Encore Learning members have options! Enjoy classes outdoors, in the classroom, or virtually.

Members also enjoyed opportunities to tour exhibits and places of interest.

The Technology Hot Spots class featured a few members as Instructors, as well as two children of members who are professionals in their field. David Ginsberg, son of Barry and Marge, shared info on Meta algorithms, AI and data management. Olivier Massot, son of Gail, demonstrated AI and the digital arts illuminating possibilities and challenges.

Encore Learning members learned about the most complex organ of the human body in our Aging and the Brain course taught by board member Dr. Michael Stutts. Mike will be teaching another course this Spring –Science and Data and Stats- Oh My! (You can do this!).

We were fortunate to have Dr. Janet Auten teach another compelling virtual course for us: International Women Writers and the Modern Short Story. Dr. Auten will be teaching America’s Revolutionary Women Journalists in the Spring semester.

A fun group of spanish speaking members (intermediate level or higher) enjoyed Professor Denis Heyck’s course: Footprints of the Indigenous Past/Huellas del pasado indígena in Latin

American Literature.

Steve Pilloff taught an entertaining class on improvisation: Never Too Old To Play: Learning Improv Is For Everyone. Steve will be teaching a follow on course and another improv intro course this Spring.

Encore Learning At Goodwin House Alexandria

During November we successfully hosted virtual sessions for the following courses at Goodwin House- Alexandria (GHA), so that members enrolled in the courses would have the opportunity to engage in small-discussions related to the weekly sessions. Participants enjoyed the added feature of social interaction for virtual (Zoom) classes. Classes hosted at GHA: Genealogy: More than Names and Dates, Song Hunters and Brill Building Era. – Marty Suydam

Seeking ways to stay mentally engaged on cold winter days? We invite you to explore our selection of recorded courses. This past semester we recorded sixteen of our courses and are offering Encore Learning members the opportunity to view these recordings over the early winter. The course content was recorded at class sessions held in October to December 2025 and there will be no live interaction.

Register for your spot in the recorded version of the course by December 30, 2025. Recordings will be available for viewing until February 28, 2026.

Visit https://encorelearning.net/recordings/ for a complete list of recorded classes.

Encore Learning is fortunate to have such a wealth of knowledgeable, engaging and all around wonderful volunteer instructors. We hope to feature one or two instructors each newsletter to share a bit about them. We welcome additional writers and submissions. Thank you!

Ambassador Tibor Nagy

by Catherine McCormick

I’d like to share my appreciation of our instructor for the Spring 2025 Africa’s Role in the 21st Century course. Ambassador Tibor Nagy lived up to and exceeded the amazing reputation I had heard of during my 13 years at the Department of State. Not only is he extraordinarily knowledgeable about foreign affairs and especially Africa, he is an exemplary communicator. His ability to convey substantial quantities of information and to facilitate learning is outstanding. His lectures are conducted conversationally and included meaningful examples and stories from his decades of diplomatic service in Africa.

How he condensed a 14 – week course into a four week course was amazing. Participants felt like they had received the majority of the information he would include in his full course. Ambassador Nagy created excellent slides, all useful for review and reference as participants continue to read about Africa. Another quality he displayed is described best by someone who is close to him: “He’s a good guy!” He was very gracious and respectful to all. It was a privilege to learn from Ambassador Tibor Nagy.

Editor’s note: We are pleased to announce Ambassador Nagy will be teaching Africa 2.0 – A Deeper Look in the Spring 2026 semester.

Thank you Ambassador Nagy for sharing your time and knowledge with our members!

Louise joined the Board this year as the Chair of Encore Learning’s Special Events Committee.

Louise has been on the Special Events Committee at least since 2019 (maybe earlier) drawn to it

because she enjoyed Encore Learning as an organization and wanted to contribute to it in a

tangible way. In addition to the Special Events committee, she regularly serves as a class aide and takes classes each semester.

Louise and her husband Mike moved to Old Town Alexandria from New Jersey in 2007 and have loved both Alexandria and the whole DMV ever since. “I really love living here every day – the charm, history and convenience of Alexandria, the proximity to Washington with its many, many offerings, and the vitality of Arlington. I like breathing the air here.”

Louise has had two careers. The first and longest was in the advertising business in New York where she was in client management and worked on a wide range of products including Holly Farms chicken, Honeycomb cereal, the Knicks and Rangers, MSG Network, Barbados Tourism and, most significantly and fun, the New York Lottery.

Her second career was in the non-profit sphere where she worked in fundraising, first in NJ for a school and hospital for disabled children and adults and, in Alexandria, for United Way Worldwide. In retirement, Louise informally consults with local non-profits.

