Past Events
Travel Group August 26, 2021
Greenland, Presented by John Aldrich, Professor, Dept of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine
Greenland is the largest island in the world with an area similar to Nunavut in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. The 58,000 residents are 85% Inuit as in Nunavut. However, the similarities do not extend much further. Greenland is an autonomous independent territory of Denmark, which provides two thirds of Greenland’s budget. The many coastal villages have the neat and tidy look of Scandinavia, and the capital Nuuk has a modern parliament, shopping centres and several museums. The island is 80%covered in an ice sheet up to 3 km think. On the west coast of Greenland is the impressive Ilulissat glacier, which produces many thousand icebergs yearly, many of which reach as far south as Newfoundland.
If you are currently not on the email list of the EC travel interest group and wish to receive our mailings, please contact Paul Steinbok at psteinbok@cw.bc.ca.
A zoom link will be sent out 2 days before each meeting.
Thursday, 26 August 2021 - 3:00pm
Easy Riders - Aug 18, 2021
Easy Riders' 4th social “easy ride”:
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 18th at 10:00am
Meet at RICHMOND OLYMPIC OVAL at the north (river)end of Oval Road — west along Middle Arm Dyke to Terra Nova - South on West Dyke to Steveston - east on South Dyke to Horseshoe Slough — north on Horseshoe Slough Trail to Williams - West on Williams to Railway Greenway— with a return to start at Olympic Oval.
This is approximately 28 kms ion pretty flat terrain (though sections are on well-graded trail rather than paved hardtop. E-bikers are welcome.
You can find a map of the route here: https://www.richmond.ca/__shared/assets/scenic_route_29395.pdf
Free Parking is available at Richmond Works Yard and on nearby streets if limited Olympic Oval Parking is full (it is $1.00 per hour). See https://www.richmond.ca/__shared/assets/sunset_series_parking_map44725.pdf
The oval to oval circuit should take about two hours (maybe a little more depending on stops, wind etc).
For those intending to cycle from home to the meet-up point: The distance from Arthur Laing Bridge to Olympic Oval is just over 5kms via south side of airport and Dunsmuir or #2 Road bridge.
If you are interested in participating in this ride, please email me by reply (at wynn@geog.ubc.ca) which will allow me to inform you if plans have to change.
Herewith the necessary stipulations: If you are joining this Easy Riders outing, please recognize that you do so voluntarily for recreational purposes. It is your responsibility to ensure that your bike is in good running order and thoroughly roadworthy. You must wear an approved cycling helmet, ride in a safe manner and obey all road traffic signs and rules. We are the Easy Riders - we will try to maximize use of protected bike lanes, local street bikeways, and painted bike lanes on our routes but some use of Shared Use lanes may be necessary. Generally we will try to follow the city’s AAA (All Ages and Abilities) routes. Inclines are unavoidable if riding any distance in Vancouver. Individuals should be careful not to over-exert themselves or ride beyond their comfort zones. We will have a designated route and accommodate those who need to dismount and walk or proceed slowly.
Our aim here is moderate, comfortable exercise, conviviality and enjoyment.
I have scheduled this with an eye on the weather forecast, which is promising (a high of 22 Celsius with minimal chance of rain). Of course things can change — and it is conceivable that we may be enveloped in smoke from various fires. I WILL MAKE AN ASSESSMENT OF THE SITUATION AND DECIDE WHETHER TO PROCEED LATE AFTERNOON TUESDAY 17th AND INFORM EVERYONE OF THAT DECISION BY EMAIL BY 8:00 PM ON 17th. IF YOU CANNOT / DO NOT RECEIVE A MESSAGE, FEEL FREE TO PHONE ME AT 236-988-0800 before 8:30 pm that day or on Wednesday morning 8:30-9:00 am FOR CLARIFICATION.
As always, partners are welcome to join in and feel free to recruit other emeriti.
NSERC For those interested in longer, and faster, rides with a small number of other emeriti, we have created the NSERClub - which is a shared list of those interested with their contact coordinates. The plan here is that interested individuals can schedule their own rides with others independently. To join the NSERC, send me an email at wynn@geog.ubc.ca) with Subject line "NOT SO EASY RIDERS” including your email address and if you wish phone number. By doing so you give consent for these details to be shared among like-minded emeriti. I will collate responses and circulate the new list to all who express interest with the hope that this will facilitate individual connections and arrangements.
Wednesday, 18 August 2021 - 10:00am to 12:00pmTravel Group July 22, 2021
Peru, Presented by Paul Steinbok
Paul and his wife, Edie, went to Peru in 2016 with the major objective of visiting Machu Picchu. After a brief stay in Lima, they flew to Arequipa in the Andean foothills to start their acclimatization to high altitude. They then travelled by car North across the high Andes to Colca canyon, where they experienced condors. From there they traversed the Andean highlands going East to Puno and Lake Titicaca. After touring Lake Titicaca, they boarded the Andean Explorer train in Puno en route to their final destination, Cusco. This culminated in visits to Machu Picchu, where they both climbed the “stairs of death’ to the top of Wayna Picchu.
If you are currently not on the email list of the EC travel interest group and wish to receive our mailings, please contact Paul Steinbok at psteinbok@cw.bc.ca.
A zoom link will be sent out 2 days before each meeting.
Thursday, 22 July 2021 - 3:00pmEasy Riders July 19, 2021
This is the third ride of the Special Interest Group: Easy Riders.
