This Is Our Second Anniversary and We Can Report Another Successful Year

Dene Valley U3A Second Anniversary Annual Report 2011

1,Membership

This is our second anniversary and we can report another successful year.

Our membership at the end of the year has reached 325. New members come not only from Wellesbourne but the nearby villages. We are the U3A for South Warwickshire villages. Fortunately we are able to use St PetersParishChurch in Wellesbourne for our monthly meetings. Without the Church we would not find anywhere to meet in the village or in any of the other villages from where we draw our membership.We would by now have had to close our membership because any other hall would have been too small.

2.Groups

The number of study and activity groups continues to increase. Last year we reported some 24 groups. We now have some 35 as of the July Newsletter. Over the last twelve months we have seen a number of new and varied activites start up including “Strictly come dancing”, Philosophy, Science and Tai Chi. We are currently starting four new groups, Mah Jong, Bowls, Art and Spanish for Beginners and endeavouring to gather interest for a chess group and D.I.Y.

None of this is possible without the activities of group leaders who organise and facilitate activities. However it only continues if members participate including being prepared to share the organising work. We are a self help organisation.

We also liaise with other U3A groups based in Stratford and all our members are entitled to attend monthly meetings and join groups of the other U3As.

3.Outings

A popular activity has been the organised outings by the Outings Secretaries and our History Group Leader. Before the year end, there are further trips;a show at the Birmingham Hippodrome, one to Slimbridge and the Three Choirs Vineyard and then to Chatsworth and Gloucester Docks before Christmas.

4.Monthly Meetings

Our monthly meeting provided the opportunity for members to meet together and make contact with group leaders. We are grateful to our Speaker Secretary for also organising a programme of varied and interesting speakers from“Body language”, “Worms” to the Royal Air Force to mention three topics.

5.Monthly Newsletter

Our main line of communication is our monthly newsletter which is emailed to most members and posted to those who do not use email. We also post information to our web site: to our Editor and our Membership Secretary who maintains an excellent database of addresses.

6.Dene Valley U3A Committee

The committee has met regularly through the year to monitor progress. It has approved the purchase of further equipment to help our groups and organisation. We now own for membership use, a projector, screen, flip chart easel display boards and laminator.

I wish to thank the committee, group leaders and many other members for their work over the last twelve months

Tony Whiteley Chairman August 2011