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CHAIRMANS REPORT - AUTUMN 2019
Autumn really is in the air and I’ve had to bite the bullet and switch on the central heating a few times recently - as I suspect have you. It saddens me to see our many beautiful local horse chestnuts trees suffering from disease and producing no conkers. Yet another loss to our countryside. If you come to U3A events at Littleton you will have seen it along the Stockbridge Road.
On a happier note the August meeting with magician and cream tea was a huge success. Sylvia Leyton, our Subscriptions Secretary, again made the delicious scones. David Bonney, the magician, enthralled us all. I was looking at the faces of the audience as he tricked us all with his sleight of hand. They were riveted just like the faces in the Hieronymus Bosch painting of a crowd watching a ‘find the pea under the cup’ street entertainer that David had shown us in his history of magic presentation. Nothing changes!
We are already planning our Christmas social meeting with cake, mince pies and a performance of seasonal song by Clive Boot, Richard Costard and Vernon Tottle, all talented U3A members. We must insist that you need to book if you want to attend. How to do that is explained elsewhere in this newsletter.
I am still trying to visit group meetings and was lucky enough to spend an afternoon with a Sci-Tech group this month. It was stimulating and entertaining and so good to get to know yet more members better. Who will I inflict my presence on next time you’re probably wondering. Wait and see! Suggestions for new groups keep coming - Canasta, Cryptic Crosswords, a Pub Quiz type league and more.
Now a serious matter for you to ponder. Pam Underwood has had to step down as Secretary for health reasons so again I don a second hat. However we also need to consider that after many years in post Sylvia Leyton our Subscriptions Secretary, Roger Warr our Newsletter Editor and Julia Whitburn as Speakers Secretary will all retire at the next A.G.M. Once again we could be trembling on the brink of closure. Something to think about as Christmas approaches.
Freda Bates
09/19
As the Strictly dancer Anton du Beke wrote, “My perfect morning is spent drinking coffee, eating porridge and reading the paper at a local cafe.” I am sure the paper he had in mind was the Winchester U3A newsletter. Those of you who receive this valuable beacon of communication by email need to substitute “iPad” for “paper” but you get the gist.
But the Winchester U3A Newsletter isn’t the only way that you can receive news of what is happening in the wider U3A world. The National U3A issues a monthly newsletter of its own that can be viewed online or sent to you by email. The latest edition covered news of various summer schools, information about the Annual General Meeting in August, advice for treasurers and various items about interest groups. To receive this every month you need to visit the national U3A website and click on the “newsletter” tab; you cannot ask for this to be sent by post.
On a more glossy scale, and in a magazine that can only be read in its full glory on paper, is the national U3A Third Age Matters. Many of you already receive this in the post every few months and will know it features comment, opinions, reviews, news, games and many pages of readers’ letters. A text only version of the magazine is avaible online under the resources tab but for the full impact you must read the paper version. If you don’t already get the magazine and would like to try it, you need to contact our membership secretary Lianne Hill via .
Sending out the national magazine is part of the £8 subscription you pay to us every year and this has so far also applied to the Winchester U3A newsletter. It costs almost nothing (except a lot of hard work by the editor, subscription secretary and webmaster) to send out the newsletter by email but it costs about £4.90 per year per recipient to distribute it by post. The committee is considering whether to make an additional charge of £5 per year to cover these costs, otherwise those who elect to receive it by email are in effect subsidising those who like to get a paper copy. If you have any thoughts on this, please write to me .
Whatever you read and in whatever medium, do please continue to enjoy your mornings like Mr du Beke.
Vernon Tottle
0919
We sadly report the death of John Brewer. John for a number of years was Chairman of Winchester U3A.
John's Memorial Service is at 12.00 noon on Wednesday 10th July in St Paul's Church, S Paul's Hill, Winchester
0719
ANNUAL LOCAL HISTORY TALK - WEDNESDAY 30TH OCTOBER 2.30pm
This year's annual local history talk is being given by Dr Christina Welch, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Winchester, on the story of Medieval Jews in Winchester. It will start promptly at 2.30pm on Wednesday 30th October and is being held at Littleton Hall.
