In this newsletter:
- Dates for your diary
- Please renew your membership
- General information/notices
- Group news
- Other information
- This month's short story
Dates for your diary
Group Leaders Meeting
Friday March 14th at 10.30, Hayling Community Centre. Coffee/tea and biscuits will be provided, and it will give you a chance to discuss best practice and any issues you have managing group administration.
Next Monthly Meeting
Thursday 20th March at 2 pm. Hayling Community Centre.
Dr James Taylor presents a talk on the life of Lord Horation Nelson.
- Was Nelson a man of honour or dishonour?
- An acclaimed inspirational leader or a star-crossed lover, whose affair with Lady Emma Hamilton was the biggest scandal of the age?
Come and take a journey through his life on Thursday 20th March at 2.00pm at the Hayling Community Centre!
Christmas 2025 Buffet
This will be on December 11th at the Hayling Community Centre.
Hever Castle Gardens Visit
Wednesday 19th March.
There are a few tickets left. You can book online here.
We are hoping to refund the coach cost of those carers who accompany a person who has been granted the disabled blue badge. Contact Bob Hornby - our treasurer - following the trip and he will be able to help. So, if you have a disability blue badge and a seat is booked for both you and a carer the carer’s coach cost may be refunded.
Please renew your membership
We currently have 600 members.
Your membership is due for renewal on April 1st, 2025. If you have renewed already, thank you. As last year, the fee is £15 for full members and £10 for associate members.
Ways to renew:
- Online via the front page of the Hayling u3a web site (you might need to scroll down when using devices with narrow screens) - or use this link to go direct to the renewal page. Follow the simple instructions you find there. You can pay online by bank transfer or card. You can make a single payment covering two members if that's appropriate.
- In person at the monthly meeting on Thursday March 20th by card, cash or cheque.
- By post. Sent a cheque payable to 'Hayling Island u3a' or cash, with member name and SAE to:
The Membership Secretary
c/o 18 St Mary's Road
Hayling Island
PO11 9BY
Online or in-person renewals save the treasurer and membership secretary time. Your early attention is always appreciated.
General Information/Notices
Kindness and Respect
A couple of incidents have been reported this month where individual members have not been treated with both kindness and respect. Such reports are not the norm, but I feel that it is important to that I remind all of us that we should treat our fellow members and with kindness and respect.
Volunteers required
For Tea and coffee monitors at our monthly meetings - contact me if you can help.
To help on the membership renewal desks at our March monthly meeting - contact Peter Haskell if you can help.
Group Coordinator
Our current coordinator wishes to stand down from her post, so we are looking for someone to take over. Much of the role requires the candidate to access our website to set up new groups etc. Please let me know if you feel that role would suit you.
Group News
Dominos
This group is open to new members. It meets on a every Tuesday Evening at Newton House Hotel. More details and contact information here.
John Cushion
Photography
The photography group is open to new members, and we welcome anyone to come to one of our meetings to see if is for them.
Our programme for this year is set out so that we have monthly topic for discussion where we then have an opportunity to take a photograph and then present it at our next meeting.
During January we discussed still life photography, had a tabletop demonstration, and then presented still life photographs at our February meeting. This montage shows the photographs that we presented.
Susan Wakely
Thursday solo dining
The First solo lunch was held on the 27th February, and it went extremely well. Everyone got on so well and enjoyed themselves.
The group met for lunch at the Barley Mow and everyone is happy to have the next lunch there again.
Judy Dury
Chair yoga
There are plenty of spaces to join this group. The first session attended is free as a taster. The group meets every Wednesday at 10 am at HICCA.
Julie Taylor
Science and technology
In February we had a very interesting presentation given to us by John Worley, Havant u3a, entitled “The Robots are coming...” He started by highlighting jobs that were once carried out by people but now are done my machines or robots. To this day the use of robots is increasing, although we tend to think of the robotic arms used in the car industry wielding car bodies, the simple truth is that a washing machine or dish washer is a robot, we load it, but it does the rest and gives us more time to do other things.
