Learning community seeks to bring seniors together

HEATHCOTE U3A is on the hunt for new members.

U3A, or University of the Third Age, connects seniors with through shared interests and activities.

Heathcote U3A president Nancy Miller said that while U3A membership was generally over for over 60s, she wanted to encourage anyone over 50 to think about joining up.

“We aim at an older population and we’re not getting any younger members,” she said.

“Our membership is growing older and consequently it means that people are reluctant to run activities and people are reluctant to come onto the committee.

“My mission, while I’m in the presidency, is to try and encourage members in the 50 age-group upwards, unless we try and encourage that age group we, as an organisation, will fold.”

Ms Miller said there were currently between 35 and 40 people on the books.

“Our biggest group is our singing group,” she said. “It’s a very large group and a lot of the newer members towards the end of last year were in the singing group.

“Our other groups are certainly all going too, it’s been my philosophy even if there are only two or three members in a group then that particular group should still run.

“It’s up to the convenor, but I am encouraging them to still pursue it because it gets people out of their house and it gets people thinking.”

Current Heathcote U3A groups include a book club, morning coffee, creative writing, gardening, current affairs, singing, move it or lose it, and Margaret’s movies.

Ms Miller also put out a call to community members with more specialised skills.

“We as an organisation are very limited in terms of our understanding of technology,” she said. “We’d like someone to come onto the committee who has IT capacity.

“We are also looking for more committee members in general.”

Heathcote U3A can be contacted at [email protected] and welcomes approaches from anyone interested in running activities, being on committee, or just taking part in what’s on offer.