Stories

Improv Performer and Teacher to Speak at Women’s Association Annual Meeting

By Maggie Brew - July 2, 2025
 
Janna Sobel, a Chicago-based performer and teacher, will be the guest speaker at the Women’s Association Annual Meeting on Thursday, July 10th at 10:15am in the Assembly Building. Her talk “Comedy in Community” will begin after the 9:30am regular business meeting of the Women’s Association and all are invited.
 
Sobel will also lead two improvisation workshops intended to connect the community through guided play and comedic interaction, one for adults and one for youth in grades 6-12. The adult workshop will be held at 11:00am on the same day as the meeting. The youth workshop will take place on Friday, July 11 from 12:00-2:00pm in the Assembly Building. These workshops are entry-level and require no previous experience with acting or improvisation. “They’re designed to be easy, fun, and accessible to everyone,” Sobel said. “Come with an open heart and an open mind and know that you’ll be taken care of.”
 
CSA Member Beth Seaton has taken Sobel’s improv and storytelling classes in Chicago. “Her classes made a big impact on me because they are such a blast,” said Seaton. “Her workshops are super fun, and I guarantee that everyone will laugh and have a great time.”
 
Janna Sobel
Sobel’s journey with improvisation began in her childhood, when she observed a disparity between her peers and the adults in her life. “I really enjoyed laughing with my friends. I loved how we could crack each other up to the point where our stomachs hurt and we couldn’t remember what we’d been laughing about in the first place. And for some reason, I was fascinated by the difference I noticed between kids and adults in that way. Of course I didn’t have words for it at the time, but I noticed that adults didn’t seem to laugh like that; that the young people around me seemed freer, more joyful, expressive, and playful… and had a bit more of their natural spark. While some adults seemed farther away from their expressive selves, and sort of tamped down. I can remember that this scared me a little. But there were some adults I knew who still seemed really playful, awake, and expressive, and I began to wonder how they kept that little spark.”
 
Sobel stumbled upon improv in high school and found that it seemed to foster and protect that light of creativity. “It looked to me like a way that people could lay down what burdened them for a little while. To practice trusting and honoring their own spontaneous, playful, creative nature. Improv teaches that, contrary to all our social conditioning, you can trust yourself. You can think of good ideas. You can connect and create things together. You can make your own fun.” Sobel became interested in teaching improvisation to kids and teenagers, and began her teaching career in San Francisco.
 
Sobel’s move to Chicago was spurred by being cast in a play that she loved. “If I could teach people to be brave and trust their own creativity, I should have the courage to do that, myself,” she said. She now teaches at The Second City, a world-renowned comedy training center. She teaches Improv Comedy and Live Storytelling there, and for other institutions like Chicago Dramatists, The IDEA Center at Notre Dame, The Booth School of Business, and The Chicago Cultural Center. She leads collaboration and communication workshops for companies like LinkedIn, GitHub, Moen, Allstate and McDonalds, and offers storytelling and public speaking coaching for TED talkers and keynote speakers.
 
The Improv work that Sobel will be sharing with us plays a large role in American comedy and has led to the development of beloved favorites like Saturday Night Live, The Office, Key and Peele, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Whose Line is it Anyway! But, she says, the work itself has its roots in social science. In post-Great War America, government officials identified a need for strengthened social connections and creative power in the fragmented American people, and the WPA commissioned Neva Boyd, a social scientist in Chicago, to help people recover from the collective trauma of The Great Depression through play and laughter. Improvisation has since grown into an art form that breaks down barriers and unites communities, influencing the arts and entertainment, union labor organizing, progressive education, and approaches to physical and psychological rehabilitation.
 
Improv comedy began as, and remains, a way to connect people with their imaginations and their natural brilliance. Sobel’s workshops will aim to bring our CSA community together through laughter and joy, forming new bonds and strengthening old ones. “It’s an easy and uncommon kind of fun!” Sobel describes improv. All are encouraged to come and reignite their creative spark!
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Mindfulness & Well Being 2025 Summer Program

Mindfulness & Well Being 2025 Summer Program
 
Based on positive response to last year’s program, the Women’s Association is sponsoring a three-class Mindfulness & Well Being Program. The practice of mindfulness has been proven to reduce stress and help navigate negative emotions with a greater sense of awareness and compassion. Classes are instructional, conversational and provide tools to integrate mindfulness practices into everyday life.
 
