MAY 2020 U3A MANAWATŪ NEWS · 2020-04-28 · 1 MAY 2020 U3A MANAWATŪ NEWS QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF...
Transcript of MAY 2020 U3A MANAWATŪ NEWS · 2020-04-28 · 1 MAY 2020 U3A MANAWATŪ NEWS QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF...
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MAY 2020
U3A MANAWATŪ NEWS QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF U3A MANAWATŪ
WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS
As at the time of going to print,
we would like to welcome the
following new members: Adriana
van Ameslfort (Janneke), Chris
Channing, Bob and Margot
Greenway, Elizabeth Halford,
Susan Lane, Jean Lloyd, John
McCartin, Mourne Pearson, Kevin
and Margot Petersen, Sally Reed
IN THIS ISSUE . . . . . . . . . . . Coronavirus COVID-19 1
From the Chair 2 Upcoming Events 2
Archives 2 Around the Groups 3-4
Zoom 4
Surviving the pandemic...
Coronavirus COVID-19
By the time you receive this newsletter we are likely
to have moved from almost five weeks at Alert Level
4 to Level 3. We will still be self-isolating!
It has been helpful to see, on a day-to-day basis, via
the internet and other media, how we and other
countries around the world are faring.
To those members who usually receive printed newsletters:
As this newsletter has had to be printed on a home printer we have made the decision to circulate it by
email to all members with an email address. We apologize if this causes you any inconvenience.
There were reports of people hoarding toilet rolls
Our own government, led by Jacinda Ardern, has
used the approach of “going hard and going early”.
NZ’s goal, unlike that of some other countries, has
been not to just flatten the curve of coronavirus cases,
but to eliminate the virus altogether. We seem to be
on track to achieve this. It helps that we are a
relatively isolated country on the “periphery” of the
world and have had time to prepare a strategy.
New Zealand imposed a national lockdown much
earlier in its outbreak than other countries did.
Travellers from China were banned in early
February, before New Zealand had registered a
single case of the virus. And it closed its borders to all
non-residents in mid-March, when it had only a
handful of cases. Testing and contact tracing has been
extensive. And we have been kept informed.
What has this self-isolation meant for us at home in
our “bubbles”? Among other things, we are walking
around the neighbourhood, online shopping,
reading, watching television, trying out new recipes,
gardening and generally getting on to those projects
we have been putting off! As you will see on Pages 3
and 4, some U3A groups have managed to keep going
in some form or another. Throughout all this, we have
been using phone and social media to keep in touch
with family and friends.
It will be interesting to see, when we finally emerge
from all this, how the world has changed.
Going hard and going early
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FROM THE CHAIR
Graham Slater
Greetings.
I hope you are all safe and
well in your bubbles. This is
an extraordinary event and I hope, not a repeated
one. It has been a tough time for us all and I hope we
see the end of it in the not too distant future.
I feel privileged to live in a country which consists of
a series of islands in a remote corner of the planet.
Also, to have leadership which seems to be leading
us in a sensible direction through this very difficult
time.
Easter was a particularly difficult time to be in
lockdown. Missing contact with families and
especially grandchildren really focused the issue for
me.
Our U3A activities have been in lockdown due to
restrictions placed on us. We also suspended our
seminar series and the 20th birthday celebrations,
both of which we will restart once we get clear of
this.
I am aware of a number of U3A learning groups who
have managed to maintain some creative methods of
contact and activities. Email has been a saviour. We
are in some ways fortunate to face this crisis at a
time when communication technologies are at such
an accessible level. Imagine, if we were all still on
dial-up internet connections, what difficulties we
would be facing.
I am aware that not everyone has the same level of
IT available to them, but I am thankful we are not
facing this during an era when radio and telephones
were in their infancy, such as the 1918 Flu pandemic.
Online shopping, films and TV On Demand, Skype
and Zoom have all made this a little easier.
I look forward to getting through this so we can
recommence group activities. I did not realise quite
how much I looked forward to our activities.
There is little doubt that this won’t be over quickly.
We need to drop back through the lower levels of
lockdown before life will return to “normal”.