Winchester has an important Jewish past. The earliest record of Jews in the city dates back to the mid-1100s, making it one of the earliest, largest and wealthiest Jewish settlements in England. This talk will provide an overview of the medieval Jewish community and give an insight into how this unusual collaboration between members so Winchester's Jewish community, Winchester City Council and the University came about. The talk will bring to life the excellent Medieval Jewish Trail that Dr Christina and her team researched and prepared (available, for free, from the Winchester Tourist Information office).
All U3A members are welcome and we hope you will stay and join us for a tea or coffee after the talk.
There will be a charge of £1pp to help towards the cost of the hire of the hall.
Alison Henry. Local History Co-ordinator contact details
06/19
SCILLY STORMS AND VOLUNTEERS FOR OUR COMMITTEE
Isles of Scilly are a ‘must do’. From an initial visit of three days a couple of years ago, to two glorious weeks last summer I fell in love with the delights of the archipelago and its people. Curious as to what life was like on the Isles in winter, I have just returned from another two weeks savouring all it offers in the depths of January. I wished for storms to indulge in scenes of wild seas crashing on the rocks and foaming white rollers climbing the sandy beaches: the storms I longed for were storms I had… in glorious abundance as they headed the snow laden weather fronts to the mainland.
As a lone traveller, I decided to contact Scilly U3A to ask if I could temporarily join during my stay. I was welcomed to all group meetings. I truly enjoy Mahjong and when I saw there was no group I offered to teach this delightful game. The response was heart warming and four members took the plunge.
The welcome opened up thoughts about whether Winchester U3A offers the same to those who may be visiting our City and the local area! I was greeted with much interest. Questions were asked about Winchester, its Groups, membership. I was also greeted with a warm response when I said that anyone who visited Winchester was most welcome to join my Group for a cuppa and a slice of homemade cake made every week by one of our players at our Mahjong Group in Easton Village Hall. We welcome membership who are tempted to put their toe in the waters of Mahjong.
The Isles of Scilly U3A has a membership of 120 so everyone knows everyone in a total population of 2,300. There does not appear to be difficulties with members volunteering to be on the Committee or stepping in to other roles so vital for any U3A to survive. However, on my return to Hampshire I received an email sent to Group Leaders about the growing difficulties in getting membership to volunteer for our vitally invaluable Committee. I am left wondering about how a close, small U3A community such as Scilly flourishes in its infrastructure and a U3A community such as Winchester with a population of 122,000 and a U3A membership of around 1,300 has challenges in getting new blood on a retiring Committee, without which the reality is Winchester U3A would go under. In fact, I understand that some present committee members have taken on two roles in order to carry out vital services for you and me.
Meanwhile, whilst my Scilly storms were exhilarating I fear storms ahead with the prevailing downpour of NIMBYism over the depressingly lack of enthusiasm for Winchester Committee membership. This failure goes against everything that U3A lays down in its Mission statement of ‘facilitating growth and support’. How do each one of us promote growth and support in the groups we belong to and the U3A Organisation?
These are hard words to write which hopefully induces waking up to the realities of the vital work of our volunteer Committee. We are in hard times in the task to tempt membership onto our Committee… and we all know which way the wind blows if this continues.
Anne Wright
02/19
The new regulation on data protection (the GDPR) requires us to get the consent of our members so that we can contact them via post, telephone or email. Thanks very much to all members who responded to our email or returned our form with their preferences on how they would like to be contacted. Anyone who did not respond or want to change their consents can contact our membership secretary, Lianne Hill ().
Just one clarification: a significant number of members who responded did not give us their permission to send them ‘bulk emails’. These are the updates we send out via email about Winchester U3A events and newsletters etc. These emails come from Winchester U3A - we will never give your email address to any other organisation. We apologise if the term ‘bulk emails’ was unclear, and if you would like to receive these email updates, please let Lianne know by email.
Barrie Brinkman
Following up Barrie’s notice, please note that members may not receive a printed copy of the Third Age Matters in future if they have not sent back the GDPR form.
Lianne Hill
09/18
SUPPORT AT HOME (THAT IS COMPUTER SUPPORT)
When you buy a computer you hope that with time and some experience you’ll be able to do interesting things.
