Happy Holidays!The OLLI office and the Reuter Center will be closed beginning at 5 pm on Thursday, December 19 until we re-open at 8 am on Monday, January 6.
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CLASS SCHEDULES AND DROP/ADD FAQ's!
 Your class schedule will be mailed on Monday, December 16, 2013. After you receive your schedule, you may add additional courses without cost. We will send an email on Monday that outlines the process for add / drop, which begins Tuesday, December 17 at 8 am. Please do not call before this time. At this time you may add all the courses you can schedule without any additional costs (other than the $20 fee added for some movement courses). Courses may be added until just prior to the start of the second class period in a course. If you cannot attend a course that you enrolled in, please work with office staff to drop the course so someone else may attend.
The last day for a full refund for College for Seniors fees for Winter 2014 is January 10, 2014, 3 pm.
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OLLI Merchandise
Now Available in
the UNC Asheville Bookstore and Online
Visit the campus bookstore website to purchase a great OLLI tote, ball cap, or insulated mug. Shop online or in the UNC Asheville bookstore, located in the lower level of Highsmith Union.
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Adverse Weather Information
 OLLI classes, events, meetings, and other activities will be canceled or delayed when UNC Asheville classes are canceled or delayed for adverse weather. OLLI members should consult the UNC Asheville website at www.unca.edu to receive the latest information regarding the University Adverse Weather and Emergency Bulletins. Click here to view the university's adverse weather procedures. In the event of a delayed opening, 9 am classes will begin at 10 am and will end at 11 am and all other classes will meet on a regular schedule.
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College for Seniors
Summer 2014
Course Proposals
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Advance Care Planning Workshop
Thursday, February 13,
7 pm
Manheimer Room,
Reuter Center
Consider making this workshop one of your New Year's resolutions and have the peace of mind that planning ahead brings!
OLLI will hold an advance care planning workshop Thursday,
February 13, 2014, 7-9 p.m.
at the Reuter Center.
The workshop will feature a panel whose members are experienced in addressing end-of-life issues. Discussion will include communicating your treatment wishes to loved ones and to medical personnel, ethical and legal issues, and the uses of advance directives. Ample time will be reserved for questions. Assistance will be provided for anyone wishing to complete a legally valid advance directive, including the notarization required in North Carolina, using the Five Wishes format.
Click here to view a sample of the Five Wishes brochure. Preparation for you to do before the workshop: Talk to your possible "power of attorney for healthcare", the person who would make health care decisions if you are unable. If you have internet-access, print the sample Five Wishes brochure and study it and write down any questions you might have for the panel. This workshop is free and open to the public. For more information, call OLLI at 828-251-6140 or email olli@unca.edu.
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Stay Connected
 Click the icon to like OLLI on Facebook
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Please take a moment to read Kirk Borland's story on College for Seniors instructor Mark Smith. The story is a reminder that we are privileged to have so many talented people willing to share their knowledge with us. The story also reminds us that instructors love the intellectual curiosity of OLLI members who are committed to lifelong learning. Mark conjectures that Italy attracts so many travelers because it gives us "permission to breathe" or to feel "connectedness" and "understanding." Even those of us who cannot travel to Italy can enjoy connectedness and understanding right here in our corner of Asheville if we will take advantage of everything on offer at OLLI, from courses to workshops to SIGs to an afternoon reading in the atrium. We are privileged to have instructors who can take us in our imaginations to Italy, the world of the ancient Maya, a clearer understanding of world and local history, great literature or music, or even how better to live with our aging bodies.
And while we hope that the Reuter Center is a place that offers connectedness, it's also a place that is full of activity. Even in this relatively short newsletter you can learn about an amazing instructor, find out about volunteering to teach in the College for Seniors Summer term, volunteer to become engaged in the Asheville City Schools through the Civic Engagement Committee's "Call to Action," find out how to begin the process of advance care planning or see a reminder about an Astronomy Club of Asheville lecture. We hope that you see OLLI as a place to stay busy and also a place to stay connected.
This will be our last newsletter for 2013, although we will return on January 5, 2014 with all the information about the upcoming term. Tomorrow (Monday, December 16) we will send out an email with information about schedules and adding and dropping courses and will send out schedules in the late afternoon.
On behalf of the staff and volunteer leadership of OLLI at UNC Asheville, I wish you a happy and healthy 2014 and look forward to what we will all accomplish together in 2014.
