Summer Lectures Club
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Thank you to the members who attended our inaugural meeting on March 10th and helped to make it a success. With approximately 90 attendees the series got off to a rollicking start.
Spring and Summer Field Trips
Some speakers we will meet through spring and summer have suggested interesting field trips to add depth and meaning to their presentations. Here is some information.
Please Note: If you are interested in the trip as described below, please download, fill out,
and bring the form to the next meeting
or mail to
Summer Lectures Club
P.O. Box 1893, Guelph, ON N1H 7A1
Confirmation Form for Sudbury Trip
Waiver of Liability for Sudbury Trip
and bring the form to the next meeting
or mail to
Summer Lectures Club
P.O. Box 1893, Guelph, ON N1H 7A1
Confirmation Form for Sudbury Trip
Waiver of Liability for Sudbury Trip
Spring coach trip to Sudbury, May 25th to 27th
At our inaugural meeting on March 10th we spoke of the possibility of a guided field trip to Sudbury, kindly spear-headed by Guelph Professor Emeritus Peter Kevan. Dates have now been confirmed, and we’re pleased to be able to announce a three-day bus trip to Sudbury.
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Provisional itinerary:
Wednesday May 25th
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"Please note, participation will be limited to the first 50 participants. Anticipated cost with double occupancy, is approximately $325 each, taxes inc. to be confirmed by April 7th."
Guelph University’s Ornamental Plant Trial-Garden
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Field trip directed by Horticulturist and Garden Manager Rodger Tschanz
Date: July 28th Time: 1.30pm Destination: Trial Garden on the grounds of the Turf Institute on Victoria Road opposite and slightly north of its intersection with College Avenue. View this year’s collection of new hybrid blooms and with your vote, help to select 2016‘s prize-winning cultivars. |
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Urquhart Outdoor Butterfly Garden, Dundas, Ontario
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Urquhart Outdoor Butterfly Garden was named in honour of Frederick and Norah Urquhart, discoverers of the migration routes of the monarch butterfly. Pollinator garden tour under the auspices of the butterfly garden’s founder and mentor, Joanna Chapman
Date: Thursday August 18th Time and meeting place: meet for car-pooling at 9 am.: Freshco Shopping Centre Parking Lot, corner Stevenson Street North and Speedvale Avenue
In 1937, as a post-graduate Toronto University zoology student, Frederick Urquhart first attempted to unravel the mystery of the over-wintering habits of the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus L. In July 1945 he married Norah Patterson and together the Urquharts continued a 38-year quest that consumed the greater part of their academic and professional careers. |
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Fred and Norah tracked the butterflies by tagging the wings of thousands of individual butterflies. They founded the first Insect Migration Association, today known as Monarch Watch, and recruited hundreds of volunteers — "citizen scientists" who helped in their research by tagging butterflies and reporting findings and sightings. The Urquharts identified several distinct migration routes, but were baffled when the trail seemed to disappear in Texas in the late fall, only to reappear in the spring. They sought help in Mexico and recruited a pair of amateur naturalists to search for the butterflies. On January 9, 1975, naturalist Kenneth Brugger and his wife Catalina Trail finally located the first known wintering refuge of the butterflies on a mountaintop in Michoacán, Mexico, more than 4,000 kilometers from the starting point of their migration. They called the Urquharts with the exciting news “we have found them—millions of monarchs!.” Early in 1976, Fred and Norah Urquhart, then in their sixties, climbed the “Mountain of Butterflies” about 240 miles from Mexico City, in the Neovolcanic Plateau and among the millions of butterflies wintering there, found one bearing a white tag that had been placed on the butterfly in Minnesota.
To read a beautifully written description of their trip by Fred Urquhart, google National Geographic August 1976.
To read a beautifully written description of their trip by Fred Urquhart, google National Geographic August 1976.
The Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology
The Pump House Museum, Woodward Avenue, Hamilton - guided by the museum curator
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Housed in 150-year-old waterworks, this National Historic Site preserves two 70-ton steam engines, perhaps the oldest surviving Canadian-built engines. The historic Hamilton Waterworks is a Civil and Power Engineering Landmark.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the growing town of Hamilton was beset by health and fire hazards caused by a serious lack of potable water. The absence of a waterborne sewage disposal system led to outbreaks of typhoid, cholera and other diseases through unhealthy living conditions. In a town built largely of wood, accidental fires could consume whole blocks of buildings with devastating results. In 1856, with a population of little more than 15,000, the town commissioned the building of two gigantic steam-driven pumps, together with a reservoir half way up “Hamilton Mountain” to store water from Lake Ontario, water that could be gravity-fed into the town to supply the inhabitants with a reliable source of clean water. The huge steam engines operated until 1910 and thanks to the enthusiastic support of a group of local engineers are now renovated and in (almost) working condition. Tour completed approximately 3.00pm and departure for Guelph |
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Other News
Summer Lectures Club members are invited to attend the University of Guelph Retirees Association Spring Forum
Topic: Financial Literacy: Your Money Matters
Date: Thursday, April 14, 2016, 1.15pm for 2.00pm
Place: Arboretum Centre, University of Guelph
Program: A panel discussion focusing on specific financial literacy topics applicable to seniors.
Cost: $8 each.The event is free to UGRA members.
A banker to address: preventing financial abuse, fraud, identity theft. etc. A lawyer to address: estates and inheritances, divorce, powers of attorney, probate, etc. An accountant to address: tax planning, converting savings into income, managing debt, etc.. Refreshments will start at 1:15 pm and the panel will start at 2:00 pm. Check the UGRA website for more details closer to the date of the Forum. Confirmed speakers are: Michael McCutcheon, CPA and senior manager, accompanied by Ankur Chawla, CPA with RLB in Guelph; Robin-Lee Norris, senior partner in the Guelph office of Miller Thomson; and Neil Dubuc, Manager Financial Services at TD Canada Trust in Guelph. The panel will discuss important financial issues specific to seniors and retirees including tax planning, government benefits, life changes, estate planning, probate legislation, preventing fraud and identity theft, and guarding against financial abuse. There will be time allotted for questions and answers.
Date: Thursday, April 14, 2016, 1.15pm for 2.00pm
Place: Arboretum Centre, University of Guelph
Program: A panel discussion focusing on specific financial literacy topics applicable to seniors.
Cost: $8 each.The event is free to UGRA members.
A banker to address: preventing financial abuse, fraud, identity theft. etc. A lawyer to address: estates and inheritances, divorce, powers of attorney, probate, etc. An accountant to address: tax planning, converting savings into income, managing debt, etc.. Refreshments will start at 1:15 pm and the panel will start at 2:00 pm. Check the UGRA website for more details closer to the date of the Forum. Confirmed speakers are: Michael McCutcheon, CPA and senior manager, accompanied by Ankur Chawla, CPA with RLB in Guelph; Robin-Lee Norris, senior partner in the Guelph office of Miller Thomson; and Neil Dubuc, Manager Financial Services at TD Canada Trust in Guelph. The panel will discuss important financial issues specific to seniors and retirees including tax planning, government benefits, life changes, estate planning, probate legislation, preventing fraud and identity theft, and guarding against financial abuse. There will be time allotted for questions and answers.
Lectures for Spring and Summer 2016
Lectures are every second Thursday, with the next lecture on Thursday April 7th. Please come and support our lecturers.
