Trustees’ Annual Report 2024
The u3a in Bath is a member of the Third Age Trust. Our membership is open to anyone who is no longer in full-time employment: there is no age qualification.
The Objectives of the group are the advancement of education and, in particular, the education of older people and those who are retired from full time work by all means, including associated activities conducive to learning and personal development in Bath and surrounding areas.
These objectives are carried out partly through our monthly talks and mostly via our many interest and activity groups.
Communication is through our website, monthly bulletin and quarterly newsletter, the ‘Third Ager’, the monthly talk and coffee morning. We also have a Facebook page. Governance is through our Committee who are also Trustees of the charity. We are entirely run by volunteers, including Trustees, non-Trustee officers, group convenors and co-ordinators; without them this organisation would not exist.
For a small annual membership fee, members have access to all our groups and talks; and to other activities, outings, and residential trips that require further payment. They also have access to insurance cover while on u3a activities and to the huge range of learning resources provided by the Third Age Trust. In addition, we keep a small amount of equipment which can be borrowed by groups to help them with their activities. In order to facilitate some of our Trustees in their work we have provided dedicated laptops for the Treasurer, Business Secretary, Membership Secretary and Newsletter Editor.
All our groups are autonomous, but we provide help as needed through a dedicated section on our website, the Groups Advisers and an annual meeting for convenors which gives them the opportunity to share good practice and problems, as well as providing input on matters of importance, most recently handling money, GDPR, and our new management system, Simple Membership (SM).
All our members have now been given a log-in for SM although we certainly don’t have universal uptake! Constant reminders are working though and many of the group convenors have taken ownership of their webpages and group management. The Groups Advisers have worked hard to support all the convenors.
At the end of February 2024, we had 1449 members; an increase on last year. (This has risen to 1501 in April). Use of Simple Membership is enabling us to track where members have actively left or have just not yet renewed their membership. The Membership Secretary has taken on an assistant to help her at the monthly meetings, which is when people often join. We are also now able to offer payment by card, which has been very helpful.
So far as our groups are concerned, this year we have continued to see a good deal of positive activity, thanks to the hard work of the Groups Advisers. There are currently 104 groups listed in the Groups Directory compared with 101 last year, plus
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an additional 3 groups which have already attracted enough interest to be viable and are in the process of being formed.
Existing new groups are:
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Chess
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Climate Environment Actionists.
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Dancing for Fun
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Jazz on Thursday Afternoon
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Shakespeare and Friends
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Welcome Team
New groups about to be added to the Directory are:
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Bridge for Beginners 2
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Sketching in Bath
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The Novella.
Five of the above groups have been started by members who joined in the past year, encouraged by the meetings for new members, however, the problem remains that it is difficult to persuade sufficient members to take on the Convenor role and start new groups.
Having reached a membership of 1500, there is a need for new groups to meet the demand. Many are limited in size because they are held in private homes; some, in niche subjects are very small, but no less valued. National guidance suggests that as many as 40 new groups might be required. A more detailed study is planned in the coming year to identify specific areas of need, and devise ways of meeting this.
All of the groups are dependent on u3a members being willing to help organise them, and to share the workload and the responsibilities with their Convenors. The Groups Advisers are available to offer support and encouragement to any member prepared to take on board the self-help philosophy of u3a and co-operate in doing the groundwork to get a new group started.
This year we have held three informal get-togethers for new members, two coffee mornings and one afternoon session. We were delighted with the attendance, and the feedback was very positive. Several Trustees and some Group Convenors came to each session to chat to members and to answer questions. A number of new groups have been formed or are in the process of forming as an outcome.
The Outings Group in particular is still struggling to engage with members, day visits have been achieved, but residential trips have still not managed to get off the ground. Unfortunately, the Theatre group has closed because of poor uptake when visits were proposed. Increasing costs of accommodation, transport and tickets to events have no doubt impacted both these groups.
Our monthly meetings continue to be well attended, thanks not only to some excellent publicity in a variety of local magazines and free papers but also to the
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quality of the speakers. Our Speaker Organisers have produced an excellent programme. We regularly see non-members attending and our Membership Secretary is generally busy with membership enquiries. The Chair has started a new ‘Welcome Group’ who are on duty at the monthly meeting to count numbers, answer queries and direct people to the membership secretary and most importantly the tea and coffee. This group is proving to be very useful, and welcoming.
Details of all our talks and activity groups are on our website. Members continue to be informed of activities via the bulletins and the quarterly magazine. They can also of course access back copies via the members only section of the website. The new members leaflet produced last year has proved useful, reminding people to register on the website and suggesting ways in which they can participate more fully in membership of our u3a. We have now also produced a new publicity leaflet which we are aiming to distribute in a variety of settings.
Regional News
We are members of the Bath and Wiltshire U3A Network, a group of local U3As, which meets four times a year. This group has been meeting on-line and our Chair has attended meetings, as other commitments have allowed. Last year’s face to face day conference was very useful, both the Chair and Business Secretary attended, and it gave us a chance to quiz the national u3a Chair.
As well as the network’s on-line Speaker Organiser’s forum, new this year has been two similar groups for Treasurers and for Groups Organisers. The fact that these forums are on-line has meant that they are well-attended and give officers a chance to compare notes with others.
The Committee and Trustees
We have had more movements on the Committee and support group this year, we now have a new Business Secretary, a new Membership Secretary who also has an assistant and two new joint Web people who are keeping our public profile up to date. The Chair has started contacting all new members who tick the ‘willing to volunteer’ box and this has certainly helped in our constant search for useful people.
The Committee consists of ten members,
Anne Banks (Chair), Sue Oldfield (Business Secretary), John Weinle (Treasurer), Richard Marke (Treasurer) Jenny Snashall (Membership Secretary), Pat Corcoran (Newsletter Editor), Eleanor Ellington & Diane Duck (Joint Groups Advisers), Steve Prowse (Publicity and social media), and David Bethell, (Outings)
We are also supported Betty Suchar & David Hagger (Talks Organisers), Chandra Doshi and Anne Holmes (Web people) Derek Longmore (Database) and Andy Pepperdine (Audio Visual). We are particularly indebted to one of our members, Peter Ellington who has done and is still doing sterling work with Simple Membership.
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We said farewell to Meg Gore Langton, retiring Business Secretary, Jill Carr, retiring Membership Secretary, Irene Murdoch, retiring Theatre Group Trustee, Christine Barron, retiring Trustee and Roger Hurley, retiring all things Web and Simple Membership. We are very grateful to them for their many long years of service.
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In common with many other voluntary organisations, while we have a thriving membership, we are having difficulty in getting people to take up committee and other support roles. Many of our members have caring duties, some are still working part-time, and others feel they have ‘done their bit’. This is continually proving to be a problem to us, but we feel that some of the new tactics we have adopted are beginning to have an effect.
Anne Banks Chair u3ainBath May 2024
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