SPECIAL EVENTS

The Special Events Committee schedules events during the summer months when regular classes are not scheduled and at other appropriate times during the year. Events planned by this committee are usually one or two day activities and are also nonrecurring activities which members can enjoy outside of the normal curriculum program.

Typical events organized by the committee are:
  Speaker forums
  Game parties
  Sporting events involving members
  Special garden tours
  Camping events
  Short duration summer classes

Planned events are publicized in a variety of ways, including the newsletter, emails to members, class facilitator classroom announcements and broadcasted public service announcements arranged by the Public Relations Committee.

OLLI sponsors a number of special events for members throughout the year. Special events are activities that are not a part of our regular curriculum program or our usual member socials. They cover a myriad of different types of activities to provide interesting things for our members to do and interact. Some special events activities of the past included:

Out of Town Trips
Coastal Alabama Sampler trip to Fairhope, Alabama to attend environmental educational sessions, listen to noted story tellers tell their stories, listen to authors from the Fairhope area, and a field trip to nearby Weeks Bay Reserve and wildflower bog garden.

Trip to Morelia, Mexico to view the Monarch butterflies. Visit to the Mayan step pyramid saw the shaping of red hot copper at a copper maker, a view of the 100 year old process of making thread and material at a textile factory, a volcano lava field, and a reforestation nursery and native villages.

Special Speakers
Ralph Peters, columnist for the New York Post and USA Today, a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer, acclaimed strategist, commentator and author of 22 books, discussed The Future of America in Today’s World, including Iraq and Afghanistan and Islamist terrorists.

Anna Baltzer, author of Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories discussed her eight months in Israel and her observations of the conditions there.

Summer Enrichment Series
2006 Enrichment Series Program
 • “The World Is Flat” book review
 • A Global Perspective on Economics in Today’s World
 • Our Shifting Political Scene: Are You Red or Blue?
 • Exploring Global Issues: Today, Tomorrow and Beyond
 • Can and Should Universal Social Ethics Solve the Problems of Poverty and Injustice
 • The World Café: Shaping Our Future Through Conventions That Matter

2007 Enrichment Series Program
 • Huntsville a City in Transition: A Look at Huntsville and Madison County
 • Redstone on Review: Planning for Major Expansion under BRAC
 • University Visions: Glimpses of Campuses and Curriculum of Huntsville’s three 4 Year Institutions

2008 Enrichment Series Program
 • Political Perspectives on Current National Issues
 • Global Concerns and American Diplomacy
 • The American Economy and our Global Competitiveness
 • Immigration
 • Candidates and Conversation

2009 Enrichment Series Program
Why IS Alabama? A review of the need to reform the Alabama State Constitution.