Tom Henry has been teaching for the past 42 years. Tom was introduced to Oasis as an instructor in 2007, a couple of years before he retired. He enjoys teaching and once he retired in 2009 he set his sights on expanding his role as an instructor and volunteer for Oasis. In 2017 Upstate Oasis Executive Director Cindy Woods asked Tom if he would be willing to think outside the box to be the first Oasis instructor to livestream a class other Oasis locations.

Tom initially felt that this would be a fun and interesting. “We have had conversations here in Syracuse about linking with other Oasis Centers to share programs as a sort of future dreaming exercise. I did not expect to be the guinea pig and actually see it happen. What an awesome opportunity!”

On June 26, 2017 Tom and Cindy worked with the Upstate team to offer Travels with Tom: Temples, Volcanoes and Food: Italy and Malta. “Cindy and her team did a lot of the pre-work to make the class available for livestreaming. She did give me a tough assignment though: on the day of class she made be stay IN my box—literally. When I teach I am rather animated and I tend to move around a lot. But because of filming I had to stay more still. Cindy taped off a box on the floor and told me I needed to stay put during my class. That was really the hardest part of the entire experience.”

Henry went on to say that he was learning as he was teaching the livestreamed class. “I looked over at the computer screen and I could see that there were people in San Antonio, San Diego and St. Louis tuning in and was momentarily distracting as I wrapped my head around that.” He loves Oasis and he viewed this opportunity as his next lifelong adventure.

To see ‘Travels with Tom Henry’ visit the Oasis recorded class channel.