Category: News

Our event starts at 11 am on the 2nd floor of the Koffler House (569 Spadina Avenue)

This week (and next week) we will explore an issue that divides Canadians and Provinces.  The Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline System, or simply the Trans Mountain Pipeline, is a pipeline that carries crude and refined oil from Alberta to the west coast of British Columbia.  It is wholly owned by the Canadian division of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (Kinder Morgan) and has been in use since 1953. It is the only pipeline to run between these two areas. The expansion of the pipeline is facing numerous challenges and is pitting Canadians and provinces against one another.  So, where do you weigh in on this matter and how do you understand the issues? 

Over the next two Sundays, June 10^th and June 17^th, we will have activists who are working to stop the Kinder Morgan Pipeline buyout by the federal government speak to this current issue at Oasis.

Our musical performers will be the Pickle Juice Trio: Arnd Jurgensen, Bob Vespaziani, and Cassie Norton – eclectic musicians whose playing and influences cross many stylistic boundaries. The Pickle Juice Trio is an exploration of rhythms, structures and melodies derived from the blues, gospel and swing music of the mid twentieth century by three musicians who crossed paths in the improvised music scene in Toronto.  

Arnd Jurgensen has been a prominent contributor to TO’s improvised music scene with his finger style guitar playing and baritone vocals. Percussionist Bob Vespaziani, also a staple on the improvised music scene, demonstrates his years of experience backing numerous blues and swing performers around town. Violinist Cassie Norton with influences from folk, jazz and classical music adds an unusual and intriguing colour to this not so conventional blues trio.

To RSVP to this event, visit our Meetup page.

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE IN A DIFFERENT BUILDING FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING- Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St George St., Room 2111.

Our featured speaker will be Jess Bootsma.  Experiences growing up on a dairy farm prompted Jess to question the validity of eating meat. After moving to Toronto, she heard about the Toronto Vegetarian Association (TVA) and promptly became a member. At the time, 32 years ago, she borrowed John Robin’s books, Diet for a New America and Diet for a New World from their lending library. These books solidified for her that she was on the right path by cutting out meat. Many of the things Robbins talked about she knew to be true but he also made her think about things she’d never thought about before such as how much more a cow eats than a human and why not reduce land use by feeding plants to humans instead of channeling them through animals.

Since joining TVA Jess has learned so many more benefits to cutting animal products from the menu. These are some of the things she will talk about during the presentation along with easy ways to swap out meat for plant-based products and which foods to eat for protein, iron and calcium.

As a retired graphic designer, Jess often does outreach work for TVA at events such as the Toronto Veg Fest, Veg Spring Market, Vegan Bake-off, Gay Pride Festival and many more. Other retirement pastimes include back-country canoe trips, cross country skiing, hiking, yoga and artwork. This will be her very first time presenting about TVA and ways to make the switch to a plant-based diet.

Our featured musician will be Adam Faux.  Adam Faux is a composer, singer and songwriter, producer, teacher and sound engineer based in Toronto.  He has a masters specializing in music composition from York University in Toronto, teaches at the Regent Park School of Music, and is leader of the band, the Luck Factory.

Adam’s debut album was recorded in 1987 as a member of the indie band Pigfarm. Pigfarm charted # 34 in the U.S. and top 10 continuously on college radio in the 80’s and 90’s. He recorded and mixed the Gemini award winning film the Film Club and the award-winning documentary the Jews of India.  Most recently, Adam produced, mixed, co-wrote and played on the 2014 debut release, Brooklyn Doran’s there’s a Light On, which was nominated for a Toronto music award for “Best Contemporary Album”. Many of the songs featured in the 2015 feature movie, the Cocksure Lads, were mixed and edited by Adam in 2010.

During the past 10 years, Adam has done live sound for over 3000 shows.

As a performer, Adam has shared the stage with performers such as the Barenaked Ladies, Randy Bachman, and Big Sugar, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Jim Carol and Blair Backham.

To RSVP to this event, visit our Meet up page.

Our event starts at 11 am on the 2nd floor of the Koffler House (569 Spadina Avenue)

Advocating for human rights and gender equality, Soroptimist International is a global volunteer movement with a network of over 75,000 club members in 122 countries. Founded in 1921, it is the largest women’s service club in the world.  The membership of Soroptimist peaked in the last quarter of the twentieth Century.  As with most service clubs and similar organizations, Soroptimist has seen a decline in members, particularly in the Americas and Europe. Referring to Soroptimist, Barbro Stalbecker-Pountney, a lawyer and the current President of Soroptimist International of Toronto, will lead a discussion on the relevance of such clubs to the social fabric of society and growing civic disengagement amongst younger generations in particular. Is there a way to re-engage?

