It was another well attended meeting. We were pleased to welcome Karen Walters and Mahsa Tavassoli to the meeting as guests. (–My hopes are high that they’ll join our circle as members.) Al Brown chaired the meeting; he ran us through the agenda over the two hours with his trademark military precision and the meeting was better for it. Thanks, Mr. Brown!
Going around the circle to kick off the meeting a theme started to emerge: many of us either have been on holiday recently, or are about to go on one. Among them are Kumar and Manisha, Karim, Ilana, Nabil, Vasu, Sally, Samir, and myself. Not surprising perhaps, since it’s high summer. The most popular destination? — the west coast of Canada; Vancouver and its environs. A vacation paradise, it seems. And speaking of Kumar, I was intrigued to hear that he’s hired a personal trainer — at his advanced age (sorry, Kumar) — to put him through his paces and make him sweat. In fact, he says it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him! There was a little stir around the table upon hearing this, because the lady sitting right next to him might rightfully have been nominated to claim that spot… all in good fun.
Karim Premji then led us through a goal-setting session. He reminded us that SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. (Here’s the link he shared with us earlier.) Back in January, he had many of us write down our goals. Phil Nayman had been saving them up in an envelope since then and put them in front of us. And how did we do with them? — well, I think we did much better than if we hadn’t set them down. We were encouraged to renew our goals for the next six months and pass them along to Phil again. The point is to hold ourselves accountable to ourselves. We’ve agreed to make it our regular practice to revisit the topic twice yearly.
After the break our diversion activity was a game I called “Getting Around.” From my list of both common and unusual modes of transportation, attendees were invited to champion their own favourites. We then voted on whose arguments were the most convincing. Did you know that according to a majority vote, the very best way to get around is on the back of a camel? Counter-intuitive maybe, but it’s true. (Congratulations, Samir!) The next best way is very similar: on horseback (well, done, Mahsa). And another great way to get around? — you probably wouldn’t guess it. The next best way is in a hearse! This was slyly promoted by Mario. Well, I guess a hearse will someday be escorting us to our final heavenly destination, so perhaps it makes sense. The winners were presented with Lotto 6/49 tickets as prizes, so they’re probably all rich by now and can buy all the camels, horses, and hearses they want.
The last presentation, by Vasu Desikachary, was titled “Our Oriental Heritage”. It was a fascinating lesson in history, because we may not have realized how many civilization-changing innovations have been passed down to us through the centuries through cultures from the global East — India, China, and Arabia among them. One of the earliest was the cultivation of rice; another was the decimal numbering system that is at the heart of the steady march of technology. Vasu packaged his presentation beautifully in a slideshow replete with web links, and I urge you to take a few minutes to open the document and learn more.
To end this report, did you know that you can find all our Wit and Wisdom activities in a document in our club folder on Google Drive? Here’s the calendar link; you may wish to add the shortcut to your own home drive. September’s meeting will be chaired by Sarab Sandhu and will feature presentations by Chris Ristic and Samir Stasi. It’ll be another great meeting. Mark your calendars now for Saturday, September 27th.