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Visit to NSW State Parliament
Karyn Paluzzano has offered to organise a tour and morning tea at the NSW State Parliament House for U3A members and their guests - probably on a Wednesday in October – early November. We would like to know roughly how many are interested in attending. The tour and morning tea will be free. But members and their guest will be responsible for their own travel arrangements to and from State Parliament. If you are interested, please contact the U3A Office Tel: 4722 3405 Email: u3anepoff@pnc.com.au and leave your name and Telephone No. There is no obligation to go when a firm date is arranged, we just want a rough idea of the numbers interested.
Seniors Week - next year
Are there any proposals for U3A activities next March for Seniors Week, as grants will become available from August for specific functions in Seniors Week. Please send suggestions to u3anepoff@pnc.com.au
Growing and Caring for Orchids: Graham Larkham started his weekly course at 9.30am to 11.30am on Wednesday 18th July at 34 Danny Street, Werrington. There were 15 students. But there is room for more. If you are interested in this course or, even if you would just like to observe, please contact Graham on Tel: 9833 4450.
Australian History:
Robert Payne started this weekly course at 1.00pm to 2.00pm on Monday 16th July at the Springwood Neighbourhood Centre. He had 17 students. If you are interested in this course, please contact Robert on Tel: 4751 5550.
Yoga:
Carmen Ceniza started this weekly class at 11.30am to 12.30pm on Tuesday 17th July in the Penrith School of Arts’ Hall. There were only 4 students at this first class and 6 the following week. There is room for 6 more. The exercises were not too demanding. Carmen knows that some of us are not as supple as we used to be and some of us are just beginners. For more information, contact Carmen Tel: 0406 765 012 or Email: lilayoga1@gmail.com . Or, just turn up at 11.30am on Tuesday in loose clothing, with a Yoga mat (if you have one), a blanket and a small pillow.
Canasta 5
Brenda Emerson (our Office Manager) started this weekly class on Friday 20th July at the Penrith School of Arts. There were very few students and Brenda hopes more will come as it is more fun with a bigger group. If you are interested in joining Brenda’s Canasta 5 class, please contact her at the office or Tel: 4721 1735.
Walking with a Touch of History
Group A
6th August – Medlow Bath Station at 9.30am. Walk: Magalong Rd
13th August – Lawson Station at 9.15am. Walk: Dantes Glen – Hazelbrook.
20th August – Train from Central Station at 9.07am to Stanwell Park. Walk: Seacliff Bridge.
27th August – Springwood Station at 9.30am. Walk: Birdwood Gully.
Group B
6th August – Central Station (top of escalator) at 9.15am. Ferry to Zoo Wharf – walk to Balmoral.
13th August – Lawson Station at 9.10am. Walk: Waterfall Circuit – then to Hazelbrook.
20th August – Central Station (top of escalator) at 9.15am. Ferry to Abbotsford/Canada Bay.
27th August – Strathfield Station Platform 3 at 9.27am train to Woy Woy. Walk: Blackbutt Lookout.
Submitted by David Evans our U3A Webmaster—Attn: Tutors
The U3A web page has been upgraded and the Term 3 timetable has been linked to your class descriptions. This means that when a student clicks on the name of your course they will be taken to a description of that course.
In some cases those descriptions are up-to-date but mostly they were taken from the 2007 U3A handbook and may no longer be as appropriate as they were in January.
Please check your entry on the web page by clicking your course name. If you would like to change it advise either Alan Lees at u3acurriculum@yahoo.com.au or David Evans at footloose@tpg.com.au
It's YOUR web page.
Dave says: "Remember this isn't my web page. I just supply the fingers. If anybody would like to contribute an article on any subject connected with U3A I'll be happy to post it. That offer is open to committee members, tutors, or students."
Dave’s email address: footloose@tpg.com.au
Local jigsaw puzzles on line
Check out Dave’s jigsaws on the website.
