Letter from the President
February 2010
Kia ora and welcome to your new year with Wellington City U3A.
I hope that most of you have had a change of scenery over the last few months. Summer was elsewhere this year, a situation my garden very adequately displays with bent plants, torn leaves and stunted growth. Even the lawn has had less mowing. Oh well, that is the challenge for Wellingtonians. We are a proud lot. I was very proud when my very new granddaughter arrived 4 weeks ago. What a gorgeous baby (no bias). So far I have managed to knit one cardigan! Still there s plenty of time for more knitting. Have you noticed how the ideas flow when the hands are busy?
Recently I had lunch with a friend at Smith-the-Grocer s in the Old Bank Building, an exciting place full of atmosphere and wise sayings. One of them I thought should be our motto for the year : "You don t stop playing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop playing." Well, I am sure some of us will not be taking the playing too literally but at least we can keep our brains ticking over. Some study groups are already up and running, the International Festival of the Arts opens on February 27th and we have an amazing lecture series starting on March 23rd.
At our first committee meeting for 2010 on Monday, February 8th, we discussed the desire of U3As in Christchurch and Auckland to establish a New Zealand network centred in Christchurch. This arises from the 2009 Australasian research that we took part in. We have deferred making a decision until after discussion at our Regional U3A meeting in May. I hope you have been able to read the resume of the research in the last Newsletter. If you have any comments or opinions , please send them either to me or Val Ferguson (Secretary).
One of the really great interactive things we have is our wish for others to hear about other educational opportunities we are involved with. These items have now become a small flood, so it has been decided that there will be a notice board at the entrance to the lecture hall where flyers can be attached for all to see instead of being signalled on the weekly email reminder system. This does not apply to the VUW Continuing Education Unit notices. The notices will need to be removed from the notice board when the event is ove.
Neville has been perusing the database and discovered some people have two email addresses. Indeed, many of us do. However, one is enough for U3A to manage so please let us know which one you prefer. You will be interested to know there are 725 members at last count. I hope we will see you all at the study groups and/or lectures many times this year. You will find the lecture programme for the first semester in this newsletter. Have a great year.
Karen Palmer