At the heart of Soroptimist International’s advocacy is its work across six United Nations (UN) Centres, where its UN representatives ensure that the voices of women and girls are heard. The membership of Soroptimist works on grassroots projects to improve the lives of women and girls locally and globally – helping women and girls achieve their individual and collective potential, realize aspirations and have an equal voice in communities worldwide.

Our featured speaker Barbro Stalbecker-Pountney, the current President of Soroptimist International of Toronto, is also a Past Director of Soroptimist International of the Americas Eastern Canada Region Board. Barbro is a lawyer who obtained her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Western Ontario, and her Master of Laws degree from Osgoode Law School, York University. After beginning her career in general practice in a small community in Bruce/Gray counties, she returned to Toronto, spent several years in legal publishing before returning to law practice. She takes a preventative approach to legal issues and focusses her law practice on wills, and estates in addition to charity and not-for-profit law. A regular presenter to community groups in her areas of concentration, Barbro also teaches law at Humber College. She is an active participant in her community and has served in many capacities including positions such as: Past Chair Mental Health Programme Services of Metropolitan Toronto; Past Co-Chair, Older Women’s Network; Past Board member, Children’s Aid Society of Grey County; Past President, Scandinavian Canadian Business Association; Past Chair General Practice Section (Ontario Bar Association); Past Board member, Swedish Women’s Educational Association (Toronto). She held the position of Editor, Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (Ont.) for a number of years and is Co Author of “Cohabitation: the law in Canada”.

Our featured musician will be Emilyn Stam.  Emilyn Stam is a Toronto-based fiddler, pianist and accordionist who creates, performs, records and teaches in folk, trad, and neo-trad styles from Europe and Canada.  She has 4 Canadian Folk Music Award Nominations, (The Shoeless, Eh?!, Lemon Bucket Orkestra) and 2 Juno Award Nominations (Lemon Bucket Orkestra). For more on our musical performer, please check out her website emilynstam.com.  Emilyn with be performing with her partner John Williams.

To RSVP to this event, visit our Meetup page.

Our Event starts at 11am on the second floor of the Koffler House (569 Spadina Avenue)

Hoping that the third time is the charm, our featured speaker will be Michelle Bilek! Previous two attempts in having Michelle speak to our group had been thwarted by illness (March 18th) and bad weather (April 15th ice storm).

Michelle Bilek*, is with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (caeh.ca), formed to build a national movement to end homelessness from the community up. What’s missing is a practical, community-based approach that shifts the focus from managing homelessness to a system focused on ending it. We need to move from crisis responses (like shelters and soup kitchens) to solutions – permanent, appropriate, safe and affordable housing with the support necessary to sustain it. Michelle will share how Canadian communities can end homelessness by outlining the critical ingredients of a community-based plan such as Housing First, supporting affordable housing options, housing sharing, renting secondary units for Housing First clients, innovative building solutions and developments.

Our featured musician will be Erika Werry. Erika Werry is a band leader, singer, songwriter and has a background in classical and modern dance. Her song material is inspired by travels and day-to-day experience, and through a love of classic French and English literature. The songs are short and fun, often with tongue-in-cheek lyrical humour and sometimes with devastatingly poignant lyrics on relationships. A consummate performer, Erika sings and dances through her fast-paced sets. Her songs are delivered with her signature vocals, in a “… lovely… grainy alto”.

To RSVP to this event, please visit our Meetup page.

We are back to our usual space this week: Our event begins at 11am, On the 2nd floor of the Koffler house, 569 Spadina.

Ever since she joined a Women’s Liberation group in 1968, our featured speaker, Margrit Eichler, has been a feminist. Margrit will reflect on how she became a feminist, what it meant then and what it means now to define oneself as a feminist. She will touch on some of the crucial events in Canadian history: The Persons’ Case, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and particularly sec. 15 (equality before and under the law), and the dramatic changes in Canadian family law. She will reflect on the problems of dealing with issues for which there was, at the time, no proper language in which to discuss them, and the resulting linguistic groping around that was required to arrive there (and continuing linguistic confusion). She will look at some of the milestones for women in Canada – how they affected her personally and how they interacted with scholarship.

Back in 1968, Margrit was a foreign student (from Germany) at Duke University. When she had to leave the USA because her visa had run out, she applied to all Canadian Sociology Departments with a graduate program to teach courses on women. She was probably the first person to be hired on that basis.

