Meeting Report 01/18/25

Today the Langstaff Community Centre played host to another eventful meeting of our Wit & Wisdom Social Club. To begin, we welcomed four guests to the meeting: Natalia Malysheva, Kim Watson, Eric Emin Wood, and Samir Stasi. (Yes, Kim and Samir arrived as guests — but they didn’t leave as guests; they left as members. Thanks, and welcome aboard!)

Karim Premji chaired the meeting in his usual competent way. He began with an activity in which each of us was to share a S.M.A.R.T. goal, in honour of the new year and making fresh beginnings. He shared his own goal with us — an impressive one. I’m not sure how he’ll be able to increase his nightly time of super-restful deep sleep by such a wide margin, though. (I bet he’s working with a copy of Say Good Night to Insomnia by Gregg D. Jacobs. Yeah, that has to be it; I wonder if some of the rest of us could benefit from those insights too.) 

For any members who weren’t able to attend today, you’re encouraged to write up your own S.M.A.R.T. goal (more info available here) and send it along to our secretary, Phil Nayman by email. The point is that we’ll revisit our goals six months from now in order to hold ourselves accountable and update our progress.

Next was a very interesting presentation put together by Vasu Desikachary. giving us an overview of what he termed The Seven Greatest Empires of History. There was plenty to learn from his explanation of historical power centres, supported by an informative slideshow (see attachment below). There was lots to learn. In fact, one of the empires I was only vaguely aware of — you too may be interested in exploring a little deeper the Maurya Empire of ancient India. Vasu has a keen interest in history and has promised us more presentations like this to come.

Mario Keriakedes’ improv session was again a delight. His verbal and situational challenges had us tied in knots (metaphorically speaking). Some of us tried to hold conversations with another person in which neither party was allowed to make a statement; they could only ask questions. (Yup, it’s as hard as it sounds.) Next we got some advice: good advice, bad advice, and some advice that was downright ugly. (Sounds a bit like real life, that last one.) Finally, we were treated to a party. Karen Kain, Donald Trump, and a strange big-eared person with obsessive-compulsive disorder were the unlikely guests.

After the social break we took up the club’s proposed Constitution. There was a bit of a debate about some of the wording and more of a debate about some of the numbers, but after a few  adjustments the draft proposal was approved by unanimous vote of the members. Here’s the link to our brand-new Club Constitution. Many thanks go to the executive team who put it together.

The meeting went overtime with one last presentation that the people around the room wanted to squeeze in. It was mine. My topic was “The Other Pandemic” — so no, I wasn’t talking about Covid. It’s something we all know about, but it doesn’t often get the label of “worldwide epidemic” that it deserves. Yet that’s exactly what it is, and untold millions more people have died from this other pandemic than from Covid. In fact, nearly two-thirds of Canadian adults are affected by it. Click on the file attached below if you’d like to know more.
That’s it for this month. Our next regular meeting is scheduled for February 22nd. We hope to see you there!