Mindfullness and Wellbeing 2025
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Keep Your Eyes Open for Bears

Keep Your Eyes Open for Bears
By Alan Marble - May 26, 2025
 
A new family moved into the CSA environs just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. A single mother with toddler twins, the “fam” has made its presence known in a very un-CSA manner, trespassing and even stealing bird feeders.
Bear and CubsThis mama bear and her cubs were spotted recently at a home on Ness Rd.
 
You guessed it, a sow bear with this year’s cubs have been seen on both Ness Road and Golf Lane in the past few days. She is pretty big for a female black bear and has her paws full tending to her two frisky, inquisitive cubs. The family probably left the den 6 or 7 weeks ago, and the cubs are slowly but steadily transitioning from nursing to solid foods. As the woods green up, more and more natural foods appear on the buffet in the form of wild leeks, grasses, wild strawberries and other succulent plants.
 
Feeding a family of three is a full-time job, and a sow with cubs will be much more active during daylight hours than a big, mature boar, which prefers dusk to dawn activity. Black bear biology stipulates a strict separation of duties between males and females…the male plays no role in rearing the cubs and is even known to occasionally prey upon cubs.
 
With all of the above in mind, it pays for each of us to be aware of our surroundings while we seasonally inhabit the home of these remarkable omnivores. Sows are very defensive of their cubs, especially if a potential threat (a human, for example), stumbles into their midst. The first line of defense for a sow bear is to quickly and quietly vanish, cubs in tow, usually before the intruding human is aware of the presence of the bears. If surprised, a sow will often bark at the cubs to alert them, and the cubs’ primary defense is to climb nearby trees, with astonishing speed. The sow may climb a tree as well or stand her ground until the threat is gone. In the rarest of scenarios, she may growl, bark, pop her jaws and make a false charge to get the intruder’s attention. An outright attack is a very, very rare occurrence.
 
What to do? Walking the woods, solo and in groups, is the most natural pastime for many of us. The natural presence of bears is part of nature’s bounty, for us to enjoy and be exhilarated by. Our best coping mechanism is toBear Bird FeederLunch! pay attention to our surroundings. Leave your earbuds and music behind, put away your screen, and walk, listen and watch your way through the splendid natural wonders around you.
 
If you have an encounter with a bear that doesn’t immediately flee, stand tall, raise your arms and make a lot of noise. Bears, like humans, do not like surprises, and the earlier you can make a bear aware of your presence, the more time that animal has to flee the scene.
 
And, by the way, under no circumstances should anyone feed bears, intentionally or otherwise. Michigan bears learn at a young age that garbage bags, garbage bins and coolers are never-ending, always-surprising, sources of food. Don’t put garbage out until the morning of pick-up…period. Repeat after me – “I promise not to put out my garbage until the morning of the day of pick-up.” Thank you.
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Spotlight on Committees: Tennis Committee

Spotlight on Committees: Tennis Committee
By Ginanne Brownell
 
If the expression “down the middle solves the riddle” rings a bell, it’s pretty likely that you or someone in your family have taken part in a Steve Shreiner-led CSA tennis lesson at some point in your summer. Steve is known for his great expressions—and booming voice—and has helped to really shape the tennis program over the last few years.

That shaping up has been helped in large part by the very active tennis committee, which is co-chaired by brothers-in-law Alan Marble and Dennis Nahnsen. The two men –who are both known to take part in CSA adult lessons—took over the roles about eight years ago. Though there had been a tennis committee before that—with Alan estimating it probably started back in the 1990s— it had not been very active for a number of years.

The tennis program at CSA has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few years. For example, in 2022 the week of July 18th saw a whopping 576 adults and children participate in tennis lessons throughout the week, while this year the top week of July 10th saw 435 participate (some of these numbers include repeat “satisfied customers.”)

Two years ago, the tennis committee added pickleball to the summer roster. Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports in the country, and it has certainly become popular at the Assembly. This past July the first Pickleball Festival was held with over 50 participants.

