WHAT'S ON

London Region of U3As Talks: the LRU3A series of online talks has been extended in to 2021. You can see the programme here. Details of how to register for each talk is also in that publicity flyer.

National Winter Programme: there is also now a series of online activities offered by The Third Age Trust. This covers a wide range from painting, poetry reading, photography, etc. Details of this can be found here.

iU3A Monthly Meetings: for the two iU3A talks each month see the details below.

Saturday 27 February, from 7.00pm-8.30pm, A Musical Evening, "The Great American Songbook": Roger Browne is an actor, singer, speaker, musician, director, composer and writer. He was also an accountant, a publisher and more recently a management consultant. He has played piano all his life, loves musical theatre and jazz and takes an active part in the musical and dramatic life of the north-west.  He will take us on a musical journey through "The Great American Songbook" with interpretations of music by Gershwin, Porter and more, all in his own inimitable style. He will perform for about 75 minutes followed by an opportunity to comment, chat or ask questions. This will be a free event for members. Booking details will be in the Bulletin.

Thursday 11 March, 2.00-3.00pm: Wellbeing in Nature: Interactive Talk with Subject Adviser Susan Collini. The talk aims to provide greater insight and deeper appreciation of the health and wellbeing benefits available through connection with nature. To book or find details about other online events go to https://www.u3a.org.uk/events/educational-events.

Some things to look forward to:
Wednesday 02 June: National Open Day: this will definitely go ahead but whether it's just on Zoom or blended with some form of physical presence will again depend on Government Guidance at that time. Also iU3a is expecting to have our own Open Day and your iU3A is planning for it now (more details to follow).

Thursday 17 June: Summer Party (subject to Covid/ Government): we've booked the Olden Garden hoping we can hold some form of social event this year.  The Olden Garden Committee is adhering strictly to government rules so our booking is conditional. 

Quizzes — we (Mary) plan to run these quarterly throughout this year.

Clues Trails — we (Elizabeth and Derek) will run two clues trails in 2021 when circumstances allow.

Courses
In 2019/20 we started a new initiative — short courses. We've now trialled a few of these with great success, so we have a programme of ongoing short courses. Watch the Bulletins for further details on new courses being proposed. Details for current courses are on the Groups listing page here and proposed new Courses are listed here.

Monthly Meetings, Speakers Programme
Our physical Monthly Meetings have been suspended due to Covid-19 but instead we have created a programme of speakers who will present to us online using Zoom. How long the programme will run like this will depend on the unwinding rate of lockdown.

New feature: if you want to come early for a chat with fellow members you can join the meeting at 9.30. You will then be placed in a 'breakout room' with a few other members just so you can say hello. We hope this might fill a gap caused previously by moving our physical Monthly Meetings online.

The main Talk will start at 10.00am and run to 11.00 — see the details below. It's suggested you log in and join the meeting at least five minutes before the scheduled start time. There will only be the one topic, the main speaker. The Zoom invitation to these meetings will be sent to all members in the Bulletin.