Meet at Arbutus Greenway and West 45th — east along 45th Avenue bikeway — north on Wales and Duchess to BC Parkway — Parkway to John Hendry Park and Central Valley Greenway — west on 10th Avenue bikeway to Arbutus Greenway - Arbutus Greenway to west 45th (or intervening points)
This is approximately 26 kms in total. Route is designed to avoid most serious inclines. For the most part it follows local street bikeways (with a few sections of protected bikeway) (see: https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/map-cycling-vancouver.pdf). E-bikers are welcome.
If you are interested in participating in this ride, please email me by reply (at wynn@geog.ubc.ca) which will allow me to inform you if plans have to change.
Herewith the necessary stipulations: If you are joining this Easy Riders outing, please recognize that you do so voluntarily for recreational purposes. It is your responsibility to ensure that your bike is in good running order and thoroughly roadworthy. You must wear an approved cycling helmet, ride in a safe manner and obey all road traffic signs and rules. We are the Easy Riders - we will try to maximize use of protected bike lanes, local street bikeways, and painted bike lanes on our routes but some use of Shared Use lanes may be necessary. Generally, we will try to follow the city’s AAA (All Ages and Abilities) routes. Inclines are unavoidable if riding any distance in Vancouver. Individuals should be careful not to over-exert themselves or ride beyond their comfort zones. We will have a designated route and accommodate those who need to dismount and walk or proceed slowly.
Our aim here is moderate, comfortable exercise, conviviality and enjoyment.
I have scheduled this with an eye on the weather forecast, which is promising (a high of 22 Celsius with minimal chance of rain). Of course, things can change — and it is conceivable that we may be enveloped in smoke from various fires. I will make an assessment of the situation and decide whether to proceed late afternoon Sunday July 18th and inform everyone of that decision by email by 8pm on July 18th. If you cannot / do not receive a message, please feel free to phone met at 236-988-0800 before 8:30pm that day or Monday morning 9:00-9:30am for clarification.
As always, partners are welcome to join in and feel free to recruit other emeriti.
ii) NSERC For those interested in longer, and faster, rides with a small number of other emeriti, we have created the NSERClub - which is a shared list of those interested with their contact coordinates. The plan here is that interested individuals can schedule their own rides with others independently. To join the NSERC, send me an email at wynn@geog.ubc.ca) with Subject line "NOT SO EASY RIDERS” including your email address and if you wish phone number before July 16th. By doing so you give consent for these details to be shared among like-minded emeriti. I will collate responses and circulate the new list to all who express interest with the hope that this will facilitate individual connections and arrangements. However energetic your cycling intentions, please do join the July 19th ride to meet others and share ideas about future outings.
Monday, 19 July 2021 - 10:00am to 12:00pm
Photo Group July 9, 2021
The theme for July 9 is People.
Please submit up to 3 different photos. If you processed any of your 3 photos using Photoshop, Lightroom, etc., please include an additional “before” photo of one of them, so we can see how you transformed the original into the final result.
If possible, at least one of your photos should be on the theme (they all can be, of course!). You can submit new photos, or photos you found in your catalog that fit the theme. Either is fine.
At our Zoom meeting on May 21 we continued our non-judgemental review and discussion of our photos. We also had a brief discussion of the ethics of photographing people you don’t know, how best to ask for permission, and when it’s not OK. We will continue this discussion on July 9.
Send your photos to me at richard@rhspencer.ca. Please number your photos if you would like me to show them in a particular order.
You can send them as email attachments, zip files, or downloads from an online site. If you include them in the body of an email, you should avoid letting your software reduce the size of the photos to any resolution less than about 1000 x 800 pixels (within reason, bigger is generally better!).
If you would like to join, please contact Richard Spencer for the zoom-link at richard@rhspencer.ca
Friday, 9 July 2021 - 3:00pm
Film Group June 30, 2021
UBC Emeriti – Film Group
Series Twelve – Ecofeminist Warriors
The films can be screened via the streaming sites listed with each film
Zoom discussions of each film will take place on: April 28, May 26 and June 30 at 4pm
Hosted by John LeBlanc
Series Twelve: Ecofeminism addresses the relationship between human beings and their surrounding world from a gender-based perspective, insisting upon equality for women within a patriarchy-dominated society while also demanding the ethical treatment of a nature suffering a similar patriarchal oppression. Unlike Hollywood films (such as Interstellar) that present the relationship with nature from the perspective of patriarchal elites, which devalues human and natural diversity and democracy, ecofeminist films emphasize that we live in harmony with nature, instead of dominating it, with women playing a strong role in redressing that imbalance. The first two films in the series (Spoor and Woman at War) feature examples of strong European women who defy their entrenched social orders to achieve their ecofeminist goals. The third film (Women Without Men), situated in the strongly patriarchal culture of Iran, provides a more nuanced, artistic consideration of ecofeminist activism.
June 30 – Women Without Men (2009) – directed by Shirin Neshat is the first feature film by the activist Iranian exile who has produced major video installations dealing with gender issues. The film is based on the Iranian novelist Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel of the same title, which, like the film, is highly conceptual. The film focuses on four women, drawn from a spectrum of Iranian society (Zarin is a prostitute, Munis and Faezeh are middle class, and Fakhri the wife of a general). The action is set during the 1953 coup (key to understanding current Iranian politics) where the democratic government of Mohammad Mosaddegh is replaced by a US and Britain backed royalist regime. The women’s stories are told separately but they come together in a garden estate purchased by the recently separated Fakhri. STREAM VIA UBC LIBRARY CATALOGUE: SEARCH TITLE OF FILM.
To join the group, please email john.leblanc @ ubc.ca