Summit Old Guard

Come for the Programs . . .

During normal times the Old Guard of Summit New Jersey had been meeting every Tuesday in the Council Meeting Room of the New Providence NJ Municipal Center at 360 Elkwood Ave, New Providence NJ 07974.

* During the pandemic shutdown, meetings moved online as Zoom conferences on Tuesday mornings at 10:00 AM. Visitors are welcome at Zoom meetings and may request access by sending an inquiry to [email protected]

Before the pandemic, in-person meetings would start at 9:30 AM with coffee and socializing (suspended during shutdown). At 10:00 we would sit down, sing a song or two, and hear a few jokes & announcements. The invited speaker would start at around 10:30. Visitors were asked to arrive by 10:00 AM.

As the pandemic winds down, planning is underway to resume in-person meetings, but with the option of joining remotely by Zoom, as "hybrid" meetings. The New Providence Council Chamber is no longer available to us, so we are exploring alternate venues.

Programs for both in-person and Zoom meeting consist of stimulating talks by people such as past governors, mayors, politicians, physicians, Nobel Prize winners, judges, professors, historians, scientists, authors, economists, journalists, financial advisors, medical specialists, conservationists, etc. The subsequent Q&A is lively. Put on your business casual attire or jacket & tie (or something more casual from May to September -- or something very casual for online participation) and attend a meeting with us. All visitors are welcome. Admission is free.

Stay for the Friends*

After the meetings, many members join together to have lunch at various local restaurants.

In addition to the weekly meetings, there are activity groups for golf, bridge, hiking, trips, computer help, tennis and more.

* Or, as one member put it recently, "Come for the Jokes, Stay for the Talks", since we start each meeting by singing a few songs and enjoying a few jokes :-)

Policy on Weather Cancellations

Before Covid, when the New Providence Schools were closed due to weather, Old Guard meetings would be cancelled. (The New Providence school website https://www.npsd.k12.nj.us posts closure notices). Post-Covid our meetings will simply move online with Zoom. In either case, we will post notices at this website and send email notifications to members.

For more information, contact:

James Hewitt, Chairman, Membership Committee (908) 233-5507, [email protected]

On Retiring – A Stimulating Road Ahead

Where will you find a sense of purpose and satisfaction? How will you find mental stimulus and a sense of community? Click on this PDF file to consider an answer to these questions.

Donations to Old Guard are welcome and greatly appreciated (although they are not tax deductible).

Dues are $30 a year plus a $5 initiation fee and can be paid by using this dues link.

May Program Chair – Art Williams

May 3 – "Our Plans for the Future" – Lamont Repollet, president, Kean University, will speak of the past and the future of Kean University. Kean began in Newark in 1855 as the Newark Normal School to educate teachers, became New Jersey State Teachers College in 1937, and relocated in 1958 to Union Township, site of the Kean family's ancestral home at Liberty Hall. Kean is now the third largest institution of higher education in New Jersey and the only public college or university in the US with a foreign campus (in Wenzhou, China). [video to appear]

May 10 - "Our Health Care Mission" – Clelia Biamonti, president, Overlook Foundation, joined the Overlook Foundation as executive director in 2017 and has a PhD degree in biochemistry. She returns to Old Guard to give us an update on Overlook Hospital’s response to Covid, getting through it, and now moving on to pursue excellence as a full service, cutting-edge hospital in a small suburban town. [video to appear]

May 17 - "The EV Revolution is Upon Us" - Shani Jarvis of AAA will present facts and ideas. Your next car may well be an electric vehicle (EV). Have you thought about which one appeals to you, or even the criteria for deciding? How would you charge it? What about batteries? How do you figure electricity costs? What about this strange disease called “range anxiety,” the fear of your battery going dead in a strange neighborhood? (Strange because supposedly only people who don’t have EVs have this disease.) [video conference]

May 24 - "Honeybees and Beekeeping" – Old Guard member Walt Meissner will tell us about this interesting subject—which we should all pay more attention to! Many people are allergic to bee stings. Bees pollinate our flowers, and more importantly, our plant-based food, without which those crops would be lost. Bees are endangered. Are we doing enough to protect them? [video conference -- contact: [email protected]]

May 31 - "The End of An / Our Empire?" – Our speaker, financier Ray Dalio, has written about the rise and fall of empires. In the 17th century the Dutch were the dominant country in trade and military power, and the guilder the center of finance. Then Great Britain took its place, with the British pound the reserve currency. Now the US and the US dollar hold the honors. But can we keep them? Are we slipping off the throne? How soon could this happen? Are there telltale signs? And what do we do about it? [video conference]

June Birthday emcee – Phil Apruzzese

For speaker photos, visit us on facebook

For an archive of videos of past meetings,

visit our YouTube Channel

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