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Ball Room Dancing for U3A Members
A U3A Members Social Dance was held on Saturday 2nd August from 7.30pm to 11.00pm in the Penrith School of Arts Hall, 3 Castlereagh Street, Penrith.
The dance was for all U3A members, their partners, family and friends.
The old time ballroom music was provided by John Morehead. Dancing Teachers – Allan & Beverley Bond - gave us some demonstrations and led us in some of the dances.
U3A Members Social Dance at 7.30pm to 11.00pm on Saturday 30th August
Another U3A Members Social Dance for all U3A members, their partners, family and friends will be held on Saturday in the Penrith School of Arts Hall, 3 Castlereagh Street, Penrith. A "gold coin donation" per person is requested to cover refreshments (tea, coffee, soft drinks and biscuits). However, you may also bring your own refreshments (including alcohol).
If you have a CD of music that you would like to dance to, please bring it with you.
We will try and organize a Social Dance each month.
Starting on Friday 5th September, Allan & Beverley will provide the music and teach
Ballroom Dancing to U3A Members between 1.00pm and 3.00pm on Fridays in the Penrith School of Arts.
The Teaching Program will commence at the Basic Level of steps to enable Students to attend the various clubs where Social and Sequence is performed and later will progress to the more sophisticated dances.
Dances taught will include Modern (Jazz) Waltz, Social Foxtrot later progressing to the harder Slow Foxtrots, Quick Steps and Swings, Old Time & New Vogue, Bossa Nova, Cha Cha, Mambo, Samba, Tango etc., both in Freestyle & Sequence.
Couples are preferred. But everyone is welcome.
Tea & Coffee will be supplied during a mid-time intermission.
For further information, please contact: Allan Bond FATD or Beverley on 4729 1508, or
Alan Lees on 4736 5541 Email: alanlees@y7mail.com
U3A Excursion – Bus Trip - Wednesday 10th September, 2008
The bus will pick up passengers from Panthers at 8.45am and the northern side of the Penrith Railway Station at 9.00am.
Payment of $50 is now due. Full payment must be received in the Office by Friday 29th August – or your seat will be offered to the next person on the stand-by List.
U3A Annual General Meeting 2.00pm on Saturday 8th November 2008 – Please note change of date.
We have arranged for our Annual General Meeting to be held at the Mid Mountains Community Centre, New & Staple Sts, Lawson. We hope that there will be a good turn out of members from all areas.
If a quorum of 25 members is not achieved within 30 minutes of the proposed starting time, the AGM will be held at Penrith School of Arts Hall, 3 Castlereagh Street, Penrith at 2pm on Friday 14th November 2008.
If you wish to nominate for a Committee position, please advise our Secretary – Brenda Emerson - at least two weeks prior to the Meeting.
U3A Handbook for 2009
We have sent letters to all our 2008 Tutors thanking them for tutoring our classes in 2008 and asking if they wish to give a course in 2009 and if so to provide details for printing in our U3A Handbook for 2009. If you, or someone you know, would like to give a U3A course in 2009, please contact: Alan Lees Tel: 4736 5541 Email: alanlees@y7mail.com
We will have to get the Handbook proof off to the printers by the end of September, so we will require details of 2009 courses by 12th September.
If you have any photographs of your classes or tutors that could be printed in our U3A Handbook for 2009, please post or email them to the Office. If you wish we will enter them in the Photographic Competition – see details below:
We would like a photograph to put on the cover of our U3A Handbook for 2009. The photograph can be of any topic but it must be able to be printed in black and white.
Please send your photographs – you can send as many as you want - to the Office, Attention Petr Malek. Petr, who is our Photography Tutor, will judge the best photograph for the cover of our U3A Handbook for 2009 and the winner will receive a one-year subscription to our U3A. What a magnificent Prize!
The competition closes at 2.00pm Friday 5th September, 2008.
