Ramsey and District U3A

UNIVERSITY OF THE THIRD AGE NEWSLETTER

News for all members

NEW GROUPS

Birdwatching Group. The Birdwatching group is now up and running again.  Their initial meeting was held last month and their first visit took place a few days ago.  They will be meeting once a month and at the moment this will be on the first Thursday of each month.  They have already planned the April and May venues.  If anyone is interested in joining this group, please get in touch with Val Fountain.

Writing for Pleasure.  The initial group meeting for this group is to be held on 22nd March.  If anyone, other than those who have already signed up, would like to join the group, please contact Bill Thompson.

Alison Collins has received enquiries to start a Bridge for Beginners group, which she is happy to do. If you are interested in learning Bridge, please get in touch with Alison to express your interest.  Ideally she needs four members to be able to start this new group.

LOCAL HISTORY GROUP

This group has not met for over two years as the leader resigned and no one wished to take it on. The group has now been deleted from our list of groups.  If interest is expressed in due course in starting a new group, then a sign-up sheet will be issued.

Metal Detecting Group There has been an offer to start a Metal Detecting group. A sign-up sheet will be available in May to gauge interest in this

Volunteers Needed We would like to have a list of volunteers who would be prepared to offer a lift to two of our members who are no longer able to drive to our monthly meetings as they have Alzheimer’s and have had their driving licences withdrawn.  The more people who offer the better, as this would mean that volunteers may not be called on more than once a year.  Margaret and Al live next door to each other in Biggin Lane and really enjoy the General meetings and would be extremely grateful for a lift to and from the Community Hall on the day.  Please let Nina know if you would be prepared to offer a lift once in a while, it really would be appreciated.  Thank you a rota sheet for volunteers will be available at the next Open Meeting.

Sign-up slips were then handed out to the meeting, asking if members would like to attend the EU discussion hosted by the Current Affairs group.

The speaker at our March meeting was Peter MacGregor, his subject “Singapore Botanical Gardens”. The sub-heading of the talk was “Connecting Plants and People since 1859.” Peter had visited eight botanical gardens worldwide and the Singapore was the best of the lot! Fort Canning was the original location for the gardens, but was moved to the Orchard Road area, where is found the most expensive real estate. The island of Singapore is mainly high rise tower blocks, and the idea of the gardens was to allow residents to visit as they had no gardens of their own. The gardens are open every day from 5am till midnight.We then saw many views of the many orchids and other plants to be found in the gardens, they included, the national flower ‘Vanda Miss Joaquim’ along with sixty thousand other species, ‘Strangler Fig Tree’, ‘Itchy Tree’ as its name suggests, makes you itch for hours if you come in contact with it! The ‘Tamboussi tree’, which is very poisonous.The gardens have free entry, except for the Orchard House, where a fee of $s5 is charged. Many pictures were shown of orchids, some were given odd names including ‘Hookers lips’. Orchids were presented to visiting heads of state, Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana given ‘Memoria Princess Diana’ in her honour.New gardens are under construction at Marina bay, close to the seafront. That ended a most enjoyable afternoon and Ian was thanked by the Chairman for a most interesting session.

Monthly Competition

Our next letter for the competition is “H.”

The winner of “G” was Pat Sutton and the runner-up Jane Cusworth

RAMSEY U3A TRIPS GROUP

Ramsey U3A Trips Group is compiling a long term programme of outings and holidays.

The trip to Bletchley Park on Tuesday April 26th is now fully subscribed.

Future trips to include:

“Adams farm comes to Blenheim” Friday 5th August, cost £42 including entrance.

“Buckingham Palace” Thursday 18th August, cost £40 including entrance.

“Holkham Hall at Christmas” Wednesday 14th December, cost £32.

Writing Group

The new writing group had a jolly beginning yesterday. We looked at sources of inspiration to break the ice but we were soon recounting some of the odd things that have grabbed our attention.

One of the best things about writing for pleasure is that the pleasure is twofold. First there is the pleasure of crafting something original and secondly there is sharing it with others. So it was that we were treated to a story of love, tragedy, hardship and betrayal. We had a go at writing a fifteen-minute story from a small selection of characters, situations, places and times. Needless to say every story was wildly different but gave us a lot to smile about.

The first meeting was genuinely great fun but we could do with more members so if you would like to give it a go contact Bill Thompson.

Future Open Meetings

Our Annual General Meeting (AGM)will take place on Tuesday 12th April at the Community Centre, starting at 2.00pm. The speaker will be Clive Beeke, his theme, The Mystery of the Arches.

BOOK SWAP Margaret Thornton will be operating a “Book Swap” A box will be available for members to bring books and swap them for others. No payment is involved but we would ask members not to bring lots of books at any one time. If books remain “unswapped” in the box for more than a couple of meetings, they will be donated to Charity shops.

For your Information (Committee News)

Please remember, subscriptions are due in April. Please bring cash or cheques to our AGM.

And Finally

Car Parking – Please remember to park your car considerately and use the car park adjacent to the Co-op store if you are able.

Jokes/Puns:

After much convincing from my partner, I finally agreed to call an old family friend to sing her happy birthday. It was only after I had finished singing, that the voice on the other end of the phone informed me, that it was a wrong number, “Oh I’m sorry” I said, embarrassed. “It’s OK,” the voice said, “you can use all the practice you can get!”

Editor: Mike Lewis