Why not get your own group together and customize your away day or weekend experience!

Below you'll find some ideas to get you started...Examples of events that are part of wine women and philosophy's history, but which could certainly be resurrected with a look and feel that is designed especially for you. If you are a group of 6 or more, we even have a special deal - one of you goes free! 

ideas for customized away days 

Making Sense of the Senses 
 

Delving into our sense of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, we explore how some key philosophical ideas link to sensory awareness. While engaging in three practical activities - walking round the lake, looking for the punctum in photographs, and sharing a delicious lunch together - we ask how the senses heighten our engagement with the world around us. We also consider how our senses shape the way each of us interacts with people and places.



Painting Autumn Colours


 

These away days are for people who love to paint, and who want to catch those beautiful autumn tones at their peak. Our resident artist, Janice Poltrick Donato, will be on hand to help you should you want a tip or two. Alternatively,  you can perch yourself on the edge of our private lake (check out those reflections!) or take off into our 22 acres of woodland trails to experience those remarkable autumn colours at your leisure.

Is your medium photography? This away day is also open to you!

ideas for customized weekends 

Discover the world of design through the eyes of Montreal Fashion Designer Astri Prugger.

From idea to finished product, what does the design process involve?
Drawing, flat pattern making, cutting and sewing...Join Astri on a journey to create your own unique project and discover your inner designer on the way!
Discover Your Inner Fashion Designer

 
Astri studied fashion design for three years at St. Lawrence College, in Kingston Ontario, graduating in 1984 and opening her first boutique in the same year.

Astri is known for her elegant custom and ready-to-wear design, accessories, and jewelry.



Just beginning to plan a project, or looking to develop an already established one?   Promoting your novel, an artistic endeavour, or a small business?

This experiential weekend examines common fears and emotional barriers that women face when it comes to promoting themselves.  We share our practical strategies, promotional plans and develop a network to maintain progress. We talk about how to use events, e-mail, Facebook, Google, websites, blogs, creative partnerships and support networks to promote our work. We come away from this weekend with renewed confidence in ourselves and in our projects. 		Self-Promotion From the Inside Out: Emotional and Practical Strategies to Promote Your Own Business



Farzana Doctor 		Farzana Doctor is a Toronto-based novelist, consultant and social worker. She is a self-taught self-promoter who has successfully marketed both her novel, Stealing Nasreen, and her consulting and psychotherapy practice.

For more information, see Farzana's website.



Here's to Song! 
Choral Weekend

You can't help but smile when you sing with others. Join Erica and Kathy on a joyful weekend of choral singing. We'll explore music like Appalachian, African, gospel, and jazz.  Maybe you've only sung in the shower before, or maybe you were in a school choir many years ago. Whatever your musical background, you'll be sure to have a great time as we create music and share its beauty together.

Let the melodies, harmonies and rhythms of this weekend lift you out of the ordinary,  and into the fun of singing together.  The choral component of this uplifting weekend is complemented by a philosophical exploration of the sense of joy and its many nuances.

In the 70's, I sang in the John Rennie High School Choir. For many years after that, I left the singing to others - sitting in concert halls as a spectator while the ones up there singing had all the fun. Until this past year, that is...When I became a new and happy mezzo-soprano in the McGill Conservatory Chorus.  At each rehearsal I discover more joy. 
 
After qualifying as a teacher at McGill University and teaching at Selwyn House School, I began the exciting job of raising two daughters. Their musical education was a big part of our family's life, and choir rehearsals have always been a highlight of their week: they invariably return home laughing and singing. This doesn't surprise me, given the findings coming out of recent studies on the effect of music on the brain. I have always enjoyed accompanying singers on the piano, and look forward to making music together on this weekend.

I have been a choral conductor in the Montreal area since 1988. I work full-time in the Music Department at Vanier College as both an Ear Training teacher and choral conductor. On Monday and Tuesday nights, I direct the three McGill Conservatory Choirs (children, youth, adult).

When I am not making music, I love to garden, read and go out for meals with friends...And I am currently trying to get up the nerve to start swing dancing. The most challenging thing I have ever been involved with was producing the Montreal Premiere of Oratorio Terezin at Place des Arts. I believe that choral singing is a real bridge-builder and one of the healthiest things a person can do.



Driving the Digital Highway: Survival Techniques for the Computer Newbie




So, you inherited a second-hand computer, got it hooked up to the internet, turned it on and now you're thinking "what next?"

You aren't the only one.  Many of us went through school without ever seeing a keyboard, screen or mouse.  No wonder computers seem so mysterious.  The good news is that within a relatively short time you can learn to do some pretty nifty stuff with a computer - and no - you don't have to be a math or science whiz to get the hang of it.  Whether it's tracking budgets, searching for medical advice, corresponding with family or friends, or organizing photos: we'll get you up and running in a flash. 

Join Bernice and a small cohort of other budding techies as we all take a leisurely stroll through computer land. To enhance this journey, Linnet and Rona unpack what it might mean to have 'a sense of fear,' and explore women's historical engagement with new technologies.





