Trustees’s Report for April 2025– March 2026
Membership
Annual subscriptions this year have remained unchanged at £20, and our finances remain healthy. We continue to help out new groups with the purchase of equipment, which is then available for any group to use if needed. Group leaders should have a copy of the asset list, which will tell them where things are currently stored – this is now kept up to date and circulated by our business secretary Sue.
Go Cardless continues to be a huge help to the membership secretary, groups, and trip organisers and especially our treasurers, as well as members themselves. 362 members are currently signed up, and only 30 paying by cash or cheque.
At the start of the year in April 2025, our membership stood at 385 members and has remains stable with a small increase to 392 today. We have a natural loss of people moving away, becoming ill, resigning etc so this is pleasing and we continue to gather new members almost monthly.
Attendees continue to be required to sign-in to meetings for fire regulations but also helps us to know which speakers have been popular with members.
Two New Members coffee mornings were held at The Baptist church hall, one in October and the other in April. This has enabled us to meet with new members and encourage them to get involved, to introduce the current committee, and learn a little about their interests and skills too. It also provides an opportunity for them to hear about the history of the u3a and meet the committee.
Communications
Our Newsletter has been bi-monthly under Annies guiding hand and continues to be important to keep our members abreast of what has happened recently.
Our monthly Diary provides our members with a quick look up for Group and other meeting dates. It is very useful to help us keep track of our busy u3a and plan any other events. However, the Groups Co-ordinator Anne is dependent on the Group Leaders to keep it up to date.
We use Beacon to circulate both of these but still have a few members who need to receive a paper copy, which is posted if not collected at the monthly meeting.
Group Leaders can also use Beacon to email group members, some also using it to record Group financial activities. We would encourage group leaders to keep their group members lists up to date.
Social Activities
It has been another busy year of social events, trips and activities – our social secretaries Lyn and Marie have certainly been very busy!
Local trips are usually attended by sharing cars. A fixed fee of £5 from passengers is still suggested to assist the driver in covering costs. If we go further afield then a coach has been hired, although recently the cost of this is becoming prohibitively expensive. All have been well organised and thoroughly enjoyed by those that attended.
Trips this year have included outings to…The Globe Theatre tour, The Big cat Sanctuary, Farleys House, Heartenoak Vinyard, Maidstone Gin Distillery, RHS Wisley and Winchelsea Cellars, also more active events Curling and Bowls.
We have on occasion shared trips to interesting places offered either to or by our neighbouring u3as once the initiating u3a has exhausted its own members’ interest. We found this particularly useful for coach trips as it is essential to make numbers up to meet the increasingly high cost of coach hire. In line with our policy to support local companies wherever possible, we use Hams Travel at Flimwell.
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Monthly Pub Lunches continue to which all members are invited. attendance is usually around 30. These have settled into a fairly regular pattern of the same pubs.
Monthly coffees are also going strong, with similar numbers.
The summer party last year took place in the garden of the 8 Bells, where 86 of us enjoyed a BBQ in the July sunshine
In December our Christmas lunch changed to a new venue at Dale Hill Golf Club, when 99 of us enjoyed a delicious meal, and entertainment by the Ukelele group, Biddenden Strummers. Well done and thank you to all our social organisers.
Go Cardless is used, wherever possible, for payment in advance for lunches and outings. We do not refund after the cut-off date unless we are not charged for non-attendance, or the place can be filled.
Instead of a speaker, in December 2025 we held our usual Christmas Party when we were entertained by the Gentlemen Songsters and Displays set up by the art groups. As always, it was well attended and enjoyed by all.
Publicity
Local events such as the Hawkhurst Summer Fete are usually supported, this year we now have our own new Gazebo. Thank you to the Baptist church for the loan of extra tables. Our publicity leaflets and example monthly diaries were available.
The local free paper has included our monthly meeting and speaker in their What’s On section when they had space. We found this generated a steady stream of potential new members.
Interest Groups
To date we have 43 Interest Groups some of which have been running since our u3a started. Sometimes when a Group Leader needs a break or even retires, it proves difficult to find a replacement. Job-sharing the Leader role is proving a popular option.
The Committee budgets annually, as already mentioned, for funds to enable new Groups to buy initial equipment. This then becomes a u3a asset and is included on our Asset List. Once they are up and running, all Group costs are covered by the Group members. This includes room hire, refreshments, additional equipment etc. This has continued to work successfully in this last year. All our Group Leaders are thanked for their efforts though perhaps not often enough, and afternoon tea was again popular last year.
Our monthly meetings continue at the Baptist church hall, where we have been made very welcome. Our speaker organiser has done a marvellous job researching and finding interesting speakers for us.
Technology
The web site has been kept up to date by our Web Manager and provides a good introduction for anyone interested in who we are. We will very shortly be changing our website provider – so do look out for information about that.
The printer this year which is now able to copy as well as print is available for groups needing printing, but please do try to give Anne plenty of notice.
u3a’s Beacon IT administration system has been well used as it provides a secure base for all membership and group information and facilitates financial consolidation. Access profiles are set to ensure GDPR compliance.
Our technical support members continued to provide an excellent service including Beacon training and problem solving, keeping our web site up to date, setting up equipment at meetings and provision of technical advice to the Committee.
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Committee
As with all volunteer organisations “you get out what you put in”. The Chair’s continued involvement in the Kent Area Network of u3as enables us to share experiences and ideas. The Chairs WhatsApp and closed Facebook groups are a useful source of information and discussion on occasion.
While it is vital to encourage fresh talent to join the Committee to keep up the enthusiasm and develop our u3a, we are very grateful to an extended group of very helpful people who make suggestions, put out chairs, make tea/coffee, welcome attendees, plug in and set up equipment, help other members, give people lifts and contribute to the monthly Newsletter. The population of Hawkhurst continues to grow and we welcome a steady stream of new members. New ideas and approaches are always welcome as we continue to evolve.
Trustees for year ended 31.3.26
Jane Cooper Bridget Thomas Margaret Langridge Anne Metcalfe Annie Watsham Lyn Beverley Sue Hall Pam Nash Cheryl Rayner
Marie Thomas Karon Cottington Bridget Veitch Ann Wood
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