Catherine Frank
Executive Director
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This Week Dec. 8-14, 2013
Monday, December 16, Winter term class schedules sent out
Tuesday, December 17, 8 am, Winter term drop/add begins
Dec 20, 2013-Jan 5, 2014, OLLI and Reuter Center closed for Winter HolidayClick here to see the OLLI calendar and then click on each event to discover times, event specifics and more.
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And Beyond
Thursday, January 2, 7 pm, Astronomy Club of Asheville meeting (This meeting will take place in the Manheimer Room even though the Reuter Center will be closed to all other events.)
Monday, January 6, 8 am, Reuter Center reopens
Wednesday, January 8, 7 pm, f/32 Photography Group meeting
Thursday, January 9, 10 am, CFS Faculty Orientation (Registration required. Contact Anne Mock, amock@unca.edu)
Friday, January 10, 10 am, New Member Welcome
Monday, January 13, 9 am, Winter Term classes begin
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 Astronomy Club of Asheville Thursday, January 2, 2014 7 pm Manheimer Room, Reuter Center Ken Westall presents a lecture on
Ken Westall, astro-photographer and member of the Astronomy Club of Asheville, will provide an overview of the necessary equipment, software, and processing steps required to acquire astro-image data and process it to achieve an aesthetically pleasing result. Westall will also touch on the automated system that he has put together that allows him to collect data all night long on multiple targets while he sleeps!
All Astronomy Club of Asheville presentations are free and open to OLLI members. To find out more about the Astronomy Club of Asheville, click here to visit their website.
Please note that although the Reuter Center and OLLI will be closed for most meetings and events until January 6, 2014, this meeting will be held in the Manheimer Room of the Reuter Center.
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Mark Smith: Permission to Breathe
 by Kirk Borland
Ask Mark Smith what draws him back to Italy over and over again and he's apt to confide, "Italy's gift to travelers is the permission to breathe. You can sit in a café for hours undisturbed and feel a sense of slowing down...a connectedness...an understanding." And if you should attend one of Mark's popular classes at OLI at UNC Asheville's College for Seniors on "Travel In Italy" or "The Art and History of Florence," you quickly get a sense of Mark's passion for all things Italian---the food, the culture, the music, the art and especially the warmth of the people.
Mark's father was a career military officer and, for a time as a child, Mark lived in Tuscany within two hours of Florence. Mark inherited his sense of humor from his father and a love of languages from his mother and a gift for teaching from both. He claims many of his early memories of Italy are in black and white because his father was an amateur photographer, but over the years Italy and his favorite city of Florence have come brilliantly alive.
Before the age of 10 Mark returned to the states where he matured, graduated from West Point, and entered the worlds of health care and telecommunications. It would be nearly twenty-five years before Mark could return to Italy on annual vacations. Finally in 2001, Mark made the decision to leave his career as a consultant, travel to Florence, and spend 18 weeks writing his first book on Italy. When he returned to America, he channeled his passion into teaching a class at a Wilmington, NC community college. And in that first class, a woman, familiar with his first book, suggested that people might be willing to pay him to guide travelers through the cities of Italy. Thus was born a new, exciting, and adventure-filled travel career.
In 2013, in addition to travel, Mark is busy restoring an Asheville home, writing the third book in his trilogy on Italy, reediting his first fictional novel, and planning a new novel centered on Florence during the Medici and the Renaissance period. Looking a bit further down the path, Mark is working on funding eight, twenty-minute programs for PBS. Each will focus on investigating the heart of Italy's culture by weaving together aspects of art, food, and the lives of people to help viewers not just observe but experience the magic and mysteries of this special land.
As for more teaching, Mark says he is hooked on the classroom interaction unique to OLLI's College for Seniors. Nowhere else has he found the stimulation and challenge that comes from sharing his love of Italy with people who are so well educated and so well traveled. In return, his goal is to make every class both educational and entertaining. Mix a joke with a little storytelling and some broken Italian-American patter, and all of a sudden people relax, take a breath and start making the connection between art and life and civilization. Molte grazie!
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Call to Action 2014
Shaping the Next Generation of Lifelong Learners
The OLLI Civic Engagement Committee, in partnership with the Asheville City School Foundation, seeks OLLI volunteers to serve as mentors, tutors, class assistants, and helpers at special events, all working with kindergarten through high school  students in the Asheville City Schools.
Flexible schedules will be available and training will be provided.
Mark your calendar to attend an information session on this initiative to see how you may volunteer. January 15, 20 14, 4:15pm, in the Manheimer Room at the Reuter Center.
If you wish to attend the meeting or if you are unable to attend the meeting and remain interested in volunteering, call Jessika Carney in the OLLI office, 828-251-6140 to sign up or to find out more.
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