The world that comes through this crisis will be
different to the one that went into it. Part of the
recovery will involve trying to reinstate some of
what we had before. We will get through this so stay
strong, well and in your bubble at home.
I would like to take this opportunity to remember a
long time U3A member and recent committee
member, Cherry Gordon, who passed away on 16th
Cherry Gordon
Photograph by Michael Lawrence
UPCOMING EVENTS
Both the 20th Anniversary Celebration and the
Autumn Seminar Series have been postponed until
further notice.
February. Cherry worked tirelessly for U3A as she
did wherever she was involved. Her input will be
sadly missed.
Your committee will endeavour to keep you up to
date on the future as soon as we know anything
more.
(14th April)
ARCHIVES
Further to Chris Phillips’ work on the electronic
archives, hardcopy archives have now been set up.
We have three 2005 newsletters missing from our
collection, i.e. issues 2/05, 3/05 and 5/05. If you have
any of these please would you get in touch with
Rosemary Krsinich (contact details on page 4).
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AROUND THE GROUPS...
Although some groups have gone into abeyance until
further notice, others are continuing as follows:
Brian Finch: This month’s online session of the Art
Appreciation 1 group involved members choosing
from three art museum websites (The Getty, Musée
d’Orsay and Te Papa) and taking a virtual tour to
choose a piece or pieces of art to discuss. We used
email to exchange choices and comments. About half
the group contributed to the lively and stimulating
comments and responses. As a positive but
unintended consequence we have two potential
future session offerings sparked by interest in a
theme and an artist. It looks likely that we’ll run
some variation of this activity for our May meeting.
Anne Cameron: Art Appreciation 2 is on hold at the
moment but I did forward to the group a link to a
range of websites which give virtual tours or curator
led talks round some of the great art galleries
overseas and our own Te Papa. A member also sent
me a link to a very funny website where people are
asked to recreate famous paintings with stuff they
find at home. Very funny and clever. I am hoping the
website approach will catch on as humour at the
moment is important!
Alan Martin: The Biography group is maintaining
contact by members continuing to read biographies
and submitting their reviews to the group for
discussion and comment.
Carol Phillips: Book Group 1 had its first meeting by
email on 14th April. We are reading to the monthly
theme where we are able. We are each providing
written reviews and comments which are shared and
commented on by other group members.
Merle Smillie: Book Group 2 would have been
reading a favourite magazine for April and I would
suggest there would have been more than one read
in the current state of affairs we find ourselves in.
We are keeping in touch with each other. What
better opportunity than the lockdown to do lots of
reading. I suggested to our group we have a post
lockdown meeting (what we did in the lockdown) to
let off steam.
Graham Slater: The NZ History group has received
an article about the 1918 flu epidemic to read and
hopefully interact with. To date I have had feedback
from numerous members and have also received a
number of other articles expanding the topic. These I
have subsequently recirculated to the rest of the
group. The discussion is ongoing and I hope to
provide a new topic each month while we are in
lockdown.
Michael Lawrence: As of mid-April, the Apple iPad
interest group has had two Zoom meetings, the first
with five members plus myself. Most of the meeting
was setting up and getting used to using Zoom. At
the second meeting there were more people than we
normally have for face-to-face meetings (see screen
shot on Page 4)! Everyone has now got used to
setting up their own devices so we should be able to
get into real business in future. While we are “in jail”
it is likely we will continue with fortnightly meetings
instead of the usual monthly ones.
I have also produced a two-page iPad email
newsletter which has been circulated to U3A and
SeniorNet iPad group members. The next one will
have the U3A logo!
Alan Cameron: The Philosophy group continues on
every second and fourth Friday of the month but this
time by Zoom. The majority of the group have
mastered this technique and Anne says that “by the
sound of the laughter, it seems to be going well”.
Rosemary Krsinich: In view of the nature of the Plant-
based Pot-luck Lunch group, which involves close
proximity, and the sharing of food and utensils, we
suspended group meetings early on. Members are
emailing any interesting recipes or food ideas they
come across to the group.