I’ve been getting on quite well with my MacBook and I’ve had it for more than four years. But recently I had a set of photos which I had organised into a virtual album, and I wanted to get them printed. Friends had shown me hard back books of professionally printed photos so maybe I should follow their advice and do the same.
Except that I could not make it work.
Every time I tried to create a book, the computer set the photos from the album in an order that the software algorithm chose but that wasn’t what I wanted and over a few days I got very frustrated and annoyed. What to do? Eventually I thought I might try Apple support so I opened up the Apple support web page, requested help, and was asked for my phone number, my Apple i/d and the serial number of my MacBook. The screen then said I would be phoned within two minutes but I didn’t even have to wait that long as within a few seconds the phone rang and a nice lady somewhere in the world asked how she could help.
She asked if she could view my screen but said she would not be able to take any actions herself. A red arrow would appear, so when she told me to do something the arrow showed where to click. In total she was on the phone with me for almost half an hour by which time my photo album was set up exactly as I wished and she signed off.....I then went ahead and ordered the printed album which was delivered a few days later, looking beautiful. Shortly after that call ended I got two emails, one with a case number and an invitation to click on that link if I needed further help on this, and another with suggested links to things on the Apple web site which I might find useful in future.
My MacBook is well out of its warranty, and I think it’s really something to get unhurried help without any pressure: it’s so unusual to get fantastic service at no cost and no rush for the other person to finish up. My experience with most things is, after warranty you’ll be lucky if anyone will talk to you unless you pay for a visit at huge expense so I was really impressed.
But that’s partly why we pay an apparently high price for Apple products.
As the saying goes, it’s worth it.
Nick is group leader for the Apple Mac users’ group. If you have an Apple product whether an iPad or a pc / laptop or iPhone and would like to come to a meeting on the morning of the 4th Tuesday of each month, contact Nick on 01962 861680 or .
09/18
TILL WE MEET AGAIN, GUNNER BERT MARTIN, 1941-1945
A joint 6-month long project by two members of Winchester U3A has resulted in the publication of this book. Ian Douglas, who has self-published his own books on Amazon, and Hazel Spencer, whose father kept a diary of his wartime experiences, were put in touch by Colin Chase, leader of the photography group.
Bert's attempts to have his diary published in the 1950s were unsuccessful as were those of his daughter, Hazel, after his death. Now, 75 years after his capture at Tobruk, its publication enables this story, of an ordinary soldier living through extraordinary times, to be told.
The book is based on Bert's handwritten account, documents and photographs, and his interview with the Imperial War Museum. It details life in PoW camps in North Africa, Italy and Germany, and the horror of Dresden after the firebombing.
This is the true, unheroic but moving story of a PoW and his comrades and gives an insight into the prisoners' lives: the fears, the boredom, the hunger and the comradeship.
Royalties from the sale of the book will be donated to the Red Cross, in recognition of the food parcels which they sent to PoWs.
In Bert's own words:
"As one may gather, the Red Cross parcels we received meant quite a lot to us. I dare not even try to imagine what would have happened to many of us had we not been fortunate enough to receive parcels."
Now available from Amazon, postage-free, cost £10:
07/17
Some of our members would love to come to our interesting monthly meetings but have no transport. If you know of someone in this predicament please let us know as we are trying to set up a car buddy system to tackle this. We also need help identifying members with visual difficulties who have no access to the internet and would benefit from a modified large print hard copy of the newsletter. please help us to get in touch if you know such a member.
Freda Bates contact details.
05/17
With a membership in the region of 1300, your Committee realises that not all members enjoy good health and that some may have a disability of some kind which affects their ability to access U3A activities.
We are keen to know whether any members feel there might be more we could do to help them access our activities. This might include, for example, obtaining car lifts from other members to monthly meetings or groups.
In order that we can establish what difficulties any members may have in this respect we should like to hear either from anyone in this situation or who is aware of anyone experiencing difficulty.
Also, if any member has experience how other organisations deal with this situation we should appreciate any ideas.
Obviously we cannot promise anything but we are prepared to consider any suggestions or requests.
If you have any views on this matter please contact either of us – if we are away when you contact we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Freda Bates
Secretary
contact details
07/16