What is now a regular Sunday morning ritual for many Oakmont residents began in 1991 when Oakmont resident and former controversial minister and religion columnist, Bill Edelen, started giving weekly Sunday morning ecumenical lectures to a small but growing group of enthusiasts. The group initially met in the East Golf Clubhouse and then moved to the West Recreation Center.

Bill Edelen continued his Oakmont Sunday symposiums (lecture and discussion) until 1993, when he and his wife, Gerry, moved to Palm Springs at the request of multi-millionaire and philanthropist Walter Annenberg, who had retired there. Edelen had received a grant from the Walter Annenberg Foundation in 1990 to promote religious literacy through writing and lecturing. He has continued to write and to preside over a Sunday Symposium at the Palm Springs Tennis Club. Several Oakmonters have dropped in on his Sunday services over the years while visiting the Palm Springs area.

When the Edelen’s left Oakmont they left behind a core group of Sunday morning “regulars” who decided to try to keep the symposium concept alive but in a different format. The group hoped to have a different speaker each week and hoped that the variety would attract even more people. In 1994 they formed a board of directors, elected a president, wrote bylaws and applied for recognition as an approved OVA organization able to continue to meet at the West Recreational Center. This was the beginning of the Sunday Symposium of Oakmont format, as we know it today.

The mission of this new organization was to give the “free thinkers” in Oakmont a place to meet and learn new things from a range of speakers; to provide an opportunity for the cultivation and fulfillment of the human spirit; to offer a venue for nourishing and expanding oneself with information, insights, discussion, questions and even spirituality.

The Symposium Board members became the source of speakers, acting as a program committee, and accepting roles as the producers of each symposium program that consists of community announcements, a short reading of interest, a speaker and a question and answer period.

In the fall of 2005 Sunday Symposium moved to the East Recreation Center to take advantage of the then new state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment installed for the start-up of Movies at Oakmont and to obtain a larger meeting room to better accommodate growing attendance. In recent years attendance has averaged between 85 to100 with spikes up to over 200 when a renowned speaker or a particularly intriguing topic is programmed.

More recently the directors have had to form an Audio-Visual Committee to handle increasingly complex and demanding requirements of presenters. With equipment support from the OVA and training and technical help from the OVA’s Audio-Visual Technical Committee, Sunday Symposium has been able to keep up with technology and to offer attendees and presenters a generally pleasing audio and visual program experience. Beginning in 2009 each program is video recorded and is available to be seen and heard on the Symposium website: www.oaksunsym.org

Sunday Symposium of Oakmont meets at the East Recreation Center from 10:30 am to 12 noon on every Sunday morning except holidays and during the months of July and August. Monthly programs are published in each issue of the Oakmont News, are distributed by email and by regular mail to select lists and are available on the website. A voluntary contribution of $2.00 is requested at the door before each program. The money is necessary to pay modest administrative costs and to pay honoraria to speakers. The contribution request has been unchanged for many years.

Sunday Symposium of Oakmont has become an Oakmont institution and tradition that started in 1991 and transformed in 1994 into the continuing stimulating intellectual experience that Oakmont residents and their guests enjoy today.

Re-researched and updated: 3/22/09

Bill Anderson, Past President

Contact the Symposium at oaksunsym@gmail.com