Louise is a docent at the Library of Congress and serves on the board of Move2Learn, an Alexandria non-profit that focuses on getting more movement into schools to energize, motivate and focus students and help them deal with emotional and social issues.

Louise, Mike and her sister travel a lot. They just got back from Sicily which they would highly recommend. Last year, Mike and Louise walked a portion of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in northern Spain, an experience that was both challenging and very worthwhile.

Louise enjoys focusing on special events. “I like to know what is going on so we can share it with our members. And finding hidden gems that our well-educated and active members might not know about. I am working with a great committee – Tom Underwood, Jan Burchard, Tom Kilfoyle and Nancy Kilpatrick – and everyone brings different perspectives and ideas to the

table. I find it very rewarding and fun.”

Please email the office if you’d like to be a part of the Special Events Committee.

Encore Learning Special Events – Lots Going On!

What does a presentation about the glorious history of Northern Virginia music, a tour of the work of women artists of the DMV, a tour of the Victims of Communism Museum and a presentation titled “Will We Have a Civil War?” have in common? They were all tours and presentations offered by Encore Learning in late October and November. We try to offer virtual and in-person tours that are varied, high quality and compelling. We hope you were able to join us for one or more of our special events in November. Please visit our YouTube channel to view our recent Encore Learning Presents events.     

As we end 2025, we are offering a Zoom presentation titled One Immigrant’s Journey and Legacy in Arlington on Monday, December 8 at 3:00 PM. Arlington educator and activist Emma Violand-Sanchez will relate her own journey and challenges in her lifelong quest to affirm her bicultural identity and pave the way for more than 2400 immigrants to achieve higher education in Arlington.

In 2026, we are looking into tours of the new Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, a tour of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) museum, a tour of the Octagon House and tours and presentations around our country’s 250 anniversary. We also just booked a special showing of the documentary film, Rails to Trails, (click here for details) which documents the 60-year history of the movement to convert abandoned railway lines into public paths for walking and biking. The film will be shown at GMU on Monday, January 26 followed by the author of the book that led to the film and co-founder of the Rails to Trails Conservancy Peter Harnik.  

Thanks to Special Events committee members, Jan Burchard, Tom Underwood, Nancy Kilpatrick and Tom Kilfoyle, for their creativity in uncovering hidden gems to tour and speakers for our “Encore Learning Presents” Monday speaker series.

Want to contribute to Encore Learning by helping to identify and manage special events? Join our fun, energized committee. Contact Louise Kenny at LKenny1208@gmail.com to learn more. -Louise Kenny, Committee Chair

Sunday, November 16, found dozens of members enjoying a delightful concert with the Arlington Philharmonic Orchestra. A pre-concert reception hosted by Encore Learning brought people together to socialize and make mutual connections. Thank you to volunteers who setup, greeted and cleaned up so we could host this event: Jutta Bauman, Richard Juhnke, Nancy Laro, Marilyn Marton, and Jane Nagy. Thank you to Heidelberg Bakery for donating the cookies.

Photos courtesy of Tom Underwood

Now that the leaves have fallen, we want to blitz our community with the new Spring 2026 catalog—and we’d love your help!

We already deliver to local libraries and community centers. We’re looking for new and unique places to drop off our catalogs.

Great locations include your:

places of worship • doctor’s offices • stores • restaurants • pool • gym • bridge club • civic association • wherever you meet your friends or neighbors!

If you’d like to pick up catalogs, please email us at info@encorelearning.net and include where you plan to place them and how many you need.

Please respond before December 12th so we can get organized before the catalog is ready to be printed and distributed in early January. We will message you with a pickup location for catalogs for you to deliver in early January.

Thank you for helping us reach more people!

We are currently seeking volunteers for a variety of roles:

• Posting our events in public calendars (such as ArlNow, the Beacon, NextDoor, Positive Aging, etc.).
• Developing strategies to diversify our membership and ensure we are inclusive.
• Planning academic courses or Special Events.
• Class Aides for the Spring Semester.
• Joining a forming Public Relations/Marketing committee.

If any of these opportunities are of interest to you, please visit our Volunteer page or send an email to info@encorelearning.net.

Please email the Encore Learning office if you are interested in joining any of our clubs or would like more information. You may also visit our Clubs page on our website for details and a full list of our clubs.

Please note: Clubs are maintained by Encore Learning as a benefit to our members. If you’re not a member or have let your membership lapse, please go to our membership page for how to join or renew. Thank you!

