The Academy of Lifelong Learning, or ALL for short, is an organization founded at Lincoln Land Community College more than 25 years ago. Anyone age 50 or better is welcome to join. Our purpose is both educational and social. Many programs are free, and most meet on a monthly basis. If you like golf, we have a group called Swinging Seniors. If you like cycle, we have the Pedal Pushers group, and walkers can come to Pathfinders.
During the summer, we meet to go to the movies, and during the winter we have older movies at the Trutter Center. Our book group is appropriately named Book Lovers, and our writers get together to share their talent at Scribes. We have two groups that meet at local restaurants for lunch or dinner, and if you are a morning person, we meet at MCL to hear speakers on all kinds of topics from local service organizations, journalists, government officials, religious leaders and various medical personnel. We make visits to businesses and organizations Around Town such as our local Pepsi plant, the Art Association, a fire station, a pawn shop and the FBI.
The Chautauqua group has a different theme each quarter. These have included Springfield businesses celebrating 100 years, space, the Middle East and World War I. The leaders of Tech Talk have helped us with our smart phones and our computers. We have History Hunters and Wander on Wednesday. The latter group takes a bus trip to someplace for the day. We have gone to the Festival of Lights of East Peoria at Christmas, the reindeer ranch in Rantoul, the DaVinci exhibit in St. Louis as well as Kaskaskia, Cahokia Mounds, Vincennes, Ind. and Hermann, Mo.
Our group leaders and their committees are always happy to take members’ suggestions for topics to explore. Two of our groups, Pathfinders and History Hunters, just began last year. We are always looking for helpers/leaders for the committees and events like our annual chili dinner.
Due of COVID-19 many of our programs are being held virtually via Zoom although cycling, golf and pathfinders are still meeting in person following IDPH guidelines. Zoom is not a hard program to use and we have members to help, so don’t let that intimidate you.
Dues are $60 a year (just $5 a month) but you can get $5 off for each new member you get to join. Some programs like those with meals or athletic ones like golf or bowling and the bus trips cost additional, but the costs are kept as low as possible. For additional information, an opportunity to come to a Zoom program as a guest, or an application to join, contact the Community Education/ALL office at 217-786-2432 or go to www.llcc.edu/academy-lifelong-learning.