6) A DEEPER DIVE: MADELEINE L’ENGLE’S A WRINKLE IN TIME

We’ll take a deeper dive on the previously introduced topic of Madeleine L’Engle’s novel, A Wrinkle in Time, focusing on the various adaptations of the book in other media, and author L’Engle herself.

This afternoon’s e-meeting is a continuing experiment. If the local technology is performing properly and all has gone well, you are viewing a live-stream of this MonSFFA meeting, now underway. Those joining us online may follow along, and participate, by way of our ZOOM-chat.

Are you able to clearly see and hear today’s meeting? We are testing our technical set-ups to ascertain which delivers the best results for our online participants. Please take a moment to leave a comment as to how well this live-stream/ZOOM-chat is working from your perspective. It is our aim to live-stream future club meetings, thereby creating hybrid events in which participation may take place both in-person and virtually.

5) PRESENTATION: SUPERPOWERS—THE KIND YOU DON’T WANT!

Many of us dreamed of having superpowers, like the colourful, costumed comic-book superheroes whose adventures we followed as kids (and continue to follow as adults!)—x-ray vision, invulnerability, super-strength, super-speed, the ability to fly, breathe underwater, or shoot energy beams from our eyes or fingers!

But this afternoon, we’ll be talking about superpowers that you definitely would not want!

This afternoon’s e-meeting is a continuing experiment. If the local technology is performing properly and all has gone well, you are viewing a live-stream of this MonSFFA meeting, now underway. Those joining us online may follow along, and participate, by way of our ZOOM-chat.

Are you able to clearly see and hear today’s meeting? We are testing our technical set-ups to ascertain which delivers the best results for our online participants. Please take a moment to leave a comment as to how well this live-stream/ZOOM-chat is working from your perspective. It is our aim to live-stream future club meetings, thereby creating hybrid events in which participation may take place both in-person and virtually.

2) INTRODUCTION

Welcome everyone, both those present here in our meeting hall and those participating from home via ZOOM, to MonSFFA’s November 2023 meeting! This will be our last such gathering of the calendar year—next month will see the club host both a Christmas Luncheon on December 9, and a Holiday ZOOM-Chat on December 17! More about both of these events in our closing post at 4:30PM.

This afternoon we have a busy agenda which will include a talk on superpowers—the kind you don’t want!—a continuing examination of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, focusing on its adaptations in other media, and a presentation/gallery on air shows and aviation museums, aviation often being a parallel interest of SF fans!

So, let’s get right to it…

3) JOIN THIS AFTERNOON’S VIDEO-CHAT ON ZOOM!

To join our ZOOM video-chat, which will run throughout the next few hours, simply click here and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM

If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers

Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:

Meeting ID: 811 9458 0956
Passcode: 226371

4) TODAY’S AGENDA

Please note that, while we strive to keep on schedule, we do, sometimes, fall behind a little, or find ourselves having to reshuffle the order of items on the agenda. Please also note that all programming is subject to change!

This afternoon’s e-meeting is a continuing experiment. If the local technology is performing properly and all has gone well, you are viewing a live-stream of this MonSFFA meeting, now underway. Those joining us online may follow along, and participate, by way of our ZOOM-chat.

Are you able to clearly see and hear today’s meeting? We are testing our technical set-ups to ascertain which delivers the best results for our online participants. Please take a moment to leave a comment as to how well this live-stream/ZOOM-chat is working from your perspective. It is our aim to live-stream future club meetings, thereby creating hybrid events in which participation may take place both in-person and virtually.

1) PRE-MEETING TECH CHECK

As club members all know, during the pandemic isolation protocols dictated that we suspend our in-person meetings for a time, a hiatus that stretched into some three years, as it turned out, a dramatically longer period than anyone had anticipated! So as to allow MonSFFen to continue meeting, the club instituted a series of virtual get-togethers. These “e-meetings,” as we dubbed them, proved successful and popular with most MonSFFen.

When the pandemic ended and post-COVID-19 anxiety faded, and it became feasible to once again meet in person, we nevertheless wanted to continue to offer this online option, particularly to our out-of-town members. We elected to experiment with live-streaming our in-person meetings, which has largely met with success. But, in that some of our equipment is a tad antiquated, and we are at the mercy of the available WiFi at our physical meeting locale, the effort has not been without a few technical glitches. Last month’s “Halloween” meeting, for instance, proved particularly gremlin-plagued, predictably perhaps, given the meeting’s theme!

In any case, the experiment continues this month, and if all has gone well, you are now viewing a live-stream of MonSFFA’s November 2023 Meeting. It is our aim to live-stream this and future club meetings, thereby creating hybrid events in which participation may take place both in-person and virtually.

This afternoon’s proceedings are shortly to get underway. Those of you joining us online may follow along, and participate, by way of our ZOOM-chat (See item “3,” next post, for instructions on how to do so).

Please take note that MonSFFA’s upcoming November Club Meeting is taking place later in the month than usual, and on a Sunday, not our customary Saturday!

As the Lachine Legion Hall was unavailable to  us on any Saturday in November, we have therefore booked the room for Sunday, November 26.

That’s this upcoming Sunday, folks; please mark your calendars accordingly, and we’ll see you at the meeting!

Our agenda includes a presentation on superpowers—the kind you don’t want!—and a further examination of Madeleine L’ Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time, its adaptations in other media, and the author herself.

Plus, for SF/F fans who are, often, also fans of aviation we have a presentation/gallery on air shows and aviation museums! The aviation industry has developed, over the years, many then-technologically advanced aircraft, akin to the imagined airplanes and spacecraft of the future so prevalent in early science fiction.

All of this and more…at the next MonSFFA meeting!

We received an actual printed zine! Our thanks to Joe Aspler who scanned it so we could post it on line.

We used to trade with Memphis, then they disappeared. This may be a resurrection? Memphen 283 fanzine

From the BBC, a look at some interesting early ideas on what aliens might look like.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231019-the-weird-aliens-of-early-science-fiction

12) Thank You!

We thank for their contributions to this afternoon’s meeting Joe Aspler, Keith Braithwaite, and Cathy Palmer-Lister, as well as all of our contributing participants. And, we thank you who attended, both here online, and physically in the meeting hall; don’t forget to comment on today’s get-together.

13) Next Meeting

MonSFFA meets again on Sunday, November 26, 2023—note that for this instance only, we’re meeting on the Sunday, not our usual Saturday, as the Legion hall was unavailable on the 25th.

Please mark your calendars accordingly; we hope to see you all again on Sunday, November 26!

14) Sign-Off

Enjoy your Halloween and we’ll see you all next time!