Adult Education Classes, 2025

     Morning Classes  >  Adult Education Classes, 2025

There are three periods of 55 minute classes beginning at 9:00AM each day, Sunday through Friday. Teachers are selected by the Program & Evaluations Committee. Each teacher teaches his/her class twice each morning for 6 days. Classes are strictly optional and no attendance is kept.

The Program & Evaluations committee seeks to achieve a balance of classes in these categories, usually nine or more classes total:

• Religion & Spirituality:  Bible study, comparative religion, etc.
• Personal Development:  Dance, yoga, etc.
• Social/Political:  Labor issues, political workings, and miscellaneous other

Read on for class descriptions and instructor bios. We’ve got a great lineup featuring some familiar faces and new instructors. Looking forward to seeing you in class!

2025 Classes:

—    Religion & Spirituality    —

Liberation Theology - Marilyn Kendrix

The ideas put forth as “liberation theology” can be attributed both to the writings of Gustavo Gutiérrez in Latin America and James H. Cone in the United States, each of whom used this formulation in 1968. Latin American liberation theology and black liberation theology emerged concurrently, yet independently, in relation to two distinctive forms of oppression and suffering in the contexts of Latin America and the United States.

This class will look at how various liberation theologies engage scripture and define theology in a way that always acknowledges the preferential option for the poor and oppressed that is made evident throughout scripture.

Marilyn Kendrix is a graduate of Yale Divinity School with a Master's of Divinity, who worked for over 15 years as an Organizational Development Consultant principally at AT&T and also in other profit and notfor-profit settings prior to her ordination. Marilyn has served on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Conference United Church of Christ. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, her Executive MBA and an MA in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, both from the University of New Haven. In 2021, Marilyn retired from serving as Bridge Conference Minister of the newly formed Southern New England Conference, United Church of Christ. Marilyn is married to her best friend, Alan, and together they have 3 children, 6 grandchildren, one great granddaughter and one dog, Dash.

The Bhagavad Gita: A Hindu Bible - Richard Davis

Many modern Hindus consider the Bhagavad Gita to be a "Bible" of Hinduism. This course will offer a brief study of this 700-verse work and an introduction to some of its key concepts and teachings. We will read select passages of the Gita in class and discuss their significance. I will provide background on the history of this poem in the larger epic poem Mahabharata. We will also look at how some important twentieth-century figures--such as Mahatma Gandhi and J. Robert Oppenheimer--interpreted the Gita and used it in their own lives. Students will also be encouraged to compare the Gita's teachings with other spiritual traditions.

Richard Davis has taught in the field of Religious Studies for thirty-five years, at Yale University and Bard College. He is the author of several books, including a "biography" of the Bhagavad Gita in the series Lives of Great Religious Texts. He currently teaches a course on Lives of Religious Founders part-time, in a Connecticut prison, through the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education.

Yoga - Mind, body & spirit in harmony

This powerful form-based class is taught from the foundation up, benefiting beginners and seasoned yogis alike. Inviting breath, body, movement into harmony. Throughout class we will explore deepening our grounding, foundation, and steadiness, which in turn offers us greater joy, connectedness and enlightenment. We will then be able to anchor these qualities into the workings of our everyday life creating more harmony within.

Saskia Bergmans is a mother, yoga teacher and coach bringing yogic practices and spirituality into the daily lives of her clients for over 20 years. Saskia teaches the yogaspirit® lineage, in her community yoga classes, workshops and in 200hr Yoga Teacher Training Programs. She cultivates learning in her students, guiding a multi-level class from the physical foundation of the body to the healing components of yoga. Saskia holds a safe and sacred space for her students to regain and build confidence in themselves and their body’s, through her yoga classes, spiritual mentoring, meditation classes & workshops. She grew up in England and The Netherlands and has lived in New England since 2000. 

—    Personal Development    —

Bulgarian Dancing with Bari and Barb in the Barn

Barb and Bari went to Bulgaria and learned brilliant new-to-Winni Bulgarian dances from Iliana Bozhanova, an internationally recognized dance leader. We're bursting to share these with our barn-dancing buddies! We will be taking a deep dive into Bulgarian dances from different folk regions. Learn about Balkan musical rhythms, dance styling, and the influences from neighboring countries. We'll teach some complex dances slowly and thoroughly with a lot of repetition. You might even hear a bit about our travel adventures! Bring your dancing shoes, water, and an open mind for this Bulgarian bonanza!

Barb Siftar - Folk Dance leader at NNESRE for over 15 years and staff of the Eastern Cooperative Recreation School where she has led singing and folk dance for many years. Specializes in intergenerational beginner groups. Sometimes she can be found singing.

Bari Prince - Dancer and dance instructor with a background in multiple dance forms including Israeli and International Folk. Has taught dance to preschoolers through adults in a variety of settings and can often be found swimming.

