This is the first of two posts this afternoon, bookending our September 11, 2021, MonSFFA e-Picnic!
1) TODAY’S VIRTUAL EVENT!
Welcome to our September 2021 MonSFFA e-Picnic! We’re 100 percent on Zoom today (see item 2, below, for directions on how to Zoom with us).
Start by making yourself a couple of sandwiches and pouring yourself a favourite beverage. Add a few cookies, chocolates, crackers, or cheese, Gromit, and join us for this afternoon’s virtual version of the club’s annual outing in the park!
Normally, we’d hold a barbecue in a Montreal park on some Sunday in July, but this year, because of the ongoing pandemic, we postponed any such event. Instead, we had tentatively planned to host a picnic-in-the-park in September—which would have been our first in-person gathering in 18 months—but alas, that, too, had to be scrubbed.
While the daily numbers looked good back in May, when hope was still a thing, the lifting of most public health restrictions and a supercharged vaccine campaign held the promise of the virus fading away over summer. Delta, however, is an insidious demon, far more transmissible than was the original COVID-19 bug, and that, coupled with just enough of a cohort of frenzied anti-vaxxers refusing to get the jab, left the variant with an opening. Delta spread quickly and widely, and case numbers ballooned over the summer months.
Quebec, one of the most fully-inoculated jurisdictions in the world, with over 80 percent of the eligible population having received both shots, is now hovering just shy of 900 cases per day! Ontario is in worse shape, Alberta in the country’s most dire situation! Lamentably, the coronavirus is not yet done with us puny humans.
And so, with the fourth wave in full flight, and public washrooms and other facilities in the city’s parks closed, our picnic will be an e-event. We’ve given MonSFFA’s team of presenters the day off and will gather via our computers and smartphones this afternoon, keeping things loose with casual conversation, show-and-tell, book and movie recommendations, etc. as each of us enjoys our individual picnic lunch and the virtual company of friends.
We have scheduled but one track of programming this afternoon:
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Speculations on a Post-Pandemic World
Open Discussion, Moderated by Keith Braithwaite
Forgive the Bowie-ism in that title (our debate moderator’s a fan). This afternoon, on the 20th anniversary of another the-world-will-never-be-the-same-again event, we host an open Zoom discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic and the future it will almost surely influence.
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Put your futurist hats on, folks!
We’ve all been living through isolation and stress and anxiety these past 18 months, and we’ll examine how this global public health crisis has changed our lives, both as individuals and within the larger community, country, and world! Will we eventually get back to the way things were, or are these changes likely to be permanent?
Will COVID-19 soon perish, or resist our best efforts to wipe it out? What does the science say about this virus possibly remaining active for years to come; decades, perhaps, or even longer! Are we prepared to live with COVID-19 long-term?
We’ll look at the changes already wrought by the pandemic in the workplace, at school, in the social sphere, and of course, within fandom, and speculate on where we think we’re headed, for good or bad, in a post-COVID world!
2) HOW TO JOIN OUR VIRTUAL ZOOM PICNIC
To join our Zoom session today, click below and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Picnic on Zoom
If you’re not fully equipped to Zoom by computer, you can also join in by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. If you’re from out of town, find your Zoom call-in number here: International Call-In Numbers
Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:
Meeting ID: 880 3995 2551
Passcode: 853036
Don’t forget to comment on today’s virtual experience, and do let us know what topics you’d like to see covered in future. Your input helps us to tailor our e-meetings for maximum interest and enjoyment.
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