Ramsey and District U3A

UNIVERSITY OF THE THIRD AGE NEWSLETTER

NEWS FOR ALL MEMBERS

Notices

Enid gave a warm welcome to all who were attending, and read out Health and Safety notices.

Group News

Two new groups are hoping to form over the next months, they are ‘The Holiday Group’ and ‘Table tennis’ sign-up sheets were available in the foyer. More members are needed for ‘Writing for Pleasure’ group, Bill Thompson is the person to contact if your literary skills need improving or you have a book in you that needs writing!

Andy Mudd-Wingham is leading the Metal Detecting Group and meetings are held at The White Lion, Bury. All interested parties are welcome to join our next meeting at ‘The White Lion’ Bury on 12th October 2016.Please note the new start time of 6.30pm.

‘A Little Bit of Magic’ our very own U3A panto will take place on 13th December with two performances, 2.15 pm and 4.30pm. Tickets cost £2.00 each and will be available from the October 11th Open Meeting.

There will be an extended break for the Computing Group, as they will not be meeting until October.

Head office news: ‘U3A Brandenburg Christmas Concerts’ 24th Nov, ‘Much ado about Shakespeare’ 3rd Nov and ‘The Secret language of Art’ 24th Nov. More details are available from U3A  www.u3a.org.uk.

We are looking for volunteers to meet and greet new members by becoming ‘friends’ and help them to settle-in at our U3A. Please contact any member of the committee if you think you can help, thank you.

Brian King then gave a brief presentation on the work being done by the Rotary Club and how they supported overseas aid to disasters, including the latest earthquake in Italy. An excellent display in the foyer, highlighted their work. Any donations were welcomed.

2017 diaries can now be ordered from the U3A at a cost of £2.00. Contact Sheila Gilbert-Hill if you would like a copy. Next year’s colour – RED.

Sources Magazine This is the educational publication of the U3A edited by Phyllis Hughes. She would like to invite U3A Photographic Groups to submit pictures for use in the magazine, especially those that will illustrate the various topics to be covered in forthcoming editions. These are in February 2017 – Archaeology and Local History, June 2017 – Food and drink appreciation and antiques, September 2017 –  Creative writing – running a group. The editor is keen to find excellent pictures for the front cover. So come on all you budding photographers, let the U3A know how creative you can be! For more information, e-mail Sources sources@u3a.org.uk.

Competition

The winner of the letter K competition was David Cusworth with a set of Swiss army knives, runner-up was Jane Cusworth with a Kindle tablet.

Our next letter for the competition is L, which will take place at our October Open Meeting.

‘Stone Carving’ by Lida Lopes Cardozo-Kindersley

Lida and her son, represented the Cardozo-Kindersley’s Workshop in Cambridge and gave us an extremely interesting illustrated talk on the work undertaken by the workshop. Her opening statement was that ability to read and write was the way forward in the world. The workshop started in 1945 by Eric Gill and Lida’s husband David Kindersley was a pupil of Gill and was joined by Lida in 1976, she married David and continues to run the workshop after David’s death. It was established to bring letter forms and stone together. No machinery is use to cut letters into stone, it is all done by hand, to quote Lida “when shaping stones, we shape ourselves, by cutting stone carefully.”

The workshop takes on one apprentice every three years, and the apprentice is paid in full by the workshop, no handouts are given by the government. Each new member is expected to cut an alphabet as their first assignment. A large variety of letter shapes were then shown, they included Greek, roman capital, Hebrew, German, Gill Sans and Flambere.

Stones are used to extend our memories, by the use of memorials and gravestones. Colours are important as is the type of lettering used. Gravestones are beautiful, and show love for hundreds of years, but do take a long time to produce, up to six months in most cases. Three weeks at the design and approval stage, four to six weeks to get the stone, then cut the lettering and fixing the stone in place takes up the rest of the time.

The British Library Gates were produced by the workshop (they are extremely heavy, weighing tons). The workshop also makes stone sundials and standing stones. The presentation concluded with a series of slides of work carried out in 2013 and a question and answer session. Enid then closed the meeting by offering our thanks to Lido for an entertaining afternoon.

 

Future Open Meetings

Our next Open Meeting will take place on Tuesday 11th October at the Community Centre, starting at 2.00pm. The speaker will be Chris Bell, his subject, ‘Storm chaser’.

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.

Other News

More from the ‘Sources’ editor, she is looking to recruit a team of volunteers with experience in journalism to take the magazine forward. The editor would like to see a more ‘newsier’ approach, but needs a network of people to dig out the interesting stories and pictures from our 383,000 members. With a team or experts across the country, Sources will be able to deliver an exciting and relevant publication. The New Year edition will include articles on archaeology and local history, the deadline for contributions will be 30th November 2016. Further details from sources@u3a.org.uk

March U3A are holding a Ceilidh on Saturday 19th November 2016 at the Community Centre, 34, Station Road March, PE15 9LH. Starting at 7.00pm. The Knitters Jig Band (with experienced caller) provide the music. Bring your own glass, drinks and nibbles. Tickets cost £8.00. Contact Cathy Crowther on 01354 658768 or 07722543476.

RAMSEY RURAL MUSEUM event:

Winter Food Fair, Sunday 30th October 11.00am – 3.00pm entrance fee £1.00.

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:

A woman called our airline customer-service desk asking if she could take her dog on board.

“Certainly,” I said, “as long as you provide your own kennel.” I further explained that the kennel needed to be large enough for the dog to stand up, sit down, turn around and roll over.

The customer was flummoxed: “I’ll never be able to teach him all of that by tomorrow!”

Editor: Mike Lewis