Bonsai for Beginners
The Bonsai class visited a Bonsai Nursery near Windsor on Wednesday 20th August and, on Wednesday 27th August, Jim Tiberi invited us to his home in Emu Heights where he showed us how to re-pot Bonsai plants and bend them into artistic shapes. He also showed us his collection of more than 80 beautiful Bonsai plants. On his veranda, Elaine Tiberi gave us a lovely morning tea and we were entertained by the many Lorikeets, Rosellas, Green Parrots and Kookaburras that visit his garden.
ABC's Gardening Australia
On Saturday night, August 23, the ABC's Gardening Australia featured a segment about the Redlands Community Garden in Queensland—part of which is maintained by the local U3A gardening group.
The Internet transcript begins as follows:
The Redlands Heritage Garden has soil that is a rich, red volcanic type. That’s how the Redlands district got its name. They tell me that you can push a dead stick in the ground and it will grow. I don’t know whether that’s true or not but the garden is full of fascinating, interesting plants.
The garden celebrates the Indigenous and European settlement of the region and is a fabulous educational resource. Larry Cooper is a centre leader at the Redlands research station.
“The garden was actually themed to celebrate a hundred years of horticulture. We have also included a bush food section to celebrate the Aboriginal contribution to horticulture; the more traditional English gardening; and then the salad bowl concept. The Redlands area was the salad bowl of Brisbane – that’s where the fruit and vegies come in,” he said.
Larry said the community gardens associations and the U3A (University of the Third Age) looked after the vegetable and fruit section of the garden.
We already have our U3A courses on:
Growing & Caring for Orchids;
Bonsai for Beginners; and
Kitchen Gardening in Our Third Age.
Anyone want to start a Gardening Group and find a Heritage Garden to look after?
U3A ON-LINE PHOTOGRAPHS
We now have a Google on-line photo album where we can display photographs of U3A people/classes/functions. You can find it by clicking the link on our U3A home page.
If you would like to add your U3A photographs to the site please email them, WITH CAPTIONS, to footloose@tpg.com.au, and I'll be happy to post them for you.
David Evans
Yoga in Term 4
Carmen Ceniza, our Yoga Tutor, and her partners have hired a studio across the road from the Penrith School of Arts at:
Lila Yoga, Suite 2/352 High Street, Cnr High St & Castlereagh St.
Our U3A Yoga classes will be held there in Term 4.
2008 City of Penrith Eisteddfod
U3A's Margaret Skiller made a clean sweep of the 2008 City of Penrith Eisteddfod when her four entries took all three prizes in Section 8—the Short Story competition.
Margaret is no stranger to success in the Eisteddfod and had previously won third prize with her 2006 entry.
The winning entry, The Wrong Colour, was a story of opal mining where her obvious knowledge of the process made her story realistic as she sketched realistic characters that gripped the reader's attention all the way through to the surprise ending.
Second place went to Deep Purple. My personal favourite, it was a daring journey into a delusional mind. It explored the patient's perception of a therapy session—first with a psychiatrist, later as she endures electroconvulsive therapy—and interprets her reaction to it very convincingly.
Third place, It Happened on a Train was a “chance” meeting between a journalist and a striking transsexual woman with “button black eyes” and wearing “lolly pink shoes with heels that Carmen Miranda would have envied.” Once again there is a deliberately anti-climactic surprise ending.
The fourth story, The Publican draws on Margaret's experience of country life (if not necessarily of publicans) and traces the town's reaction to a new publican whose demeanour seems unpleasant and unfriendly when contrasted to the previous, popular man. As his new ideas find acceptance the town begins to warm to him and he, in turn, becomes warmer and more approachable. Then, when all seems well, enter a woman—a Princess Diana look-alike—and suddenly the whole mood of the story changes for another very satisfying conclusion. In my opinion this story failed to win a prize only because of the quality of Margaret's other three entries. It certainly deserved something.
In all three stories the judges praised Margaret's use of language and dialogue. They complimented her on her introductions (the Publican introduction was described as “great”), her vocabulary (especially that relating to mining and fossicking) and her surprise endings.
Well done, Margaret Skiller. We hope the future brings you many more successes.
U3A Online Email
My name is Kathy Rossini and I am the Course Coordinator for U3A Online. I would be very grateful if you could include some information about U3A Online in your next U3A ASCCA Newsletter.
