In addition to the regular Osher classes and lectures I’ve told you about over the past months, the program offers additional opportunities for “senior adults” to find like-minded people to talk to and learn with during their retirement years. These are called SIGS, or “Shared Interest Groups,” and they are as varied as the interests of the Osher members who form them – which means they are as varied as you can imagine.
The Osher program at William & Mary began to organize SIGs in 2021, and my genealogy group, the Williamsburg Area Genealogical Society (WAGS) was the pioneer organization for us. This group developed the way SIGs usually grow: I had taught a genealogy class for Osher five years ago, and at the end we decided we weren’t ready to stop getting together to talk about our common hobby. So we formed a club that met separately from Osher for a few years. Then, when Osher at W&M began to explore the idea of creating some SIGs within the program, our group was the first out to try this out.
This changed our group’s operations in a couple of positive ways: we were advertised in the Osher catalog each semester, and the program provided meeting spaces for us. Both of these things were very helpful. Through the advertisement, we recruited new members. And the meeting space was a particular bonus: we had outgrown people’s living rooms or dining room tables, and publicly available space either came with a fee or were in restaurants which (understandably) wanted people to buy a meal while they were using the space for the meeting. We didn’t charge dues when we started out (we now charge a whole $20 a year), and I don’t care for meetings conducted around meals. I think people spend way too much time with the logistics of ordering and then eating their meals, and the actual purpose of the meeting gets shoved to the back burner.
Osher got something from the relationship as well. As our SIG grew, it became better known throughout the community, and people who became interested in the group also learned more about the Osher program. Greater publicity for the SIG led to a growth in Osher as well. This is a win-win situation.
The WAGS SIG meets monthly in space provided in Osher’s offices in New Town, a planned mixed-use development in James City County less than a mile from the William and Mary campus. We meet from 4-6 pm (to give people time to attend afternoon classes, which normally run from 1:30-3:30), and then go out to dinner after the meeting. We usually have 20-30 members at our meetings, and 12-15 members go out to eat afterward. New Town has a bunch of pleasant restaurants and cafes for us to choose from. We have had a lot of fun.
Our Osher program has several other SIGS:
Sharing the WOW! This SIG grew out of a course called “An Engagement/Interaction of Life’s Experiences/Situations and How We React From Day to Day.” You left the Osher course ready to reboot your life. Maybe you are living your plan. Or perhaps you have fallen back into the same-old, same-old. Either way, join us for a monthly get-together to build on putting the WOW back into our lives. Sessions are highly interactive and a lot of fun.
Animal Friends. This SIG grew out of a class on adopting a pet in Williamsburg. Here’s what the catalog says about this group: Animal Friends of Williamsburg members are passionate about animals and the animal welfare community in the Greater Williamsburg area. They engage in discussions of animal care, lost pets, projects, events, fundraising, volunteering and more. You will learn about local shelters and rescues, how to foster and adopt pets, volunteer opportunities and much more. This group has been meeting monthly since January 2023.
Other instructors have facilitated the creation of informal groups of people who decide to go out for coffee, lunch, or a glass of wine after their class. These may be nascent SIGs — if the connection is valuable, a SIG could be the result.
If you’re thinking that you’d like to be part of a SIG, here is a list of SIGs that exist at other Osher programs around Virginia:
University of Richmond:
Birding with Audubon, Bridge Interest Group, Our Earth & Beyond, Photography, Sociable, French Conversation, Golf, Hikers, Travel, UR Women’s Basketball, Contemporary Issues, Historically Speaking, Investments, Literary Dreamers, Memoir Writing, Mystery Lovers, Theater Lovers
George Mason University
All the News That’s Fit to Print, Art Club, Bridge Club, Classic Literature, Cooking, Craft and Conversation, Dirty Knee (Landscaping), Ethnic Eats Lunch Club, History, Homer, etc., Loudon Non-Fiction Book Club, Mah Jongg Club, Memoir – and More – Writing Group, Walk and Talk Club, Personal Computer User Group, Photography, Poetry Reading, Poetry Writing, Spanish Club, Tai Chi, Theater Lovers.
If you’re getting the idea that it’s easy to form a SIG through an Osher program near you, you’d be right. Osher is all about creating community and social contacts for what they call “seasoned adults.” (Love that term!) One of the biggest problems facing older adults is social isolation. Often they relocate to retirement communities where they are separated from the connections they had cultivated over decades of working and raising their families. Even if they stay in the same community, the situation around them has often changed, so that even familiar places seem unfamiliar. They sometimes have health problems that limit their mobility, or they are responsible for caring for a family member and therefore unable to tend to their own needs as much as they need to.
One of the social phenomena driving this isolation is the disappearance of what sociologists call “third spaces” – the community groups (Rotary, Lions, and the like) and bowling teams that many adults participated in throughout the 20th century. These groups don’t thrive in the modern environment. The reasons for this are complex, and I’m not going to go into them in this essay. Suffice it to say that when old ways of doing things stop working, you have to find new ways. That was what a SIG can do.
There are 125 Osher programs across the country. You can probably find one near you. Check to see if they have any SIGs, and figure out how to join one that interests you. If they don’t have a SIG that matches your interests, form one.
Thanks, Karen! 😎