We held our postponed 2024 AGM on Friday 6th September and were delighted over 200 members came and voted overwhelmingly to adopt our new Constitution with 192 for, 16 against and 1 spoilt ballot.
This constitution has now been filed with the Charity Commission and The Third Age Trust (TAT). The previous committee had worked hard over 3 months to understand what adopting the 2021 model constitution would mean for our u3a and its members. The new Committee, elected at the AGM, has 6 new members who are rapidly growing into their new roles.
Our new Membership Secretary, Simon Pratt, is moving our membership data to a new system called Beacon, which is an on line management system designed by u3as, for u3as. It provides a simple interface for managing members, groups and finances. Beacon is available to all u3as in the UK that wish to take advantage of it. Beacon currently provides over 600 individual u3as with a secure, efficient and effective means of managing their day-to-day business functions
If you change your telephone numbers, address or email address, please remember to tell us so that we can still contact you.
We held a very pleasant afternoon on Friday 27th September at the Winter Gardens to celebrate our 30th anniversary. (More about this on a later page).
Members have enjoyed 12 trips this year, including to Sidmouth, Portsmouth, Houses of Parliament, Monmouth and Tintern Abbey and Newquay, as well as a holiday in York, when 45 members visited local features.
Our 75 groups continue to flourish and our hard-working Group Leaders will be thanked at an afternoon tea on Thursday, 12th December at 2.00pm at the Friends’ Meeting House. (Committee Meeting 3) We introduced several new groups, such as Spanish, cardmaking and chair yoga, but would like to set up a line dancing and quiz group. Are you willing to become a Group Leader for these or any other second groups, where we have waiting lists.
Our weekly coffee mornings continue to be popular, and we have had a series of good talks at our monthly lectures.
A suggestion at our AGM was to make Committee Meeting Minutes more accessible to Members, so these are now available on our website which was developed in June and is intended to be the main source of information about what's happening in our u3a, eg upcoming lectures, trips and group activities.
Please have a look at the website as it's excellent and very easy to use. It is also our window to the world, allowing anyone - or potential new members - to see what we offer to those in Weston-super-Mare and surrounding areas who are no longer in full time employment. (www.weston.u3asite.uk)
We are developing plans for trips in 2025, we have a full lecture schedule, and we are exploring ideas to reduce our reserves to the benefit of our members.
I am proud of progress this year & believe we offer members many opportunities to learn, laugh and live. May I wish you a very pleasant Christmas and a healthy New Year.
Kindest regards
Ian