The future holds more interesting robotic models. and they are not far away. Take self-drive electric cars, Tesla’s are already offering an automatic driving experience, but what if the car is not owned by you but you can call it up on your smart phone and it drives from a car-pool to your location and takes you home! This will have a huge impact on the car industry because no one will need to buy their own car. The knock-on effect will be to halve the number of vehicles built every year, thus decreasing the number of car workers employed building the and the spare parts that go with it.
There are currently many humanoid robots being developed that will eventually be able to do all the menial tasks in and outside the house allowing humans to have more leisure time! You could say that the days of Robo Cop could be very near, what a scary thought.
Future presentations arranged for the group:
- 26th March: Scuba diving in the Solent, by Percy Phelps, HIU3A
- 23rd April: How air crashes improve safety, by Rod Wing, Fishbourne Science
Group - 26th May: Artificial Intelligence, by Alan Freeland, external speaker
Our meetings are held in St Patrick's Church Hall at 2pm for tea and biscuits, presentation starts at 2.30pm. These presentations are open to everyone in the u3a, so if you are free then please come along, you do not have to be a boffin and it is good value for a £2 donation towards refreshments and the hall hire.
Robert Hornby
Walking Netball
Walking Netball has found a new home to play their weekly games. We have had to move off the island into Havant as there is only Hayling College on the island that has a Sports Hall large enough for a game of netball. At the time of writing this report we have only been able to play 2 sessions this year at the school as they use their sports hall for exams, parents evenings etc and we could only play in term time.
Our new home is Park Community School, where we can play weekly throughout the year apart from Christmas.
We meet at the Hayling Island Community centre at 4.15 on a Thursday and car share the trip to Park School where we play for an hour from 5 until 6.
The group has been generously helped by the committee to purchase netball posts that can be used at our new home. It is our intention to repay the funding as we go forward.
If you fancy giving walking netball a try the cost is just £2.50 for an hour of fun and exercise with a great group of ladies. If you would like more information or would like to join us for a trial run (walk!) please contact me.
Anne Hollis
Other Information
South East u3a’s summer school
1-4 September 2025 University of Chichester- u3a summer schools are organised by individual regions and nations, giving you the opportunity to spend a couple of days getting to know other members, learning new things and exploring topics your u3a might not usually offer. If you are interested further details can be found here.
Holiday to Chatham Kent
Last year Bill Biggs organised a successful group holiday to Cornwall. This year Bill is planning a holiday to Kent, the garden of England, in September 2025. Staying in Bridgewood Manor Hotel in Chatham, the plan is to visit: Chartwell, Faversham, Chatham Dockyard, East Sussex Railway and Canterbury. The cost of 2 sharing will be £707 for NT members and £727 for non NT members. Further details contact Bill Biggs.
HICCA Spring fair fundraiser
The community centre will be running a fundraising event on the Spring Bank Holiday Weekend May 2025. They will be needing volunteers to help run stalls, sell programmes etc. As a user of the community centre it is in our interest to help keep it financially viable. If you are interested in helping then please let me know so that I can start building a potential team of volunteers.
Scammers
Did you know that:
- 90% of all scams originate from Social Media platforms!
- Scammers tend to be more active in the mid week and during the afternoons!
- 50% of all Pet scams are from Social Media. This is where you advertise that your pet dog or cat has gone missing and the scammers lock on to this fact and then say they have your pet but it will cost you money to have it returned. Always keep some relevant fact or feature about your pet out of the advert, so you can ask them to verify it.
We will be running a small workshop on what to look out for, how to avoid being scammed. Further information will be available next month.
u3a online events
March is full to the brim with exciting online events for all u3a’s - so many in fact, that to see the full list of upcoming events you should click the link at the end of this article.
