October 30, 2018

Location: Slater Museum, Norwich, CT

Present: Susan, Nina, Paula, & Gerry

Nina hosted a lunch meeting. After Nina’s delicious salad and assorted seltzers accompanied by Gerry’s dolmas and Susan’s artichoke tapenade at Nina’s lovely fall table setting in the Concourse Gallery, we closely examined and discussed the amazing paintings of Ellis Ruley and commemorative quilt on exhibit there until Dec 7. You can read about Ruley’s life and work in an Oct 3 article in the Hartford Courant: https://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums-galleries/hc-fea-ellis-ruley-norwich-20180927-story.html

Next, we leisurely strolled through the magnificent Slater collection of classical plaster casts with two Slater volunteer docents, Nina and Gerry, among us! What a treat! Copies of masterpieces of original ancient art otherwise seen only in Paris, London, Berlin, et al. You can read about the collection and access a link to photos and descriptions of some of the pieces here: https://www.nfaschool.org/exhibitions/the-plaster-cast-collection

 Our meeting ended with scrumptious “Fruits of the Forest” pie brought by Paula. We talked about current trends in teaching, “unschooling” and CI (Comprehensible Input), and proposed ideas for future meetings of our group. Anyone coming across a classics-related exhibit or event could suggest a meet up anytime. 

March 30, 2018

Location: Susan Craig’s cottage in Branford

Present: Susan, Tony, Paula, & Nina

  • We voted Gerry as our Program Director.

  • We discussed our various activities in our communities:

    • Tony – teaches and tutors Latin & Greek

    • Paula – is a literacy volunteer and will travel to Rome in April

    • Nina – docent at Slater Memorial Museum, is going to Rome with Paula in April, is on the board of Paideia, volunteers at State Latin Day, does the ClassConn newsletter and FaceBook page, and is on the ClassConn board

    • Susan – volunteer teaches one French class and 2 levels of Latin at the Branford Senior Center and 1 Latin class at the Branford library, coordinates the ClassConnected in Retirement group 

  • Nina showed the magnificent, actual size, painted Roman mosaic “mural” that she drew and students painted at State Latin Day

  • Next ClassConn newsletter deadline is April 1

June 20, 2017

Location: Joyce Narden’s cottage in Westbrook

Present: Susan, Paula, Nina, Joyce, & Gerry

  • We decided to keep the name “ClassConnected in Retirement.”

  • We discussed being a social (getting together ourselves for meetings & outings) & service (doing things for others; helping to extend awareness of classics to others) group.

  • We decided to add sight reading/translating to meetings.

  • We decided to meet at homes/libraries rather than at restaurants and to rotate locations.