Her participation in the movement had convinced her that it asked the right questions but did not come up with the right answers. Research was needed to supply such answers. This set her on the course of developing courses, co-founding the first Canadian journal on feminist research, being involved in multiple ways in feminist studies and feminist actions, serving as expert witness in law cases, particularly with respect to gay couples, getting the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies established, and much more. Her work took her across most continents. From 1971-1975 Margrit taught at the University of Waterloo, and from 1975-2011 at OISE, from where she retired as Professor Emerita. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and was also elected to the European Academy of Sciences. She is now active on a volunteer basis in 6 organizations.

Our musical performer will be singer songwriter Dana Sipos.  http://www.danasipos.com/

Originally hailing from the industrial landscape of Hamilton, Ontario, Dana Sipos inhabited the far Canadian north – Yellowknife, Northwest Territories – for many years before going nomad.  Her captivatingly nuanced songs continue to be infused with a wild wind and a haunting, slightly hypnotic surrealism akin to the mysteries of the North.  Her 2015 release, Roll Up the Night Sky, was nominated for a Canadian folk music award in the Pushing the Boundaries category celebrating innovation in creating new folk sounds.  She has a new album, Trick of the Light, to be released soon this year.

To RSVP to this event please visit our Meetup page.

Our event begins at 11am, Our meeting this week will be held at the 1st floor Auditorium of the Koffler House (569 Spadina Ave).

What is Pilates and why you don’t know what you think you know! Our featured speaker, Emma Kate Millar, wants to open a dialogue and get talking about your health and fitness by addressing questions and attitudes and busting myths such as:  Who is Pilates for? Why does it matter? How can I tell if this is a fad or a legitimate method?  How does Pilates compare with Yoga?  I do my own workout thanks!  I’m not flexible enough for Pilates. I’m too old for Pilates. And much, much more!

Emma Kate is passionate about hearing from others and learning about their fitness journeys and what motivates people (or doesn’t) to get up and get moving.

Emma Kate Millar has a B.F.A in Dance Science from York University and specializes in Pilates for post rehab and special populations.  Prior to that, Emma Kate was a professional Modern Dancer with a background in competitive Irish Dancing. In 2003, however, she sustained a serious back injury, which threatened to take away her abilities as a dancer and physically limit her life through pain.  After experiencing the benefits of Pilates, she attained certification under STOTT Pilates and then the Pilates Method Alliance. Since then, she has had the opportunity to work in some of the best studios in Toronto and to teach alongside Top Master Trainers. All of these experiences have prepared her well to create Body Mason: a culmination of many years of knowledge and hands-on experience of helping bring awareness to the body—its movement, its strength and its resilience.

Our featured musician will be Tristan Murphy AKA Amateur.

Old Instruments, New Music.  Amateur is a few friends playing experimental pop songs on a variety of acoustic instruments.

To RSVP to this event, please visit our Meetup page.

Our event begins at 11am, we are back to our usual space on the 2nd floor of the Koffler house, 569 Spadina.

Our featured speaker, Gregg Fenten, will speak about how the history of community-based conflict resolution formed and developed. He will talk about two fundamentals of life – relational and transformational – and elaborate on three primary principles of belief and practice: individuality, diversity/difference, and inclusivity. Gregg will compare the community-based approach versus the court/justice-based approach to conflict resolution. We will also learn about the STRONG approach for dealing with conflict.

Gregg Fenten is an accredited family mediator (AccFM) with the Ontario Association for Family Mediation (OAFM). His work includes doing triage and referral services as an Information and Referral Coordinator within the Toronto Family Justice System for the past number of years. He is a coach with York University’s Certificate in Dispute Resolution Program and the Family Mediation Program and a Dispute Resolution Educator with the Advanced Certificate in Dispute Resolution.

For the past twenty-one years, Gregg’s professional practice has involved engaging individuals, couples and families. His professional experience started in the community mediation/development field with Conflict Mediation Services of Downsview (CMS-D) in Toronto, Canada as an intern, volunteer, mediator and case manager. He ultimately became the Director, Community Transformation Program.

Gregg has a diverse private practice that includes mediation and facilitation for family, workplace and community matters. His practice includes mentoring, training and communication coaching with individuals to acquire the requisite knowledge and skills to be effective communicators to assist them to strategize and navigate their relationship challenges. As well, Gregg’s work involves consultation efforts in community development that includes proposal writing, project development and project implementation.

