Sunday October 1st – [Online] What Makes Things Funny?

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing YouTube video clips featuring Peter McGraw, co-author of “The Humor Code”, talking about his Benign Violation Theory of comedy. The topic and videos were selected and will be introduced by Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/296038262/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday September 24th – [Online] Women in the Film Industry

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing a TEDx talk by Alicia Malone, a film reporter and critic, and clips from an interview of Nina Menkes, a filmmaker and director of the 2022 documentary Brainwashed. The topic and videos were selected and will be introduced by Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/295885659/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday September 17th – [Online] Sister in the Brotherhood

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing an episode of The Construction Record podcast. It’s an interview of Hilary Peach, author of “Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood” about her experiences in the trades, working as a welder.

The topic and podcast episode were selected and will be introduced by Tanya Long, a Toronto Oasis participant.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/291939413/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday September 10th – [Online] Feminist Groundbreakers, Troublemakers, or Both?

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

At the Toronto Cenotaph, November 11, 1977, feminists held their own Remembrance Day event, with placards that read “For every woman raped in every war”. In Brisbane, Australia, on Anzac Day, April 25, 2017, Yassmin Abdel-Magied posted on her Facebook page “LEST WE FORGET (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)” What happened next will be revealed during the intro. We will then watch a 2015 TED Talk by Yassmin, a Sudanese diaspora writer, broadcaster and award-winning social advocate (https://www.yassminam.com/). The TED talk is entitled ‘What does my headscarf mean to you?” a presentation that focuses on unconscious bias.

The talk was suggested by Helen Lenskyj, who will be providing the intro and an outro to the video and topic. Helen is a Toronto Oasis participant and Professor Emerita, University of Toronto, where she taught sociology.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/295589170/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday September 3rd – [Online] How Complex Life Evolved

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

Humanists and atheists often say that they “believe in evolution”; however, they find it hard to describe how the intricate machinery of our cells and our physiology arose from primordial organic ooze, or how complex animals with many coordinated parts evolved out of single cells.

In his presentation, our featured speaker, Dr. Mark Reimers, will describe some recent discoveries in biology that have given us some insight into how these complex systems evolved. He will describe how the complex internal signaling processes in our cells arose, and how the coordinated interactions between our bodily systems were formed, all by blind evolutionary processes.

Dr. Mark Reimers is a quantitative neuroscientist at Michigan State University working to elucidate how dynamic brain activities give rise to mental functions and moods. Dr. Reimers has worked at the US National Institutes of Health, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/295443701/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20230903-153816_Recording_1920x1080.mp4

Sunday August 27th – [Online] Reclaiming Our Time

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing YouTube video clips featuring Ann Gomez, productivity expert and author of the book: Workday Warrior. This presentation will be curated and introduced by Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/295301474/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday August 20th – [Online] Wojcicki and We: Good Intentions for Longevity

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing a YouTube video featuring an interview of Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andMe. The video was suggested and will be introduced by John Shannon, a Toronto Oasis volunteer.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/295152875/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday August 13th – [Online] The Case for a 4-Day Work Week

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing YouTube videos, including a TED talk, by economist and sociologist Juliet Schor, suggested and introduced by Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/295007821/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday August 6th – [Online] Spiritual but Not Religious

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing a YouTube video featuring Matt Dillahunty, an American atheist activist and former president of the Atheist Community of Austin. The video was suggested and will be introduced by Dan Cooperstock, a Toronto Oasis organizer.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/294865402/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sunday July 30th – [Online] The Value of a Vacation

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing YouTube videos about the value of a vacation. The topic & videos were selected and will be introduced by Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer.

We will also be having live music this Sunday! Our guest musician will be Elizabeth Block.  Elizabeth was born in New York and loves telling people, “I wuz boan in Brooklyn. You gotta PROBLEM wid dat?” She was brought up on Gilbert & Sullivan, Broadway musicals (when they were written for singers), and the songs of Arthur Block – her dad wrote songs. She went to the High School of Music and Art, where she was an art student, but was allowed to sing in the senior chorus in her last year. She was a choral singer for decades, and a church soloist for many years. She joined Toronto’s informal folk song circle in – she thinks – 1984. A few years later she decided she should learn to play the guitar, which she did – not well, but well enough to accompany herself and other people. She knows a lot of songs, some in other languages, many satirical and/or political. She has written new words to existing tunes, and a couple of times tunes to existing words, never an entire song – but there’s still time.

Elizabeth is a potter by trade.  You can check out her pottery work on her website:

http://www.elizabethblockpottery.com/

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/294723044/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!