Membership News

At the beginning of our new year we have 306 members, and thanks to our hardworking membership secretary Joyce Simpson, and deputy Bunty Davies, the new renewal process went very smoothly.

We now have 51 vibrant interest groups, although this may have changed since I last looked. We especially want to thank the hard work of John McQuistan who has managed these groups for the past 5 years and who also arranged a very successful facilitators meeting in February. Our facilitators are the heartbeat of the organisation and we also have to thank them for their hard work.

There has been an interesting mixture of topics at our monthly meetings arranged by Sheila Maclaine and her subcommittee. These have ranged from railways to roundhouses, and we must mention our fascinating February talk by the late Sir Alex Fergusson who will be greatly missed.

Many of our members have enjoyed the trips and events organised by Helen Henderson and her events team of Helen & Stephen Bullock. We have visited houses, gardens and museums and this year saw the start of our community workshops which included fraud prevention and fire safety. I would encourage you all to suggest events and even to lead trips.

In this internet age the website is becoming the main focus for our communications and we have a fledgling Facebook page which welcomes contributions. These are all maintained by Alison Fabian, so please send her some contributions about what your groups are doing using the contact form.

Our administration system, Beacon, is proving to be a powerful tool for managing the Stewartry U3A and also for communicating with members. Not only is Magnus Johnson managing this, he is also helping other U3As set up their own versions.

Increasing legislation has meant we have had to create new guidelines and policies. In the last year we have had to update our constitution and introduce policies on bullying and harassment, privacy, data protection and safeguarding.

Thanks especially to Colin Milligan and to U3A Head Office for their support.

I am sure you would like to join me in thanking our committee who are the people who make all these activities and events happen, and please remember, we need volunteers to continue their work.

Chris Leamy