We welcomed two guests to the meeting. Mark Yhap joined us for the second time, and we were pleased to meet Frank Dong, who was invited to attend by Alisa.

Vasu prepared a fine talk about the teachings of Epictetus, a Greek philosopher of the 1st century AD, who promoted a dynamic and still very influential philosophy called Stoicism.  Epictetus taught that we should focus on those things that are under our control—our own thoughts, choices, and actions—and to accept with calmness the many externalities that we can’t control—our worries and fears; the ups and downs of our lives. In a modern world that seems to be careening madly toward a doubtful future, this would seem to be a very sensible approach to adopt. I invite you to take a couple of minutes to look through his presentation, which I’ve attached below; the last slide has some useful links.

Kim Watson’s “Would You Rather?” activity was very successful. For example, a few weeks from now, when on holiday in Rome, Len Philip would rather have a private tour of the Sistine Chapel than be treated to a gourmet meal at a fine restaurant. (He couched his choice in terms of complimenting Sue on the fine gourmet meals she regularly serves at home.) I’m not sure he’s actually going to get that private tour though; there will doubtless be a lot of other people around when they visit it …Bon voyage, Len and Sue!

The last thing on the agenda was my delivery of a speech that I had prepared for the Tall Tales contest at my club, STAR Toastmasters. The speech described an actual hike on the Bruce Peninsula a few weeks earlier, so it was not so much a “tall tale” as an oral report of what actually happened. (Because the hike leader involved might be embarrassed about it, I withheld his name). It’s a good thing that I had a chance to practice it because the speech went a full minute overtime; not so good. It also came under some well-deserved criticism in terms of the structure. I was able to rework it extensively before I had to present it on the following day. For those interested, here’s a link to where you can find the speech on Google Drive.

That’s it for my report. We’re a busy club. Don’t forget to check in regularly with our Club Events Calendar. If you open it up you’ll see that there’s a 10km hike scheduled for this weekend at Scotsdale Farm in Halton Hills, to be led by Al Brown. There’s a link on the calendar to where you can sign up for it. The History and Current Events will be meeting on Friday afternoon at the Thornhill Pub. There’s lots happening to keep us involved. I hope to see you at some of these events.

Our next meeting will be on Saturday, October 31st, at the police station. Yes, we’ll be meeting on Halloween! Your board of directors will strike a committee to plan a special morning of it.