April 7th Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) committed to saving the thousands of birds that fly into high-rise buildings and other man-made structures, Paloma Plant, program coordinator
April 21st A walk on the wild side: 30 days walking across the Kalahari Desert and interactions with the indigenous San people, Alastair Summerlee, University of Guelph
May 5th University of Guelph’s Ornamental Plant Trial Program, Roger Tschanz, University of Guelph
May 19th The 2 kilometre deep Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and the experiments that led to the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics, Robin Ollerhead. University of Guelph
June 2nd “Mermaids, Myths, Monsters and Man”—our relationship to marine mammals and how they have contributed to our evolution, Keith Ronald, University of Guelph
June 16th The Origin of Humans: Fossil Discoveries. This includes the romantic story of a possible new species of early hominid, Homo Naledi, found in 2013 in a cave 75 kilometres north-west of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sergi Lopez Torres, University of Toronto
June 30th The microbial community in our gut and why we need to nurture it. Emma Allen-Vercoe, University of Guelph
July 14th Another walk on the wild side! 900 kilometres to the South Pole, Ian Evans, Adventurer and Explorer from Elora
July 28th The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) Win Wahrer, AIDWYC founder
April 7th Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) committed to saving the thousands of birds that fly into high-rise buildings and other man-made structures, Paloma Plant, program coordinator
April 21st A walk on the wild side: 30 days walking across the Kalahari Desert and interactions with the indigenous San people, Alastair Summerlee, University of Guelph
May 5th University of Guelph’s Ornamental Plant Trial Program, Roger Tschanz, University of Guelph
May 19th The 2 kilometre deep Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and the experiments that led to the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics, Robin Ollerhead. University of Guelph
June 2nd “Mermaids, Myths, Monsters and Man”—our relationship to marine mammals and how they have contributed to our evolution, Keith Ronald, University of Guelph
June 16th The Origin of Humans: Fossil Discoveries. This includes the romantic story of a possible new species of early hominid, Homo Naledi, found in 2013 in a cave 75 kilometres north-west of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sergi Lopez Torres, University of Toronto
June 30th The microbial community in our gut and why we need to nurture it. Emma Allen-Vercoe, University of Guelph
July 14th Another walk on the wild side! 900 kilometres to the South Pole, Ian Evans, Adventurer and Explorer from Elora
July 28th The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) Win Wahrer, AIDWYC founder
It all started with a lunatic asylum
We thank the late Dr. Hans Reichenfeld for being the inspiration for the Summer Lectures Club.
Early in 2015 Hans submitted a paper to a prestigious international conference in Vienna, Austria, on the intersection of law enforcement and mental health. His subject was the history of the treatment of mental patients in the Narrenturm mental asylum built 250 years ago in the shape of a round tower, an iconic structure in Vienna that now houses a pathological museum. The conference organizers responded by inviting Hans to journey to Vienna to present his paper.
In July 2015, Hans journeyed to Vienna, Austria with his two daughters and two sons, successfully delivered his lecture and was feted by the media in that city. This included a lengthy TV interview and report about Hans as one of a handful of Jewish children and teenagers who escaped Vienna in 1938 and lived to make meaningful contributions to humanity.
When, in April 2015 Hans gave us a preview of his presentation in the Guelph Public Library on Norfolk Street, it provided the impetus for five further talks later in the year, and the spark that ignited the Summer Lectures Club. We are grateful to Dr. Reichenfeld for his energy and enthusiasm and saddened by his death after a short illness on March 4th this year, a week after his 93rd birthday.
Early in 2015 Hans submitted a paper to a prestigious international conference in Vienna, Austria, on the intersection of law enforcement and mental health. His subject was the history of the treatment of mental patients in the Narrenturm mental asylum built 250 years ago in the shape of a round tower, an iconic structure in Vienna that now houses a pathological museum. The conference organizers responded by inviting Hans to journey to Vienna to present his paper.
In July 2015, Hans journeyed to Vienna, Austria with his two daughters and two sons, successfully delivered his lecture and was feted by the media in that city. This included a lengthy TV interview and report about Hans as one of a handful of Jewish children and teenagers who escaped Vienna in 1938 and lived to make meaningful contributions to humanity.
When, in April 2015 Hans gave us a preview of his presentation in the Guelph Public Library on Norfolk Street, it provided the impetus for five further talks later in the year, and the spark that ignited the Summer Lectures Club. We are grateful to Dr. Reichenfeld for his energy and enthusiasm and saddened by his death after a short illness on March 4th this year, a week after his 93rd birthday.
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