Speakers

Speaker(s)

Topic

Dr. Sergei Kambalov
Attorney Alex Kzuma

United Nations Association of Connecticut

Mike Urban

Mike Urban is a New England-based food and travel writer and the author of six books on New England cuisine: Clam Shacks, Lobster Shacks, The New England Diner Cookbook, The New England Seafood Markets Cookbook, Unique Eats of Connecticut and Unique Eats of Maine. He is a regular food writer for Yankee magazine, contributing more than 25 articles over the past 12 years. Mike lives with his wife in the East Rock section of New Haven.

Seafood Shacks

Spring is here, and seafood shacks are starting to roll out their welcome mats up and down the New England coast. Join award-winning food and travel writer Mike Urban on a visual tour of the best shacks in the region, from the Connecticut Shore to Downeast Maine. Lobster rolls, fried clams, fish & chips, chowder, and so much more will be featured in a slideshow that will leave you craving deep-fried, buttered, battered, chowdered jewels from the sea. It’s a gustatory road trip not to be missed!

Craig Harris

Host of a popular Friday night show on Bluegrass Country/WAMU-FM, Craig Harris is the author of Crossing Borders (2021), Bluegrass, Newgrass, Old-time and Americana Music (2018), The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music (2014/2017), Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electric Powwow: American Indian Music (2016), The New Folk Music (1993), and the forthcoming Rise Up Indigenous Music (Autumn 2023

Indigenous Music

Craig will be presenting a multimedia program on Indigenous music. His next book (his second on the subject), Rise Up: Indigenous Music will be published by Bison Books in the autumn of 2023. Increased awareness stirred by Idle No More in Canada, the Standing Rock Protest in South Dakota, and the uncovering of unmarked graves at residential schools make this a very timely, eye-and-ear-opening examination,

Rebecca A. Hajosy, Esq.

Elder Law & Estate Planning

Welcome to the Second Half

As you head into your 60’s there are a lot of big changes and major decisions, such as social security, Medicare, Retirement, and planning for your future estate planning, housing, and healthcare. Local elder law attorney and past University of Hartford professor, Rebecca A. Hajosy, will lead a discussion that focuses on these issues and how best to plan and prepare. Join us and take an active role in planning your future.

Al Smith
Gary Holland
Vee Cangiano

Al Smith is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, BA in Economics. He spent 3 years in the military as an officer, with a year in Vietnam, ’67-’68 as an Infantry Platoon Leader and Executive Officer with the 1st Inf. Division. He currently volunteers on the Executive Board of the Western CT Military Officers Association, as Director Emeritus with the Human Resources Association of NY, with the VFW, Compassion & Choice, and as a Co-Chair with the CT Braver Angels Alliance.

Gary Holland is a retired business executive with an entrepreneurial employment history focused on Global Information Technology Contract Negotiations and Management.

Vee Cangiano has volunteered with Braver Angels since 2021. He is a member of the Braver Angels Connecticut Alliance Steering Committee, on Braver Angels national Braver Partners team, and a team bringing Braver Angels programming to middle and high school communities nationwide.

Braver Angels Connecticut Alliance

Our country is dangerously divided. The partisan division in government has resulted in gridlock, with an inability to find common ground and solve problems. Relationships between friends, neighbors and even family members erode over differences in opinions. And, media bias stokes these flames of division. This situation threatens to destroy the democracy we cherish. Braver Angels is the largest, nationwide, grassroots volunteer movement working to counter toxic polarization and foster civil discourse. In this session, you’ll learn about the presentations, workshops, and educational programs we host for individuals, elected officials, organizations, and communities, to heal the wounds between red-leaning and blue-leaning Americans, to rebuild trust, and to foster more civility and civil discourse among citizens.

Dr. David Emery

David has traveled to about 70 countries, including living abroad for nearly ten years in China, Taiwan, Guatemala, and Argentina. During the height of COVID, he traded in international air travel for almost a year of cross country travel and RV life with Oliver and George. During the work week, David works for Booz Allen Hamilton as a regulatory/social scientist in the public health space (mostly FDA projects). During the evenings and weekends, David draws on his proficient DIY skills to build and improve physical spaces, provides board service to a local non-profit to increase farm education in Connecticut, and continues working towards another doctorate (a PhD in social psychology) because the existing doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Southern California wasn’t enough.

The Three Psychological Needs and Their Connection to Our Personal and Professional Lives

Dr. David Emery will describe a 50-year-old empirically based, clinical theory of human motivation and thriving called self-determination theory. He will discuss the theory’s core premise and pillars, namely that humans seek growth and have three fundamental psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When these needs are met, humans are best positioned for growth and thriving. When these needs are not met, maladaptive behaviors form and humans experience negative impacts. He will provide examples based in the extensive literature on the theory, as well as show the theory’s application to situations experienced in our daily work and professional lives.