While U3As provide a valuable service to communities throughout the country, there are many people who cannot attend because they are isolated geographically, physically or socially. U3A Online aims to provide courses to those people who cannot attend a regular U3A, and particularly to isolated older people. Our courses are also available online to people who reside outside Australia.
In addition, the U3A Online courses are available through a site license system where the course material can be made available to regular U3As and can be reproduced for delivery as part of their own U3A program.
I am attaching a list of our current courses which includes courses offered by U3A UK (Third Age Trust) on a reciprocal basis. The list also includes U3A Online courses which are presently under development.
All U3A Online courses are offered over the Internet through Griffith University. The University hosts U3A Online courses as part of its Community Service Program. When a student enrolls in a course, a user name and password are issued to enable access to the course.
Detailed information about U3A Online courses can be found at www.u3aonline.org.au
There are no pre-requisites and the courses are non-assessable.
The courses are offered in two modes:
With a course leader. The courses generally consist of eight units which are released weekly. The students interact with the Course Leader and other students on the online Discussion Forum. They undertake activities throughout the course. At the end of the course the student continues to have access for a further five weeks to enable them time to finish the course if they haven’t already done so.
Through the self-paced mode. All units are available immediately and can be worked through at the student’s own pace. The student has access to the course material for a period of twelve months. A course leader is not available, although most of the U3A Online course leaders are happy to answer student questions. Students have access to the Discussion Board and can post comments for discussion with other students.
If students have any problems there is always someone to help.
U3A Online offers an opportunity for people to enhance their U3A experience, become familiar with the Internet, learn new things and meet new people online.
If anybody has any questions, they are most welcome to email me at kathleen@rossini.id.au and I will endeavour to do all I can to help.
As a side issue, U3A Online does not offer a course in basic computing as part of the course portfolio. Perhaps there is someone in ASCCA who might be able to assist us in developing such a course which could be offered online.
Walking with a touch of history
The full September walking program is available elsewhere on the web page.
Afternoon Tea for Tutors & Volunteers will be on Friday 10th October
The time and venue will be notified at a later date.
Our U3A Membership
We now have 1017 financial members. Let us hope 25 manage to attend our AGM at 2.00pm on Saturday 8th November 2008.
We made a profit of $9,427.41 in 2008 and membership fees for 2009 will remain unchanged at $30.
CDSE Grant
Penrith City Council has advised us that we were unsuccessful in our request for a CDSE Grant for a laptop computer and data projector.
Communication Systems
Our new telephone system does have an answering machine. But does not have a 101 service or facsimile facility. Our computer still uses ‘Dial-up’ for Internet connection but we hope to have ‘Broadband’ shortly.
Term Dates—2009
Term 1: 2 February to 9 April
Term 2: 27 April to 10 July
Term 3: 27 July to 2 October
Term 4: 19 October to 11 December
Enrolment Days
1. Wednesday, 21st January at Lawson
11.00am – 12.30pm
Mid Mountains community Centre
New & Staple Streets, Lawson (Behind the shops)
2.Friday, 23rd January at Penrith
11.00am – 12.30pm
Penrith School of Arts
3 Castlereagh Street, Penrith
Newsletters:
The closing date for submissions to the monthly Email Newsletter is one week before the end of each month. However, if you miss the date, your submission will go in the following month’s newsletter – if I remember. Submissions should be sent to the Office – Attention Curriculum Convener or preferably emailed to alanlees@y7mail.com
The closing date for submissions to the Term 4 Newsletter is Friday 5th September 2008. Submissions should be sent to the Office – Attention Newsletter Editor or emailed to u3anews@bigpond.com
Next Committee Meeting
The next Committee Meeting will be held at the Penrith School of Arts at 1.30pm on Tuesday 9 September, 2008.
Internet Joke—My Living Will
Last night my daughter and I were sitting in the lounge room
and I said to her,
'I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent
on some machine and fluids from a bottle to keep me alive.
That would be no quality of life at all, If that ever
happens, just pull the plug.'
So she got up, unplugged the computer, and threw out my wine.
Sometimes...she can be such a bitch!
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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