I'm New at Being Old

Metro West met for their kickoff luncheon on September 17. Lucy Rose Fischer was the speaker.  While she has a PhD in sociology and specialized in aging, she spoke about her second career as an artist.

She said she doesn't really stand on her head to create her glass art, but she does paint figures with their heads down and their feet up.  With reverse painting, the colors and designs that are in front are painted first, and the background comes last.  She also sold and autographed copies of her book I'm New at Being Old.

Visit to Museum of Russian Art

   

On August 3, 2016 a group of Metro West members visited the Museum of Russian Art in  south Minneapolis.  "Masterpieces of the 20th Century" and "Russian Realist Tradition" were the featured exhibits. Afterwards they enjoyed lunch at Primas Restaurant.  Here are a few pictures from the event.

Salad super finishes the year

A good group gathered at Ardelle Torkelsons' for our annual salad supper.  It was a beautiful evening, and quite a few choose to eat outside. 
Diana Pecoraro, community poet for St. Louis Park was the speaker for the program.  Although I couldn't stay, I heard she was going to encourage attendees to play with writing a verse or two.  If any members are brave enough, please reply and share a poem.

Our Named Honoree

One last State Convention photo, here is Jane Ostergaard with her Named Honoree Award. Congratulations, Jane.

Pics from State Convention in Duluth

From business meetings, to social times for meeting friends, to awards, to the LAF silent auction, to blowing bubbles (?), there was a lot of activity at the State Convention April 29-30.  Here are a few pictures from the event.

Music therapy is April topic

About 25 members gathered on April 21 to hear Hilary Fredenburg discuss the value of music therapy in treating a number of emotional, social, and physical conditions that people experience in their lives. Hilary is a board-certified music therapist at McPhail School of Music. She covered a lot of ground in a short time, but everyone felt they learned something new.

Time to Catch up

Apologies for not writing for a few months.  Here are a few pictures to catch our readers up.

In January, we met for a luncheon at the Parkshore Senior Campus.  Our speaker was Nkiruka Okafor, a AAUW International Fellow currently studying at Luther Seminary.  She spoke about her research related to transforming the voice of women sex workers in Africa.

In February, we met at Ridgepointe for lunch.  Our speaker was Dr. Ellen Kennedy, Executive Director of World Without Genocide.  She gave us a thorough overview of how food shortages lead to violence in countries, and that can lead to genocide and other major social problems.

In March, we returned to our evening meeting schedule and reconvened at the Minnetonka Community Center. Vickie Nordquist presented the program about the concepts behind Advanced Higher Brain Living.  This program helps people increase oxygen to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which helps them to think more calmly and clearly, and eventually focus on and resolve various problems and issues in their lives.