When I wrote the report on this reading group for the last Newsletter, the ‘Rule of 6’ had just come in, and we had arranged that as we only had 8 in the group at that time, 3 members would take the book and not come to the meeting and the other 4 plus myself would be able to space out really well in my lounge. We had 1 meeting like this in October and then the 2nd lockdown came in November and we moved into Tier 4 and then Tier 5 and further restrictions, so we have not been able to meet at all since then.
But I have been able to collect the books each month from the library and the members of the group come to my house and do the swap either safely from a distance or from my doorstep. It is not ideal but better than nothing. The person whose book choice it is for the month and in “normal” times would ‘lead’ the meeting is responsible for sending me the main review and notes on the author, but several others in the group e-mail me their thoughts also and I then put them together and e-mail them to all the group.
We continue to read a variety of books, some we enjoy others we do not, but that is the beauty of Reading Groups, we get to read books that we might not necessarily pick off the shelves ourselves and very often we enjoy the surprise - not always though!!
In the Autumn Newsletter I mentioned that I had a vacancy, I did think that I would have to wait until the u3a was up and running again in the Community Centre before I could advertise it, but to my delight I received an e-mail from Susan enquiring if she could fill it. I met her myself on a sunny afternoon in October, she took the book we had at the time and was looking forward to meeting 4 more members in November. But this was not to be, and so she has not yet met any more of the group, but is taking the book each month and it has been a joy to have her particularly as in January we read ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ - not a good read for the majority of us but Susan ‘loved it’. I do have another vacancy now, if anybody reading this article thinks they would like to join us, please do contact me. We hope it won’t be too much longer before we can get back to meeting in person, even if to begin with it is in the garden.
The picture shows some recent titles we have read along with the cups for the tea and chocolate biscuits. We just need the people again!!
Pauline Brice
This is an article published in the Spring 2021 edition of the Hayling Island u3a newsletter