Here are a few highlights for March:
- Sustainable Travel in Europe
Wednesday 12 March at 7pm, Margit Physant shares invaluable knowledge about the most sustainable ways to travel around Europe. - Penguins: Icons of Antarctica
Monday 17 March at 2pm
Join Dr Verena Meraldi and discover a wealth of fascinating information about penguins, the iconic inhabitants of Antarctica. This talk is a repeat due to popular demand. - LEO - The World's First Business Computer
Friday 21 March at 2pm
From cakes to computers - join Neville Lyons to look at the extraordinary story of LEO, the World's First Business Computer. - How Many Letters in the Alphabet?
Monday 24 March at 2pm
A look at the main writing systems of the world, in a grand tour starting in the UK and finishing who knows where - the final frontier?
Highlights for April:
- Robotics and Automation, Wednesday 2 April at 1pm
- A Sustainable Wardrobe, Friday 4 April at 2pm
- How to get published with Writers & Artists, Tuesday 8 April at 2pm
See the full list of upcoming Online Events and book your tickets here.
New Essay Writing Competition
Are you known for your debating skills? Do you love building a strong argument supported by evidence? If so, the u3a Factual Essay Competition is for you!
All u3a members are invited to participate by writing an essay of up to 1000 words on the topic: “Make the case for a person, policy, invention, or idea having a positive impact on society.”
First prize is a shopping voucher worth £100 and prize books will be given to two runners-up. The deadline for submissions is Friday 9th May.
Find out more and submit your essay.
Celebrating Aileen's Game
Aileen's Game, created by Ian Clarke of East Suffolk u3a, is reaching an important milestone of 1000 games on 22nd March. This unique and engaging word game challenges us to make words within a 5x5 grid, with some letters chosen and some given at random. Try it now!
Then join in playing Aileen's Game on 22 March, when they aim for 1000 players to celebrate 1000 days of the game.
This Month’s Short Story
The Key
Everyone was shocked when Terry collapsed with a heart attack in the middle of the Iceland store and, despite the efforts of the paramedics was well and truly “frozen”. Shirley was sorry of course that he was gone, but although he was generous with money, he hadn’t been the best of husbands when it came to being faithful. He had broken her heart a few times….
Still, she knew there were some things about him she would miss. The weekly canasta evenings with her best friend Sybil and her husband had been good fun.
She hadn’t seen Syb since the funeral and it occurred to her that she still had Syb’s black leather gloves in the hall. She decided to drop them back to her that morning after shopping. She had a letter to post and started rummaging around in Terry’s desk for a stamp. The drawer was stuck and she had to give it a really hard yank to get it free. As she tugged she heard a faint clunk.
A key had fallen at her feet and she picked it up and, already dressed for the outdoors, absentmindedly dropped it into her coat pocket, with Sybil’s gloves.
Shirley called in at the Post Office and then popped into Tesco for a ready meal and a couple of custard creams to share with Sybil. When Terry had been alive she always cooked a “proper” meal – he often came home tired and very late, and she liked to look after him. But now there seemed little point and she couldn’t really be bothered to peel vegetables and get saucepans out.
She arrived at Sybil’s and rang the bell. After a few minutes Sybil opened an upstairs window and seeing her friend called out - “I won’t be a moment, just out of the shower - the front door key is under the sixth flower pot to the right of the door – come on in”.
Having retrieved the key, Shirley wandered back to the front door and pulled the borrowed gloves out of her pocket. As she did so the key from under Terry’s desk came with them and fell at her feet. It was the same kind of key as the one from under the flower pot. - a Yale. Her heart suddenly started beating very rapidly. She calmed her breathing and tried that key first. The door swung open.
Suddenly a lot of things clicked in her head. She paused for a moment, took a deep breath and entered the hall. Sybil was coming down the stairs wrapped in a fluffy, white bathrobe “Found the key ok then, Shirley?”
“Yes,” Shirley smiled, placing the key from under the flower pot in Sybil’s hand “I certainly did”.
Already she was plotting her revenge – it would be easy to gain entry to her friend’s house whenever she was out. There were lots of ways to do some very subtle mischief……..
Jan Barrett
Creative writing group