Bernice Lamb-Senechal 		When I took a High School typing course in preparation for the dawning digital age I had no idea how pervasive computers would eventually become.  My first encounter with a computer was during an introductory programming course in second-year University.  At that time, students queued up daily for access to public terminals on a room-sized computer.  A few years later I joined a Montreal aerospace company and shared a large, grey desktop computer with my three office mates. 

Now, almost twenty years later, a sleek laptop sits atop my desk and has become the tool of choice for many work-related and personal activities: including corresponding, learning, and shopping, to name a few.  I think that even the least technologically savvy person can find a use for this handy instrument.  By sharing my experience with beginners I hope to ease their entry into the world of computers and encourage budding techies to travel the digital highway.



Introduction to Philosophy: Exploring the Senses
 
 


Linnet Fawcett


Rona Brodie   		This weekend is for women who are keen to learn more about philosophy, and who want to come away from the experience with a better grasp of key philosophical movements such as classicism, postmodernism and feminism.  Over the course of the weekend our aim is to give you enough of an insight into the work of at least three philosophers so that you can begin to spot their similarities and grapple with their differences.

The theme of this weekend is the senses.  Our exploration starts by considering what is meant by the terms 'common sense,' 'nonsense,' and 'a sense of humour.'  This opens up a discussion around how philosophers have attempted to 'make sense' of the world, and prompts us ask whether their sensibilities and resulting claims speak to our own lived experiences.

Drawing on the five senses - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell -  we ground an exploration of ideas to emerge out of sensory awareness in practical activities such as wine-tasting, looking at photographs, and walking.  We also examine how lesser known senses - such as haptic sense - can heighten our engagement with the world around us, and prompt us to think differently about how we interact with people and places.

Is your inner philosopher's curiosity piqued?  Are your senses already tingling in anticipation?  Please join us for a weekend that promises to send you home thinking about philosophy as you've never  thought about it before. 




Soundwalking and the Art of Listening





Soundwalking is a practice that makes places audible: amplifying tiny sounds to bring our attention to things we don't usually hear going on around us; discovering the sonic intricacies of a place through walking, listening and recording.

For those who are interested in discovering the sounds of nature, the surroundings of The Nurtury provide an ideal place to soundwalk.  Far from the bustle of the city, we hear birds, water and the sounds of the weather, and learn through our experiences of these sounds.  Over the course of this weekend Andra introduces new soundwalkers to the pleasurable processes of this activity. Under her guidance we walk through the property both together and individually: listening to the remarkable soundscape of the area, recording sounds on our walks, and then meeting together to talk about how to work with these recordings.  Listening to soundwalk recordings made by other artists encourages us to think about how we can glean nourishing sound works from ambiences that usually go unnoticed. 

Not only do these insights about sound environments accompany us back into daily life; they also provide the starting point for our exploration of listening as a sensory concept.


Andra McCartney

Want to know more about Andra and her soundwalking practice?  Visit Andra's website. 		I am a soundwalk artist who creates work for radio, CD productions, gallery installations and performances.  I also teach Sound in Media for the Communication Studies Department at Concordia University.  I became excited about doing soundwalks in the early nineties, when I heard work by Vancouver sound artist Hildegard Westerkamp on the radio.  I could feel her presence in the work, and was seduced into getting my own field recorder and starting to soundwalk.

Since then, I have been engaged in the practice of soundwalking in my creative work as well as my daily life. 



The Shape of Things:
Drawing Weekend





Ginger by Janice Poltrick Donato


So you think you can't draw?...Sure you can!  Using the interior and exterior spaces of The Nurtury as our raw material, this weekend is all about challenging our own self-imposed limitations as drawers and overcoming our inhibitions around committing lines to paper.  It's also about producing drawings that you can take personal pleasure in - a task made easier through becoming more familiar with the 4 basic skills of drawing: line, negative space, light/shadow and perspective. 

Over the course of the weekend, Janice does just this - working with principles from Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to help you gain more satisfaction from your drawing. Whether you have little experience or are proficient, you'll go home from this weekend with a whole new sense of yourself as an artist.  Afterall, it's not solely about learning to draw; it's also about learning to see differently.

It is with this latter idea in mind that, alongside practical drawing sessions, we build into this weekend an exploration of form as a philosophical concept.  

 





Janice Poltrick Donato


  		I have been drawing and painting my whole life. Moreover, I am a firm believer in lifelong learning - my recent return to Concordia University to pursue a degree in Painting and Drawing being testament to this. I received a DEC in Illustration and Design from Dawson College in 1981, and have worked since then as a technical illustrator, children's book illustrator, mural painter and freelance artist.

I work in oil, pastel, graphite, coloured pencil and egg tempera. As a figurative painter, I draw my inspiration from nature, from the people in my life, from dreaming and pondering. Drawing and painting for me are ways in which to express what is closest to my heart, to work through issues and to crystallize meanings, to explore what life is about, and to put my passions into practice. I am so happy to be spending this life making art, and look forward to sharing a weekend with you doing just that.