About Us

The original (Peninsula) Series began in San Mateo 1990, as a response to the desire for stimulating intellectual entertainment in San Mateo. The concept of bringing nationally recognized speakers to a local community was so successful that we expanded in our 1994-1995 Season with the same result in our Marin (San Rafael) Series. Two years later, in 1996, we added a third venue in San Francisco that was moved to Berkeley in 2000, in order to satisfy the intense interest received from the East Bay Community. Beginning with our 2002-2003 season, this venue was moved to the beautiful and historic Oakland Paramount Theatre to the great delight of continuing subscribers. In 2004, due to overwhelming demand, a second evening in Marin, entitled, Marin II, was added. Marin II is usually scheduled on Monday nights. The original Marin Series is usually scheduled on Thursday nights.

Best Lecture Series in the Nation

Twice in our career we have been voted, "Best Lecture Series in the Nation" by the ancient and prestigious International Platform Association. We received that award for our 1993-1994 season that included former President Jimmy Carter, Lynn Martin, Bill Moyers, Lesley Stahl, Richard Leakey, Richard Cheney, Robert Bork, and Mark Russell. We received that award again for our 1995-1996 season that included Margaret Thatcher, Colin Powell, Calvin Trillin, Ann Richards, FW DeClerk, William Safire, Carl Sagan, and Maya Angelou.

Purpose

All four individual Series are open forums for the exchange of ideas, opinion and perspective as well as the enrichment of the local community they serve. Each season's speakers represents a wide variety of subjects from world affairs & politics, to business & economics, to the Arts & the environment.

Speakers are chosen on the basis of their extraordinary (usually lifetime) achievement(s), and unique expertise in their particular field of endeavor.

The success of the Series is directly related to subscribers' surprised satisfaction in meeting, first hand, extraordinary people whom they feel they otherwise might not seek out: "Everyone signs up for their favorites - the ones they really want to hear; but nine times out of ten, you wind up loving the very speaker in the Series that you thought you'd like the least". Marin Subscriber, April, 1996.

We are a private, for-profit organization with no sponsors and have no
espoused political or other point of view.