The CSA Tennis Committee is responsible for the administration of all tennis activities that take place in the CSA. Its duties include creating and implementing the rules and requirements for all tennis activities and court usage on the grounds of the CSA, working with the Managing Director of the CSA to hire the tennis staff, and helping to organize and oversee two week-long tennis tournaments in July and August.

tennis 2023Alan Marble, Tennis Committee Cochair, is pictured on right after the Senior Men’s Doubles Final match in the August 2023 tournament.Steve, of course, ran the CSA tennis program for years and, lucky for us, he came back two years ago. “Denny approached Steve in January of 2022 and he expressed a sincere desire to run the CSA program once again,” said Alan Marble. “We cobbled together an aggressive budget proposal, got the support of the Board of Trustees and the new (amazing) managing director, and the program set records for attendance in 2022. We asked for an additional $6K for the 2023 budget, all towards salaries, and we got it.”

He added that the committee has worked hard to obtain new equipment including courtside benches and tournament scorecards, as well as developing a new program for monitoring tournament play with volunteers to ensure consistency and reporting of scores and to monitor sportsmanship. Two of the Woods courts were resurfaced last winter, and the other two will be redone for the 2024 season.

Alan says that the committee has been pleased with not only Steve coming back to help run the program but also the results, including the numbers of those signing up for the July and August tournaments as well as the weekly tennis classes. The success of the tennis program is, says Alan, “of great pride to the committee.” And for all those who love tennis, the program has become one of the highlights of summer at the CSA.
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Spotlight on CSA Committees: Membership

CSA MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE

By Ginanne Brownell - August 10, 2023

For many CSA members—old and new—the CSA’s Membership Committee has always been something of a mystery. But according to Ann Murphy Burroughs, who co-chairs the committee with Megan Royle Carrella, it isn’t purposely that way.  They have made concerted efforts to explain exactly how CSA membership has worked in the past and how it works now in the annual Assembly News and on the CSA website. Ann, who has been on the committee for almost 30 years, says it’s believed the committee was formed when the CSA, “stopped offering anyone who came to the desk the opportunity to purchase a ticket, and the category of Associate Members was created.” For a number of decades, the committee met routinely once a week during the season, but with leadership change and the pandemic, they have adopted both virtual and in-person meeting formats and meet a few times during the season.

From its inception and continuing today, the committee established policies and procedures for membership and ticket purchase eligibility as approved by the Board of Trustees and lot owners. Over the years, as family stays reduced from 8-10 weeks to 1-2 weeks a summer, and families sometimes missed CSA seasons entirely due to various societal factors, membership definitions and ticket purchase eligibility policies evolved. 

At various times the CSA Board has discussed ways to generate more income, especially early in the season. Consequently, the Membership Committee has discussed how policies might accommodate ticket sales in the “shoulder” seasons – early June and late August – and what programming or services might be offered at those times. 

In terms of what the committee does beyond policies and procedures, part of their work is reviewing incoming Associate Member applications, keeping track of lot owners and Associate Members, and determining who is eligible to purchase a ticket and vote at annual meetings. An applicant for membership or associate membership needs to provide evidence of a lengthy past association. “We also work to make membership policies broadly communicated and understood [and] consider larger issues such as making new members feel welcome, how membership policies impact crowding and car traffic at the CSA, and how membership policies might be adjusted in the future,” Ann says.

She points out that like all CSA committees, the committee’s job is to stay on top of all current issues at the CSA as well as to think about how things might evolve going forward, and draft recommendations to the Board as needed. “At times we have consulted with Waterfront regarding capacities for boats and people on the Crystal Lake beach, with CSA Staff regarding which programs and activities can welcome the general public, with new office staff on the intricacies of membership policies related to ticket purchase, with the Women’s Association on welcoming new members, and with Bylaws related to membership,” Ann adds.

The Committee has also taken on new roles when needed, for example when it was decided that all Associate Members would be invoiced in the spring for the equivalent of a two-week ticket. At that time the Membership Committee took on the work of preparing those invoices and mailing them out for over a decade. Nowadays, this is done by paid CSA staff. Also, in the past, when membership policies had outlived their relevancy and were failing to address “certain situations based on general demographic and constituent lifestyle shifts” Ann says the membership committee has reviewed these policies and suggested amendments to the Board.