Graham Slater: The Silver Screens Selections group
has received an article which I compiled informing
the group of the basic ideas involved in "reading a
film”. I have suggested they read it then watch a film
(any film) and try to apply the concepts in the article
to what they saw. I have had a couple of feedback
emails and one providing a good criticism of the film
the member watched. I was intending to set the
group up with YouTube and have them all watch the
same film but that proved to be a more difficult
option.
Pauline Wellwood: I have been keeping in touch with
my Sketching group by email and with phone calls.
They are all well but sketching is not happening with
everyone. Maybe by week 3 there might be a bit more
motivation. Before the lockdown however we did
manage to get lots of our paintings and sketches on a
USB stick and Graham Slater has very kindly said he
will try and produce a PowerPoint for the 20th
Anniversary of U3A, whenever that may be?
Continued over page ...
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U3A MANAWATŪ CONTACT DETAILS
Mail: PO Box 9076, Palmerston North 4441. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.u3amanawatu.org.nz
Committee
Chairperson: Graham Slater 353 0586 [email protected]
Secretary/Newsletter: Rosemary Krsinich 326 9598 [email protected]
Treasurer: Ron Paddock 357 5857 [email protected]
Membership (including changes to address/email): Larry Haist 280 4471 [email protected]
Learning Groups: Graham Slater 353 0586 [email protected], Chris Phillips 358 1991 [email protected]
Seminars: Stuart Birks 021 204 7903 [email protected]
Website: Chris Phillips 358 1991 [email protected], Rosemary Krsinich 326 9598 [email protected]
Social Events: Janet Black 356 6251 [email protected], Merle Smillie 357 0778 [email protected]
Technical Equipment: Graham Slater 353 0586 [email protected]
Enquiries: Chris Phillips 358 1991 [email protected]
Promotion: Merle Smillie 357 0778 [email protected]
Other: Stu Schwartz 359 4423 [email protected]
Other contributors
Social Events: Bev Charlton 356 0094 Promotional Displays: Jill Gibson 354 0994
Contributions to this quarterly newsletter are very welcome!
Please contact the Editor (Rosemary at 326 9598 or [email protected])
Apple iPad group members at a recent Zoom meeting
Terry Knight: The Travel group has been put on hold
until the end of the Coronavirus threat. As a group
that meets in various people’s homes this makes it
very difficult to continue even at lower levels of the
lockdown. The only online activity we have is
sending each other jokes. I do not think it would be
possible to effectively do any more than that online.
Carol Phillips: Write Your Memoirs members have
been sharing writing by email, and this has worked
so well that we’re meeting every fortnight instead of
every month! We still have a theme which some
continue to write about, but it’s mainly about
keeping our writing going, sharing whatever we’ve
written, giving feedback, and keeping in touch with
one another.
Arne Evans: Members of the Write Our Memoirs
Too group are continuing to write a memoir on an
agreed topic every month. Instead of reading them
out, though, we are emailing them to everyone else
in the group. Comments in response are optional ...
if requested by the sender.
NEW GROUP: Write Your Travel Stories
Have you ever considered writing down your travel
stories? We use photos, maps and tourist brochures
to jog the memory. If you would like to join with
others to share stories and experiences contact me at
353 7742. We plan to meet on the 2nd Monday of the
month at 11 am but we can be flexible to suit the
group. Jacque Aldridge
Several of our group coordinators are
making use of Zoom to keep their
groups going. Use of Zoom assumes
members have the internet and a
camera and microphone, although most modern
computers would have these built in. It also requires
that members can install Zoom and navigate its
facilities.
Our umbrella organization, U3A New Zealand, is
promoting the use of Zoom for U3A meetings during
the lockdown. See http://www.u3a.nz/home.htm and http://www.u3a.nz/meetings.htm.
The UK U3A website is also promoting something
similar https://www.u3a.org.uk/keeping-in-touch-links.
There is a screen shot of one of our Apple iPad
group’s Zoom meetings in progress below.
PLANT-BASED POT-LUCK LUNCH GROUP
By the time things get back to normal, we will have
room for one more person in our group which meets
from 12-2 pm on the 4th Tuesday of the month.
Please contact me on 326 9598. Rosemary Krsinich