Category: News

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

As we hear distressing news from around the world, it’s worth reminding ourselves of times and places with human beings did come close to building a workable and just society for everyone.

The Indus Valley civilization flourished from 2500 – 2000 BC, and was widely thought the most advanced society in the world at the time. There is little evidence of warfare or poverty in their ruins. How did they do it?

Our featured speaker on this topic will be Dr. Mark Reimers.

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 in Richmond, and now does research and teaches at Michigan State University. His broader aim is to ground our understanding of feeling and thought in the facts of biology.

Dr. Reimers was the leader of the Richmond Humanists in Virginia for five years, and now leads the UU Forum in Lansing, and speaks frequently at humanist and science outreach events in Michigan.

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

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

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

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20220904-153529_Recording_1920x1080.mp4

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

We will be watching and then discussing a TEDx talk by Dr. Riley Moynes. The video will be introduced by Toronto Oasis organizer Dan Cooperstock.

Dr. Riley Moynes is a former educator, founder of a wealth management firm and writer on the topic, a speaker, and author. His book “The Four Phases of Retirement” is the basis of this TEDx talk.

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

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

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

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

We will be watching and then discussing a YouTube video by Rebecca Soffer, cofounder of Modern Loss, a platform for sharing honest and heartfelt stories about life after the death of a loved one. The video will be introduced by Toronto Oasis volunteer Roya Yeganeh.

We will also be featuring some live music! Our guest musicians will be the Dovercourt Park Jazz Trio consisting of saxophonist Wally Brooker, bassist Paul O-Connell and drummer David Benitez. They are a trio of jazz musicians who meet every Sunday morning at Dovercourt Park to jam. We will be featuring a special sneak peak into this weekly session via our music director Cassie Norton who will be taking care of sound and video. 

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

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

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

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

We will be watching and then discussing a TED talk by Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen, a non-profit hedge fund that invests in start-ups of local entrepreneurs that fight poverty in very poor countries. The video will be introduced by Toronto Oasis volunteer Paul Kaplan.

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

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/287405887/

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

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

We’ll be watching and then discussing a video by YouTuber oliSUNvia about how the way that our culture views romantic love is problematic. The topic will be introduced by Toronto Oasis volunteer Ryan Zhang.

Also, this Sunday we’ll be featuring some live music! Our guest musicians will be The Roughnotes. The Roughnotes are Colin and Jay. They have been playing together for about twenty years. They began playing in this iteration of this band in the fall of 2014. Colin and Jay are both from around the Thousand Islands but have lived in Toronto since the mid-2000s. Link to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theroughnotes

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

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/287265180/

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

This meeting’s guest musician has been recorded: GMT20220807-153634_Recording_640x360.mp4

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

Freud told us that mental illness came from early childhood trauma or deprivation. After the discovery of effective anti-depressant drugs, and after the revolution in genetics in the 1980’s the pendulum of opinion swung to the idea that the underlying causes were ‘biochemical imbalances’ and ‘bad genes’. However, several decades of investigation have turned up only a few rare bad genes that contribute to mental illness in a few cases.

Now researchers are trying to synthesize these older perspectives and asking again about the effects of early experience, and in particular how different genes might make people more or less reactive and how experience might affect how genes are expressed.

Our featured speaker on this topic will be Dr. Mark Reimers. His talk will survey some of our attempts to understand the causes of mental illness, and summarize the current state-of-art.

Dr. Mark Reimers works as a computational neuroscientist: studying brain function by applying statistical methods to look for patterns in large-scale and high-resolution recordings of brain activity and behavior. He applies these methods to understand normal brain function in memory and to shed light on mental illness.

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 in Richmond, and now does research and teaches at Michigan State University. His broader aim is to ground our understanding of feeling and thought in the facts of biology.

Dr. Reimers was the leader of the Richmond Humanists in Virginia for five years, and now leads the UU Forum in Lansing, and speaks frequently at humanist and science outreach events in Michigan.

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

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/287124501/

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

This meeting has been recorded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1doPQT-yv8lWNYkHCg_X9QPsg6i772wB4/view?usp=sharing
Find more of our recorded meetings at: https://torontooasis.org/recorded-meetings/

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

We’ll be watching and then discussing two videos featuring YouTuber Simone Giertz, who makes “useless” machines.  The topic will be introduced by Toronto Oasis volunteer Ryan Zhang.

Also, this Sunday we will be having live music! Our featured musician will be Cassie Norton, a Toronto-based singer-songwriter, violinist and climate activist.

Cassie is also the music director of Toronto Oasis. She has recorded two full length albums as a solo artist, Little Strength (2009) and Quiet Wilderness (2010). Cassie and her band released their first EP: Lullaby for the End of Time in February 2019. When she isn’t busy making her own music, Cassie shares her love of music with others through teaching. She teaches a variety of private and ensemble classes at Regent Park School of Music, and through her private studio. Her website is: https://www.cassienorton.com/

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

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/286690429/

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

Our guest musician has been recorded: GMT20220724-153117_Recording_640x360.mp4

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

Given that Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in the US, how safe are abortion rights for women in Canada?  Our featured speaker on this topic will be Catherine Francis.

Catherine Francis holds a Bachelor of Arts (1981) and Bachelor of Law (1985) degrees from the University of Toronto and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1987. Catherine is a long-time partner at Minden Gross LLP, a mid-sized downtown Toronto law firm, practicing principally in the areas of commercial and insolvency litigation. Her website is: https://www.mindengross.com/our-people/details/catherine-francis

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

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

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

This meeting has been recorded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_y9Hm0xY5rAhqsl18BycWUBAjuDd9HaO/view?usp=sharing

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

We will be watching and then discussing YouTube videos, including a TEDx talk, by Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi banker and economist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank.  The topic will be introduced by Toronto Oasis organizer, Tania Akon.

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

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/286690429/

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

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 and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

We will be watching and then discussing a TEDx Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer and feminist.  The topic will be introduced by Toronto Oasis organizer, Dan Cooperstock.

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

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/286546977/

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