In terms of challenges, Ann says one of the biggest ones they face is that “our membership policies have grown to be incredibly detailed and complex, and it is very hard for the general CSA member to get a handle on how membership operates.” However, she says that this is nothing new: similar situations have occurred in the late 1990s/early 2000s.  That led to a lengthy study by the Membership Committee that included open forum discussions, a board recommendation, a CSA lot-owner vote, and new policies adopted in 2007. She added that since that’s now been almost two decades, “we again welcome ideas and discussion on membership policies from CSA participants, especially regarding potential ways to simplify membership policies.”  Open forums and community discussions have always played a critical role for many perspectives to be heard as the Membership Committee considers future options.

While at present the Membership Committee is fully staffed, they welcome anyone interested in attending their meetings.  Ann says what is so enjoyable about the Membership Committee is the chance to work, “with a dedicated, multi-generational group to consider how past and present CSA community constituents were/are defined, and how our community would like to welcome constituents in the future.”  She encourages anyone to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.her with your thoughts and/or questions.

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Spotlight on CSA Committees: Arts Committee

By Ginanne Brownell - May 18, 2023
 
Over the years, the roles of various committees at the CSA have changed, developed, and grown with responsibilities. The Communications Committee was formed back in the early 2000’s and does everything from updating CSA social media pages to the weekly summer newsletters and publishing stories of interest. We will be doing a series of features focusing on all the different committees. The idea is for the members of the CSA to better understand how these committees work, what they do and their role in the wider CSA community.
 
Our first committee we are featuring is one of the newest (started in 2015), the Arts Committee.
 
Jane Cooper, the current CSA archivist, knows a thing or two about the arts and cultural history at Pilgrim over the decades. Her Aunt Jean Sicha Roberts was in the first operetta “The Snow Queen” in 1931, while Jane herself was in Tom and Emilie Williams’ first operetta that they directed in 1948. (She said that during and immediately following World War II, there were no operettas but the Williams instead concentrated on choirs). She said about the legacy of arts at the CSA that, “there is synergy - an appreciation for what goes into various art forms and productions by being with so many different people at the Assembly.” That was likely part of the reason that Elizabeth Gottlieb came up with the idea to form that Arts Committee in 2015.
 
According to Barb Perry, the current head of the committee, “Liz saw so much potential for creativity and wanted to give new ideas a place to blossom.” The idea was to, as the Arts Committee website page says, “encourage and oversee artistic endeavors and the creative spirit for all ages.” The CSA has long beeArt Workshop with Karen Williamsn a rich place for painters, actors, singers, musicians, composers, photographers, and writers who not only pursue these endeavors in the summer months but professionally as well.
 
Each summer the committee oversees the Art and Writing workshops, CSA Big Read, Talent/Stunt night, and the Authors and Artisans Fair. “In the past two years, we encouraged but didn’t oversee ‘One Beautiful Thing,’ Barb wrote in an email, pointing out that the committee does not put together musical concerts or the operettas, though some members of the committee are also involved in those projects. Both the Art and Writing workshops and the CSA Big Read have been popular offerings from the committee (stay tuned for an announcement soon on what the book this summer will be!) and Talent/Stunt night has always brought in talented—as well as witty—members of our community to show off their talents on stage.
 
Meanwhile the Authors and Artisans fair allows for members of the CSA community to show off their talents for writing, painting, drawing, sculpting and photography. The fair, held in August and separate from the July CSA Art Fair, has been around for decades. According to Merry Elrick, who has currently been running the fair for the last two decades, “Anyone from the CSA is welcome to display whatever they choose at no cost. Any proceeds from sales go directly to the artists and artisans.” For people who are interested there is a sign-up sheet that goes on the porch a few days after the July Arts and Crafts fair and the only rule, really, is to be a member of the CSA. “It seems every year different items are popular,” Merry said. “I’d say photos of the area, sometimes framed or made into note cards, do quite well. Jewelry sometimes does well also. It depends on the quality of the work, and sometimes unusual work, like handcrafted collage, is popular. I’ve tried to find a trend from year to year but have not been entirely successful.”
 
Merry believes what makes this fair so special is that the CSA community get to discover all the talents of other members. “It brings artists together in community,” Merry said. “Some people come year after year to exhibit and we have some new ones every year.” She added that she likes to encourage artists to demonstrate their talents while the fair is happening. People like Steve Elrick, Merry’s brother, used to set up and easel and paint while one year a woman set up her spinning wheel and worked as she sold sweaters and hats. Last summer, Merry remembered, “a young girl had a table and braided hair with sparkly yarns and ribbons and that was very popular with girls like my granddaughter.”
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