New courses wanted for Blackheath
Kay Barlow lives at Blackheath and she would like to help start some U3A courses in Blackheath. Anyone interested in helping Kay, please contact her preferably by phone: 4787 8402. Her email address (when the computer is working) kbeezplace@exemail.com.au
Safer web purchasesSubmitted by Elly Byrne - elly@eebee.net
Many people are wary of using credit cards on the internet. We hear such a lot of bad news. Personally I have never had trouble in over 10 years.
But there is now a Visa credit card available that is NOT linked to your bank account. If you use one you have to go to the Post Office and put money in it. This is different to a Visa debit card which takes the money out of your account.
To find out more details go to BOPO. BOPO stands for Buy Online Pay Offline.
We've Been EverywhereLynne Kelly must have been having a quiet morning as she worked in the U3A office on Tuesday, because she thought it might be interesting to research our demographic. The results were surprising. One of Australia's biggest U3A chapters, we now have 775 members. Of these, 569 are women and only 206 are men. That's 73.4% compared to only 26.6%. (I wonder if that bears out the old joke about the guy who unleashed a Genie from a bottle and was offered one wish. "I want to be twice as smart as I am now," he told the Genie. So the Genie turned him into a woman!)
The U3A office is located in Penrith so it's reasonable to suppose that our members would radiate out from that central point. Well they do and, then again, they don't. Quite. We have 273 members in the area bounded by Llandilo, St. Marys, Mulgoa, and Leonay/Emu Heights. There are another 478 members strewn along the highway from Lapstone to Mount Victoria. But those figures still leave a few dozen members unaccounted for, and it's their location that makes these figures interesting. A few years ago Geoff Mack performed his own song at a seniors' day at Springwood Civic Centre. He captured a piece of Australiana for himself when he penned these famous words:
Geoff might just as well have written that song for the U3A. We have a cumbersome name—U3A Nepean-Blue Mountains-Chifley Chapter—but if we intended to include all our members in that title it would have to be much bigger still, encompassing the Central Coast, Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, and the plains west of the Blue Mountains.
More-or-less nearby we have members at Luddenham, Wallacia, Silverdale, Windsor, Ebenezer, Pitt Town, Box Hill, Mount Druitt, Whalan, Willmot, and Mount Pritchard. Out to the west you'll find us at Bilpin, Clarence, Lithgow, Wallerawang, Cullen Bullen and Bowenfels. In the suburbs you can look for U3A Nepean people at Castle Hill and Edgecliff. Get out your surfboard and paddle up the coast and you could drop in on a couple more at Killarney Vale and Toukley. It would be interesting to hear from those outlying students to discover which courses they attend, where, and how often. It takes dedication to travel as far as they must to attend even the closest course to them. We've been everywhere, too. |
Thank you, U3A
We received a letter of thanks addressed to Judith Hill, from The Cancer Council thanking our U3A for the tremendous effort at the Australia’s Biggest Tea this year in which we raised over $900.
School of Medicine
We received a letter from the UWS School of Medicine inviting U3A to become Friends of the School of Medicine.
This letter said:
Friends of the School of Medicine (Friends) will be informed about School activities and act as a conduit for information between the School and the community. Friends can also participate more actively by:
Being a student interviewer
Mentoring or supporting or connecting a student in the community
Becoming involved in making a direct input to our planning and management
Being a patient actor
Providing student accommodation
Providing opportunities for students to undertake assignments in the community
Advocating for the School and its students in the community and forwarding on information to people you know.
The Committee will discuss this letter at the next committee meeting in August. However, if anyone is interested in becoming 'Friends of the School of Medicine' or wants to find out more about it, please send me an email at u3acurriculum@yahoo.com.au, The UWS website is HERE.
The next Committee Meeting will be on Tuesday 21st August
Disclaimer – Articles contributed to this Newsletter and published as a service to members; do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of this association. Articles are intended as opinions and items of debate only and should not be acted on without expert advice
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