community engagement Alison De Muy will describe the important work of the association.
Caring chimps
On May 12, the summer lecture will be about signs of caregiving in Canada’s chimpanzee sanctuary.
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 American sign Language (ASL).
Wrongful convictions
On June 2 Win Wahrer will offer a lecture called The Ten Year Guy Paul Morin Saga.
Wahrer is a co-founder of the The Justice for Guy Paul Morin Committee.
He will describe how Morin’s 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.
Connecting grandmothers
On June 16 Robin Scobie will offer a lecture about Grandmothers 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” officials state.
During the lecture she will share her firsthand view of the courage and resilience of African grandmothers (“GoGo’s”) in action.
Mending a broken heart
The Sept. 8 lecture is called “How can you mend a broken heart. The times they are a-changin.’”
Guelph Heart specialist Dr. Dan Schwarz will share a brief summary of the remarkable recent advances in treatment of hypertension, atrial fibrillation, pacemakers, valvular heart disease and coronary artery disease.
Membership
Club membership is $55 for 2025. To register, visit summerlecturesclub.ca.