Bridge Club

The Bridge Club was able to use a room at Arlington Mill Community Center again in November for maybe our final get together of 2025. We’ve had trouble getting space for our lunch and Bridge gatherings as our club has gotten so large that we usually are not able to meet in someone’s home. We started the club with some 12 members, but are now up to about 30. Most of our members cannot host more that two tables of Bridge in their homes, which entails us having to find another venue where we can have as many players as would like to attend.

For 2026, we’re trying out a change in how the Bridge Club works. Instead of having lunch and then playing Bridge, we’ve decided to make it a dessert Bridge and forgo the lunch. Instead of meeting at noon/12:30 for lunch, we’ll be meeting at 1:00, play some Bridge and let players get their dessert/snacks whenever they want during the afternoon. Our plan is to try this for at least a couple of months in hopes that it will make hosting easier and result in more members to volunteer.

As for our January “Happy New Year” Celebration, Sharon and Joan will host our usual event with a hot lunch and Prosecco. Stay tuned for the date and location to be announced in early December. -Joan Carter and Sharon Bisdee

Chamber Music Club

The Chamber Music Club meets every first and second Friday of the month, at noon, from October through May, to hear chamber concerts sponsored by the Friday Morning Music Club, a venerable institution dating to 1886. Please note there is only one concert in January and April.

The musicians are superb and the programming diverse and interesting.

The December concerts are on December 5 and December 12. The first concert will feature works by Mendelssohn, Khachaturian and various composers who wrote songs in English; the second, works by Haydn, Reger and Widor.

The venue is St. George’s Episcopal Church, 915 N. Oakland St., adjacent to the Virginia Square Metro station. For those who drive, the church has a small parking lot. On-street parking is available as well. Please contact the office if you wish to join. – Rhoda Ritzenberg, Coordinator

Cinema Club

The Encore Learning Cinema Club has been busy. We have seen a wide variety of films over the last several months, including Roofman, A Little Prayer, Naked Gun, Mr. Blake at Your Service, The Phoenician Scheme and Blue Moon. Upcoming movie dates are: Monday, December 8, Wednesday, January 14 and Friday, February 20. Join us for a movie and a discussion over lunch nearby. –Caroline Wooden and Dru Dowdy, club coordinators.

Mindfulness Club

The Club continues to meet weekly, Wednesdays from Noon to 1:00, by Zoom for about 20 minutes of meditation, plus topical discussion and social connection. We welcome persons new to mindfulness practice and meditation as well as persons with long experience. Our Club meetings draw from Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Insight Meditation sources, and our meditations are designed to bring participants into the current moment as observers of themselves and their surroundings.

Our group is a come-as-you-wish; we send a reminder of the meetings as well as some mindfulness information most weeks by email but there is no commitment to attend Zoom sessions. If you want to be added to the Club email list, contact the Encore Learning office with your request. — Dwight Rodgers, Club Representative

Nonfiction Book Club

The Encore Learning Nonfiction Book Club will meet next on January 12, 2026, at the Arlington central library. The meeting will begin at 1:30 PM and last about an hour. We’ll be discussing The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson. The book brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in what the LA Times describes as a “riveting examination of a nation in tumult.”  All members are welcome. If you want to become a member of the book club and get on the mailing list, let the office know.

– Ed Rader, Pat Chatten, club coordinators

Travel Club

The November Travel Club meeting was given by Marty Suydam covering his trip to Thailand and Vietnam with his wife Joyce. 

On December 12, the final meeting of the year will feature Tom Quinzio’s adventures hiking on part of the Camino de Santiago.

Everyone has probably heard of the Camino Frances (The Camino Frances is the most popular of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes) as featured in the 2010 movie The Way with Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. 488 miles and 40 days. Tom Quinzio took a shortcut and did The Best of the Camino, 12 days and 172 miles. In his presentation he’ll take you from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago de Compostelo in Spain. He walked the first 7 days, crossing the Pyrenees, to Logrono, went by car to Sarria and walked the last 5 days to Santiago.

The Encore Learning Travel Club meets once a month, usually on the 3rd Friday of the month at 3:30 PM on Zoom. To become a member of the club and receive the club announcements, send an email to the office. We hope to see you virtually on Zoom! -Charlie Hallahan, co-Coordinator. Photo courtesy of Tom Quinzio.

Message from our partners at George Mason University – Mason Square:

Our campus is a partner with the Clarendon Alliance. We are participating in a holiday food drive asking for donated boxes of cereal to be provided to local families through the Arlington Food Assistance Center. The collection box is located in the lobby of Van Metre Hall by the information desk. Please drop off a box of cereal (any kind – for young, for old and in between!) between now and December 11.