In Musical Harmony

Sing rounds and choral pieces in beautiful harmony – from gorgeous to hilarious, tender to spirited, easy to deliciously challenging – in 2, 3, 4 and more part harmonies! If you love to sing in harmony, join in the heart-moving and fun and empowering music we’ll create together each day. Ability to read or follow music is helpful but not required.

Joanne Hammil is a composer/songwriter, choral director, music educator and performer. Her passions for singing in harmony and creating community through music infuse her songwriting and teaching. She directed the Greater Boston Intergenerational Chorus for 20 years, The Choral Connection for 30 years, and has presented many hundreds of workshops and concerts for national conferences, institutes, community sings, schools and festivals throughout the country. Her own songs have been performed and recorded by many artists and have become exciting standards in songbooks, harmony circles and choir repertoires.

Landscape Art with pencils, watercolor and acrylic

With an emphasis on non-judgement, we will draw and/or paint a journey of discovery, of nature and self. No matter what your past art experiences are, all are welcome to join. All you need is an openness to create art in harmony with nature. We will explore the Geneva Point Center campus, moving around to find locations to draw; a we will focus on a different general area every day. This class will start with sketching and move to adding watercolors or acrylics as you desire. Together, we will create art in the moment, using what is in front of you, and feeling that artmaking peaceful-excitement inside.

Michael Morse holds a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Computer Art, from the School of Visual Art, NYC. He is an accomplished artist with past work shown in galleries on Martha’s Vineyard and Boston.

—    Social/Political    —

Aging, Retirement, and The Good Life

Two social workers will guide you gently through the process of things that may happen as you get older to your body, your mind, your money, your relationships, and self-image. And the emphasis here will be how to build the “good life” in your retirement or later years - strategies that can maximize well-being, wealth, and ability to enjoy your present moment (whatever shape you are in). Discussions will be encouraged to affirm where you are at, where you are going, and how you wish to get there.

Leslie Ganley and Bill Milford are both long term Winni community members with experience in social work and teaching (Leslie - High School, Bill - University). Having both retired within the past few years, they come at this topic not as experts but as curious investigators who have gathered information and insights from knowledgeable sources during the year to share with Winni community members for discussion. This course is open to all ages and will rely on participants personal insights and sharing to form the class discussion.

Poetry for Our Time

The class will read and discuss one or two poems each day. The daily focus will be on a theme, such as: poetry itself, nature and the environment, race relations, gender issues, spirituality, justice, and mercy, etc. Our conversations will likely consider story and background of the poet, the poem’s structure and the poet’s choice of particular words or phrases, as well as whatever meaning we are able to draw from it - for ourselves, for our respective communities and for the world. The poems will be distributed and/or sent in digital format each day for review on the following day.

John Shaw - for the last five years John has been the “poet laureate” designated by a group of about a dozen men to select the poems for discussion each week. John has been a practicing attorney in Middletown, Connecticut, for over fifty years and has advised small “legacy” congregations in Connecticut who may be planning to close.

Meditations on Racial Healing

Racial justice and racial reconciliation are needed for people to live in harmony. It may also be that people are experiencing spiritual conflict, shame, guilt or resentment in their lives due to racism, and meditations on healing help create internal harmony and harmony with God. This class will be based on the book: The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning: Meditations for Racial Healing, by Catherine Meeks. Each day we will read one of the meditations and have a discussion about it together. The class is appropriate for anyone interested in addressing racial justice in the context of spirituality and a desire for healing, no matter what stage of the justice or spiritual journey you are in at the moment.

Deborah McCarter, PhD, RN is recently retired from her role as nursing professor at Saint Anselm College. She has been on a personal and professional journey of anti-racism and racial reconciliation, and had the opportunity to learn from the book author, Catherine Meeks, while living in Atlanta for a year. She has participated in Sacred Ground circles in her Episcopal church in Goffstown, NH, a film-and readings-based dialogue series on race, grounded in faith. Her journey began in her passion for maternal-child health, discovering the health disparities that women of color experience, which motivated her nursing research program. She is not an expert in the topic of racial justice--instead, a traveler on the journey with a desire for community and with faith in the power of the Creator to heal.

Living Your Best Life, Even, or Especially, at End of Life

Living our best life is important at all ages and stages, including the last chapter of our life. It’s gratifying to spend life in harmony with ourselves and with those in our circles. When we're on our personal road to end of life, why not surround ourselves with the best care possible, which is covered by insurance, 24/7 support, and includes services like massage therapy, pet therapy, and a volunteer, just to name only a few of the options out there! What are the misconceptions in our culture about end of life and end of life care? Take the mystery out of the terms and options, get a massage yourself, or just come learn what you may not yet know about end of life care.

Kathy Pike is an end of life social worker and a yoga teacher. She is a long-time practitioner of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness and mom to two great young adults who are long-time Winni campers.