October 2, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Ruth Morelli is our Quarterback.
October 5, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Joan Rollins Tropp. Her topic – Insights on Hospice Care: Another Boon of Jimmy Carter’s Post-Presidency.
Joan Tropp, spouse of Innmate Tom Tropp, sees great benefit in the last stage of Jimmy Carter’s productive post-presidency. His choice of hospice care, and his openness about it, have provided the gift of shedding light on an important medical decision that is complicated by the very human discomfort with facing death. Joan’s career in hospice care began in the 1970s, in a climate where medical professionals had to overcome their own discomfort in seeing comfort care as their failure. She will discuss her hospice care experiences as the field evolved in professional practice and public awareness.
Joan completed nursing school at HUP, for her RN, with further studies at Penn and Villanova for her BSN, and she earned a master’s degree in organizational development from Antioch College. She was co-developer of the hospice program at Bryn Mawr Hospital and served as its director. Moving to Philadelphia in 1997, she opted to work as a hospice nurse until she retired in 2014. She grew up in Haverford, attending the Shipley School, and lived in London, Oklahoma, and Texas before her return to this area, residing first in Bryn Mawr and then Philadelphia. She and Tom now live in Society Hill.
Video:To see a recording of this presentation, click on Play Event. Click on the play button at the bottom left of the screen that comes up to see the presentation.
October 9, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Alan Penziner is our Quarterback.
October 12, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Speaker is Jennifer Childs. Her topic – To Tell the Truth, We Need Comedy!
Naturally Jennifer Childs would say we need comedy. She’s a cofounder of Philadelphia’s 1812 Productions, the only professional theater company in the country that is dedicated to comedy. But she has science in her corner. (You can look it up: search “benefits of laughter” and check research studies on the National Library of Medicine website.) Jennifer will talk about the role of comedy in theater – and its benefits in our lives. Hilarity, anyone?
Jennifer became sole artistic director at 1812 Productions in 2006. Since the company’s founding in 1997, she has created more than 20 original comedic works and an annual political humor show, This Is The Week That Is. Through her series of shows looking at comedy history she developed relationships with and performed the work of pioneering comedians Phyllis Diller, Tom Lehrer, Sid Caesar, Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory, Bob Elliot, Steve Martin, Bob Newhart and others. Her solo shows, Why I’m Scared of Dance and I Will Not Go Gently, have been performed at City Theatre in Pittsburgh, Act II Playhouse in Ambler, the Kohler Center for the Performing Arts in Wisconsin, People’s Light in Malvern, and Delaware Theatre Company in Wilmington. She is the recipient of three Barrymore Awards (Best Supporting Actress in a Play in 1996; F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist in 1999; Best Actress in a Musical in 2016) and two Independence Foundation Fellowships in the Arts. In 2003 she received the Silver Star Outstanding Alumni Award from the University of the Arts, her alma mater.
October 16, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Alina Macneal is our Quarterback.
October 20, Friday Club Dinner, starting with cocktails at 5:30 p.m.
Speaker is Maia Otarashvili, director of the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Her topic – Russia’s War in Ukraine: Implications for the United States and Europe.
The United States has been the largest single donor to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, followed by the European Union. U.S. and E.U. support for Ukraine, both verbal and material, amounts to a commitment that puts the West’s reputation on the line. The war has reinvigorated NATO’s mission and identity as a security provider in Europe. However, as we approach the war’s two-year mark, visible cracks are appearing in Washington’s previously unwavering support for Ukraine, as seen during President Zelensky’s recent visit to the U.S. What is the current status of the war? Is there a possibility for near-term conflict settlement? What would be the likely outcome of a decrease, or an end, of U.S. support for Ukraine? How would that affect U.S. credibility? And finally, how has the work of FPRI – the nonpartisan think tank based here in Philadelphia – been shaped by the war in Ukraine?
Maia Otarashvili is director of the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. She co-edited FPRI’s 2017 volume Does Democracy Matter? The United States and Global Democracy Support. Her research interests include geopolitics and security of the Black Sea–Caucasus region, Russian foreign policy, and the post-Soviet “frozen” conflicts of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. Maia holds a master’s degree from the War Studies Department at King’s College, London, and an MA from the University of Westminster in London, with an emphasis on post-authoritarian transitions.
October 23, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Russell Cooke is our Quarterback.
October 26, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Speaker is Norman E. Donoghue. His topic – Prisoners of Congress, an Untold Story of the American Revolution.
Norman E. (Ned) Donoghue brings us the story of a 1777 episode in which Pennsylvania’s newly formed government ordered the arrest of 20 prominent Philadelphia men, on recommendation of the Continental Congress. Among them were some of Philadelphia’s wealthiest merchants, primarily Quakers. They were owners of large homes, fine carriages, second homes in the countryside, and ships serving the Triangle Trade. Their offenses? They had proclaimed their neutrality, and their repeated refusals to defend the city from approaching British forces made them targets of suspicion. Without a hearing and without criminal charges, they were sent into exile under military escort, stripped of the right of habeas corpus, and held over seven months while two of them died. Ned Donoghue has written the first book to present the full story of this compelling episode, Prisoners of Congress: Philadelphia’s Quakers in Exile, 1777-1778 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023).
Ned grew up in Chester County and Philadelphia, where he found Quakers’ contrarian ways intriguing. His research into his family’s history led him to their connections with Quakers Henry and Elizabeth Drinker, who are central figures in the book. After his career as an attorney and an arts fundraiser and grantmaker, he was drawn into a nine-year effort to research and reveal a story that has lain dormant, largely ignored even by Quaker historians. He hopes it will become a classic.
October 30, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Richard Pasquier is our Quarterback.