DATE	MONTHLY MEETING PROGRAMME:
11 Mar	Alan Blower: Marvellous Marylebone. A one-hour virtual tour which highlights the stunning architecture, historic locations and famous people who lived and worked in Marylebone. We learn about the architects of the Georgian and Regency terraces and the social pioneers who made major contributions to the reform of housing, medicine and education. We will discover the haunts of the biggest selling band of all time and the home of the world famous detective! Alan was born in London and has lived in Wimbledon for over twenty years. He is a qualified City of Westminster Green Badge Tour Guide and knows Marylebone well, having studied at the London Business School and the University of Westminster. He worked as a management trainer and is a member of Merton u3a.
25 Mar	Evan Jones: County lines and the Criminal Exploitation of Children. An explanation of how county lines gangs have taken over the drug markets in regional towns using clever marketing, extreme violence and child exploitation. Evan works for St Giles Trust (https://www.stgilestrust.org.uk/) as Head of CCE (Child Criminal Exploitation) Development. It is a charity that supports ex-offenders and other vulnerable groups. He has developed and works on a range of projects including SOS Gangs, County Lines, Family Support and Through the Gates. He now focuses on developing Gangs/SYV (Serious Youth Violence)/county lines projects across England and Wales. Evan has worked in homelessness and offender services since the late 80s both in the statutory and in the voluntary sectors. His roles have included resettlement, shared housing management, floating support, street outreach and housing allocation.
08 April	John Hare: Paradise Damned — The Tragedy of Lake Turkana. John Hare, OBE, FRGS, describes his incredibly tough journey in 2006 by camel around Kenya's Lake Turkana — the first time this had been achieved in recorded history. It was undertaken through a drought-stricken war zone where the team faced extreme danger but successfully made their way through country devastated by disastrous "development" in Ethiopia's Omo river delta — a development funded by China. We will hear a description of the expedition with an exposé of one of the most grave destructions of ancient cultures anywhere in the world. John Hare was the last recruit into the British Overseas Administrative Service in Northern Nigeria where he worked in very remote areas; he later worked for the UN Environment Programme. He made a rare expedition to the Gobi Desert to assess environmental degradation and endangered species and thus began his mission to save the critically endangered wild camel. He set up the Wild Camel Protection Foundation and has made many subsequent journeys to the region to further the cause of the wild camel. He has received many awards including from the State Environment Protection Agency of China and from the USA and UK.
22 April	Philip Kenrick: Romans in Algeria: an under-appreciated heritage. Philip Kendrick is an Oxford-trained classical archaeologist who has worked in many parts of the Mediterranean world as a specialist in Hellenistic and Roman pottery. Much of his work has concerned Libya, which he visited or worked in from 1971 until 2012. In recent years he has led cultural tours to a number of different countries; in this connection he has written two archaeological guides to Libya (Tripolitania, Cyrenaica). More recently he has translated and revised a French guidebook to the classical antiquities of Algeria, a country which is not far away but which is rarely visited by tourists.
13 May	Details to follow shortly.
27 May	Lis Howell: There are fewer than you think: why expert women are under-represented on the news. Survey research by City University's Department of Journalism over the last ten years has shown that male experts interviewed on the news outnumber women by nearly three to one.  And it used to be much worse! Before this research and the campaign which followed it there were an astonishing six times as many men as women on the news. Why are authoritative women so under-represented? Lis Howell has researched this controversial topic for over a decade and has some uncomfortable as well as informative answers. Emeritus Professor Lis Howell retired from City University in 2018 but still directs the Expert Women Project which counts and reports the number of women authority figures on six major news programmes. She is an award winning journalist and broadcasting executive who has worked for all the major news channels, winning a Royal Television Society award with ITN for coverage of the Lockerbie disaster. She was Managing Editor of Sky News and the first female Head of News at TV.

Dates of Future Monthly Meetings/Speakers beyond the above are:
10 June, 24 June, 08 July, 22 July, 12 August, 26 August, 09 September, 23 September, 14 October, 28 October, 11 November, 25 November, 09 December.

You can see either summary information about previous monthly meetings or the full presentation material (if we have received permission) on the following webpage: Past Meetings

Coffee Mornings

Moved online now: Our iU3A coffee mornings are a popular way of getting to know other members. They are on varying days of the week and are free to iU3A members. See the latest Bulletin for date of next coffee morning.

Our coffee mornings are organised by Sally Fox. To book up for any of the coffee mornings please email Sally here. She will then advise you that you are booked. If you can't attend a coffee morning you've booked for, please let us know by emailing Sally (same link as above) to say you can't now make it.
 

Currently suspended due to Covid: iU3A's pub lunches provide an opportunity for members to meet each other in a social atmosphere. They take place monthly, around Islington. If you are buying a lunch the cost is around £10 to £12 with drinks being extra. If you'd like to come along to one of these please email Howard Stone here for more information or to reserve your place.

All those held so far have attracted about 15 iU3A members, who've enjoyed some good chat. While originally conceived to attract more male members there has been good support from the women members. Do come along and join us.

Pub lunches are now a 'group' and details of their schedule can now be found in Beacon.