Then … if you’re free … plan to join the Clarendon Alliance next Thursday, December 11th for a fun event at the Clarendon Metro Plaza, “Light Up Clarendon!”

Thank you for donating!!

With the year-end approaching, some of you may be doing some tax planning and there are three ways to support Encore Learning and your other favorite charities while lowering your tax liability.

1. Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from your IRA makes your donation 100% tax deductible even if you don’t itemize.
2. Appreciated securities (eg. stocks) will avoid paying capital gains tax and also increase your itemizable deductions
3. A grant from your donor-advised fund which has been funded from appreciated assets.

For more details, please visit this page for helpful info about end-of-year giving. You can bookmark it for later too!”

Did you know that Encore Learning is included in the Arlington Community Foundation Wish Catalog? We are seeking donations to support scholarships for recently retired federal workers. This week (through Friday, 12/5) your donation is doubled, up to $500 matched per wish, thanks to Mercedes Benz of Arlington and the National Automobile Dealers Association. Explore the Wish Catalog and consider making a donation to support other nonprofits in Arlington this season.

The best thing about Encore Learning is our members! Give a friend or family member an Encore Learning “gift membership” this holiday season. What a wonderful way to start the new year.

Checkout our webpage for details:

https://encorelearning.net/membership/gifts/

In addition to giving a membership you can gift a class to an Encore Learning member. Contact the office to pre-purchase a credit to their account and that will be applied to their course registration.

Alternatively, if you know someone now who seems interested in joining or know someone recently retiring, take a moment to explain to them what you find rewarding about Encore Learning. Then, let them know how to join. Joining is easy; all they have to do is visit our website and click on “join.” If they have questions about the process, they can email the staff at info@encorelearning.net. Memberships are tax deductible as a charitable contribution.

The fall semester is wrapping up over the next two weeks. It’s been filled with new learning, laughter, language, and more. We have enjoyed seeing students at Mason and online, who are always grateful for Encore Learning bringing them together.

We are excited about what’s ahead with a dynamic course lineup of 42 classes for spring being finalized and intriguing special events in the works. There are so many ways to get involved, meet new friends and contribute your ideas.

Over the break between the semesters is a great time to think about what you can do to help Encore Learning.

As we look forward to the new year and our Course Preview on January 29, we invite you to join us online and engage in the joy of shared learning. Wishing you a delightful holiday season filled with warmth and connection—your presence is what makes Encore Learning special!

~ Lora 

Lora Pollari-Welbes

Executive Director

p.s. our next eNews is not until the end of January

During October and November 2025, we welcomed the following new members and look forward to having them become active participants in Encore Learning. Please introduce yourself to them if you meet them in a class, club or event.

• Arnold Auerhan
• Debra Berry
• Alicia Brill
• James Bruen
• Nancy Cardwell
• David de Ferranti
• Melissa Ennis
• Ward Fellows
• Richard Freitag
• Karen Gatz
• Katherine Hadda
• Lara Haught
• Tony Haught
• James Kelley

• Carole Kordich
• Barbara Korman
• Maureen Leahy
• Dawn Li
• Kathleen McCauley
• Andy McLeod
• Peggy Montgomery
• Darlene Roquemore
• Laura Samotshozo
• Rochelle Schneider
• Billy Shilling
• Neile Whitney
• Lacey Wootton

Thank you to Ken Avis, Roy Berkowitz, Susan Bornstein, Laura Haught, Louise Kenny, Catherine McCormick, John Metzler, Ruth Mohr, Carol Morland, Lora Pollari-Welbes, Rebecca Webb Richards, and Suzanne Weiss for referring friends who became members of Encore Learning! Spread the word and please refer friends and family to Encore Learning. If you’d like to bring Encore Learning into your community (residential building or neighborhood) to share information about membership, let us know.

Encore Learning is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Any donation is a charitable contribution deductible from income tax to the full extent permitted by law. Members, friends and organizations wishing to support Encore Learning may direct contributions to our General Fund to support our sustainability or to the Arthur W. Gosling Youth Scholarship Fund. If you wish to designate a charitable gift in someone’s honor or memory, please email us indicating how the gift should be recognized. If you would like to discuss tax benefits of charitable giving and charitable remainder trusts, please view our Donate page or contact the office.

We hope you enjoyed this edition of The Inside Scoop. If you would like to submit an article or share some photos of members participating in Encore Learning activities, please email us at info@encorelearning.net.

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