Nicole Michaud

Spark Your Creativity

This is a fun, in-the-round series of exercises in which the current object is passed from one person to the next, and each and all of the responses create inspiration for further creativity along with plenty of laughs.

Dr. Harry Ringermacher

Dr. Ringermacher earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Washington University in St. Louis. He was a Sr. Research Physicist at the GE Global Research Center and retired in 2013. At GE, he was the project leader of the Infrared Imaging group and has also worked with lasers, ultrasound, and nuclear magnetic resonance. He has numerous publications and patents on these subjects and peer-reviewed publications of his current personal research in General Relativity and Cosmology.

SETI – Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Roswell event. We will review the latest in UFOs, or UAPs, as they are now referred to by the Pentagon. Is ET already here? We’ll check that and go on to the search for life in our Galaxy. Recent findings of thousands of planets around suns by the Kepler planet probe make it much more likely to find life everywhere. How do we look for it? Where do we look for it? Will it find us? Have we already made contact? That’s what SETI is about!

Teresa Campbell

Meet the RVC

Join Teresa Campbell, RVC of Mensa Region 1, for a fun and lively discussion!

Lisa Muller

Chair Yoga

Come start your morning with a relaxing session of chair yoga!

Clark Jones

Clark Jones is a retired engineer with about 23 years of his career in the semiconductor industry. He’s been a member of Mensa since 1981.

Apollo Guidance System

Clark will discuss the Apollo Guidance System in this popular talk that has been presented at several RGs and amateur radio clubs.

Hugh Price

Hugh Price, the former President and CEO of the National Urban League, will discuss the trailblazing career of his great-granduncle and how his Latimer genes helped shape his life of consequence.

The Remarkable Life and Enduring Legacy of Lewis Latimer

In 1880, the fabled inventor Thomas Edison secured the first patent for an incandescent lightbulb in the United States. Yet his original creation burned out quickly and thus wasn’t practical. In a game-changing advance for electric lighting, two years later, Lewis Latimer, the son of fugitive slaves, invented a carbon filament that made light bulbs more durable and longer lasting, more energy-efficient, and affordable for everyday use by ordinary people.

Bill Hughes

Bill Hughes has been a Tesla owner for three years and is active in EV promotional events in the Southern NY region.

Owning an Electric Car

An engaging discussion around Teslas and other electric vehicles.

Lisa Maxwell

When not working as an Agile Coach and Manager of a team of Scrum Masters, a musician and French horn teacher, a cat wrangler (Natasha, Mocha, Max, and Jasmine), or mistress of the house, Lisa volunteers her time in support of American Mensa at the local, regional, and national levels.

PowerPoint Karaoke

Join us and test your brain at some quick thinking and storytelling.

In this game, a series of volunteers will each give a brief presentation based on images/slides they have never seen, in front of a live audience. The presenter is not allowed to see the slides before presenting, must speak to each slide without skipping and should tie them into a cohesive theme, based on a pre-assigned topic. Winners will be determined based on creativity and humor, by audience vote. We welcome non-participants to be in our audience. This can be both challenging and hysterical. Don’t miss it!

Petra Jenkinson
Tim McDonald

Sea Shanties

Join musicians Petra Jenkinson and Tim McDonald as we explore maritime history through Sea Shanties and sea-faring tales. There is much we can learn from these intrepid sailers through their customs and music. Singing along is encouraged.

Bill “Ziggy” Zigo

The Werewolves of Ziggy Hollow

Welcome to the sleepy little town of Ziggy Hollow, where the villagers are easy pickings. The only chance the villagers have to survive is if they can defeat the werewolves! But who’s a werewolf? Is it you??

Greg Besek

Gregory Besek was born in 1951, raised Catholic, lived as a solitary monk for 3 years, spent another 5 years in a Hindu ashram/monastery, is a Zen Buddhist “precept holder”, a shamanic practitioner, teacher, mentor, and spiritual mystic.

The Cost of Violence

The world we live in is on fire.  Violence is out of control. Whether in world events, movies, television shows, the news, our schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, on our street corners, within our own families, violence is rearing its destruction and ripping about the very fabric of our humanity. Most of us are asking how to curtail this self-inflicted annihilation and yet the answer seems elusive: fewer guns, more guns, more laws, fewer laws. The truth is the government is neither the culprit nor the solution. If we are honest with ourselves it is self-evident that the real culprit is resting within each of us. What is the cost of violence? Is there a remedy? It’s high time we take a closer look!