For over thirteen years, Gregg has been writing, producing and hosting the radio program Mediation Station heard live each Sunday from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST on CHHA 161O AM in Toronto, Canada. The radio program works to educate and inform listeners with information to assist them in creating positive change within their lives and in the community. It also supports the profession of conflict resolvers to enhance and elevate their professional practice.

You can listen at www.chha1610am.ca (Click the LISTEN LIVE icon) or on Rogers Digital Cable Channel 951 or at 1610am on the radio dial. Podcasts at Mediation Station on iTunes and at https://lnkd.in/g7BCxks Twitter @FentenMediation

Our featured musical performer will be Cassie Norton. We are always so enthused to have the very talented Cassie return to our stage! Cassie is the music director of Toronto Oasis and a Toronto based singer-songwriter, classically trained violinist/folk leaning tunesmith with a punk rock heart. She has recorded two full length albums, Little Strength (2009) and Quiet Wilderness (2010). She will be joined this Sunday with Wes Neal on Bass.  Check out her website: www.cassienorton.com

To RSVP to this event, please visit our Meetup page.

Our event begins at 11am.  This week we will be meeting in a slightly different location – the same building, Koffler House 569 Spadina Ave., but on the 1st floor room KP113.

There is a ready explanation for the concept of the existence of the human spirit (soul) that carries our awareness in a non-material realm. This concept allows us to believe that, after our material brain dies, we can experience an afterlife. The existence of such an entity is, however, a man-made idea which has no supporting scientific evidence, although we can understand why this philosophy originated.  Our featured speaker, Benjamin Vande Weerdhof Andrews will speak about what he has found about the origin of people’s beliefs about the spirit.

Benjamin Vande Weerdhof Andrews was raised as a boy in Holland and moved to Canada as a young man. His family attended the Dutch Reformed Church. Ben started questioning the dogma of his church and has studied world religions during his adult life. After retiring from his career as a high school teacher in Ontario, Ben began his website, www.origin-of-religion.com, to explore and discuss the role of religion in modern society and to encourage people to think outside the box. Through his explorations, Ben has discovered that many people struggle with the concepts of religion and the fear of death. He has decided to share his findings with others and has published a critical analysis of religion entitled “Why You Won’t Go To Hell”. He lives with his wife in Barrie, Ontario.

Returning to the Oasis stage, our featured musician will be Lindsay Foote!  Lindsay writes honest, soul-bearing music and couples that with a voice that will melt even the hardest heart.  Inspired by the alternative folk music scene, Lindsay has been writing songs for as long as she can remember. Originally from Winchester, Massachusetts, she moved to Canada in 2009 to study voice at the University of Toronto.

Her newest release, Going Gone EP, boasts lush acoustic arrangements paired with Lindsay’s signature candid writing style. The songs explore love, loss, and facing the truth even in the toughest moments. From her Going Gone EP, “Silence” was featured on CBC Metro Morning, CBC Big City Small World, and CJRU Double Booked. RAW RAMP Magazine calls these songs “the most celestial & moving folk songs you can imagine” and For the Rabbits calls it “the sound of an artist expanding their musical horizons and fulfilling a very rich promise.”

We are so enthused to have Lindsay Foote return to the Oasis stage!  https://www.lindsayfoote.com

To RSVP to this event, please visit our Meetup page.

Our event begins at 11am, On the 2nd floor of the Koffler house, 569 Spadina.

Our featured speaker, Michelle Bilek*, is with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness (caeh.ca), formed to build a national movement to end homelessness from the community up. What’s missing is a practical, community-based approach that shifts the focus from managing homelessness to a system focused on ending it. We need to move from crisis responses (like shelters and soup kitchens) to solutions – permanent, appropriate, safe and affordable housing with the support necessary to sustain it. Michelle will share how Canadian communities can end homelessness by outlining the critical ingredients of a community-based plan such as Housing First, supporting affordable housing options, housing sharing, renting secondary units for Housing First clients, innovative building solutions and developments.

Our featured musician, Olio&I, aka Pippa Andrew, is a Melbourne based fiddle-singer and loop artist, whose music interweaves an eclectic collection of influences, spanning Singer-Songwriter, Folk, Soul and Jazz. This performance will be part of Olio&I’s first trip to perform in Canada!

You can RSVP for this event on our Meetup page at https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/248558224/

*Michelle Bilek was originally scheduled to speak at Toronto Oasis on March 18, 2018 but was unable to attend due to unforeseeable circumstances. (In her place, we were very fortunate to have Dianne Woodruff (CMA, PhD) speak to us about 3D Workout: 3DWorkout.com).