Membership in Sidney’s Elder College program at Greenglade Community Centre has more than doubled in a year as seniors take advantage of what life can offer outside of the workplace.
Elder College is run by Panorama Recreation and started in January of 2011. It has gone from 60 members a year ago to 150 this year. One of the reasons: low-cost programming and membership. With that, seniors can access a lot of activities: pottery classes to music, technology skills upgrades to writing.
More and more programs are added to the list all the time. One of those was the recent Music To You Ears classes. Instructor Lloyd English said the program was designed to introduce participants to music — in the perspective of a musician.
“It gives the layperson some understanding of the way a musician would look at music,” English said during the recent wrap-up to his course up at Greenglade.
“People are here to learn some of the vernacular, music terms and how to apply that to their listening to music.”
The goal, he continued, was music appreciation — “what makes it work and it’s not musicology, more musicianship, from a listener’s perspective.”
Margaret Small attended the classes with her husband Ken and said they enjoy listening to music and took part in the short course to learn more about what they were hearing. The couple brought in some Dixieland CDs to share with the small group, who had brought in music of their own to compare, contrast and discover.
There are plenty of other choices on the Elder College menu this year. To learn more about the programs, visit http://www.crd.bc.ca/panorama/program/eldercollege.htm, pick up a copy of the Elder College programs guide at the Panorama Recreation Centre or call 250-655-2178.