WLURA hosts regular presentations on the last Friday of most months of the year. The next few gatherings will be a hybrid of in-person and by Zoom. Zoom invitations are sent out a few days before the event.
A Gaspésie Scavenger Hunt, with David Peirson.
An illustrated tour of the Gaspé in which we search for a host of amazing objects and places. Sure, Gaspé is Percé Rock, but, it is much more than that, which you will see, if you join us as we follow our guide.
This will be a hybrid gathering: on Zoom and in-person in the first floor lounge of the 202 Regina building.
Come at 1:30 pm for coffee and refreshments and to catch up with fellow retirees.
Our next pub night: at Beertown, Waterloo Square, 75 King St South, Uptown Waterloo. Let’s Celebrate the Coming of Spring! https://www.opentable.ca/beertown-public-house-waterloo
Joan Kilgour reports that our last Pub Night was not well attended:
“On October 27, WLURA held its semi-annual ‘pub night’ at Abe Erb in Kitchener; it was perhaps the threat of bad weather rather than gruesome ghosts and goblins that kept folks at home, but the eight or nine of us who turned up enjoyed a few hours of libations and conversation.”
Well, this just shouldn’t happen despite goblins! We’ve planned the next Pub Night back in Waterloo, at a big local watering hole with lots of parking!
WLURA Presentation to be announced at 202 Regina St. Lounge. We are hoping to have a representative from Vincenzo’s but it is not yet confirmed. Bring the Parking Pass or register at the Parking Office. Coffee and Snacks at 1:30 p.m.
WLURA Annual General Meeting, 202 Regina St. Lounge, to be confirmed.
Visiting Lebanon, with Steve Izma
Three of Steve Izma’s grandparents arrived in the Waterloo area from Lebanon around 1900. His parents’ generation lost contact with Lebanon almost completely, so that in 2017 he was one of the first of family members born in Canada to travel to Lebanon. During that trip and on subsequent ones in 2019 and 2023, most of his time was been spent hiking in the mountains, especially on the Lebanon Mountain Trail. The LMT, completed in 2008, includes about 600 kilometres of trails that, collected together, run from the north to the south of the country. Steve will present information about the trail’s significance to a sustainable environment and agriculture in Lebanon, and then give a summary of the complex politics of the country’s democratic institutions, which precede by decades those of the supposedly “only” democracy of the Middle East.
Pub Night at the Abe Erb pub in the Tannery Building at Charles and Victoria St. S. in downtown Kitchener.
Carol Stalker: on visiting the Costa del Sol – an alternative to Florida
Brad Dunbar, Certified Public Accountant: on tax advice and long-range planning
What birds are found in Waterloo Region and are they at risk? We have experienced significant and widespread losses of both insect pollinators and birds in North America, with a decline of one-third in individual bird abundance since 1970. One cause of the decline is the way we have developed the urban landscape. We can help birds by using native plantings and by managing our yards to provide food and shelter for insects and birds throughout the year.
Dr. Lyle Friesen worked for over twenty years as a songbird biologist with the federal government (Canadian Wildlife Service, a division of Environment Canada). His work focused on monitoring and researching native bird populations in Ontario – particularly species-at-risk – and on environmental assessment, including the impacts of wind turbines on birds and bats.
Fred Leutenegger is a beekeeper and dairy farmer from North Perth. Bees have been Fred’s passion since he was a boy. He has kept bees for 16 years and says he is “still learning from them!” In his 4 apiaries he keeps 85 large hives, each one containing approximately 60,000 bees.
We have asked Fred to bring some of his heavenly honey along for us to purchase.
This will be a hybrid gathering, in-person in the first-floor lounge of the 202 Regina St. building as well as on Zoom. In keeping with the university policy requiring masks in classrooms, masks will be required at our in-person gathering.
Not your usual road trip: driving the roads of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, with David Peirson, retired Professor of Biology. Join us for David’s narration and slide show of his trip and adventures along the way. Get to know Yellowknife, Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, the Mackenzie River, Victoria Falls in Nahanni National Park, the Alaska Highway, Whitehorse, Dawson City, and Mount Logan – parts of Canada not visited by most of us.
Election of Officers, Receipt of the Financial Statement, and Speaker (TBA).
By Gerry Schaus, Professor Emeritus, WLU.
Today, it’s the indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian cultural monuments; a couple of decades ago, it was the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad and the blowing up of the giant Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan that caught the world’s attention. In between, largely unnoticed, pillagers and treasure hunters have destroyed countless archaeological and historical sites for their own personal gain. It’s impossible to document all this destruction of world cultural patrimony, but at least we can glimpse this tragic loss from one archaeologist’s sad personal experience.
Nela Petkovic, Chief Information Officer for WLU, Scott Elliott, Director of Information and Computer Technologies Infrastructure and Information Security, and Yi Ruan, Internet Download Manager and Security Manager, will join us in a special session to provide information about the WLU email system and how best to continue using it. Nela and her colleagues will be addressing two major issues. The first is cyber security, of interest to all members. The second topic, more specific to users of the WLU email system, is steps recently taken to provide additional security for users of the system. This includes not only access to the system through regular login procedures, but also includes access to the WLU email archive, i.e., access to all of one’s email history for the past 25 years or so. WLURA members will have the chance to learn about the issues involved in having a secure email system.