News

Skiddaw Website : www.skiddawu3a.co.uk Issue 18

FB : www.facebook.com/skiddawu3a November/December 2016

Dear Member A very big welcome to all our new members who have joined since our Open Morning in September and to all of you who have renewed your membership for 2017. If you have not yet renewed, there is still time as our new membership year does not start until 1 st December. You can renew or join by bank transfer (but please remember to put your name on the transaction) or you can download a form from our website (www.skiddawu3a.co.uk) or do it at one of the monthly meetings. If you would like your membership card posted to you, please include 60p or a stamped addressed envelope. You can opt to have your membership fee Gift Aided if you pay basic rate taxes. Thanks to Leela’s hard work sorting things out with HMRC, we have now received our first Gift Aid payments totalling £836. As a registered charity, we receive an additional 25% of each membership fee that is Gift Aided. We have put this money into a Group Support Fund (GSF) for equipment, teaching aids and other expenses to support group activities. Details of the GSF and the criteria for applying can be found on our website. As promised, a list of items we have purchased for groups so far is published in this Newsletter. We will update this as and when new items are purchased. If your group needs something that you feel meets the GSF criteria, please do apply to the Committee. The number and variety of group activities continues to develop. This autumn, we have a new cycling group, Easy Wheelers, an additional Table Tennis Group, plus Bread Making, Maths for Fun, Unravelling Economics, Figurative Painting and Photography. Details of these and all our groups can be found in the Events Diary. Our Italian Group’s week in Urbino in central Italy at the beginning of October was very successful. Enrolled as students at the university, we had daily tuition from two delightful tutors: Enrica one of the University lecturers and our own convenor, Gillian. Our Italian improved although I think the convivial suppers may have erased a small amount! Many thanks to Gillian and Doug for organising the trip. You will find some photos on our website. I hope the success of this new venture will lead to further adventures for all sorts of groups. The programme and booking form for the Second Energy Conference at Rheged are now available. We have an excellent line-up of speakers and expect this to be a very popular event, so early booking is advised. Programme and booking form can be downloaded from our web site or you can pick them up at the monthly meetings.

Monthly General Meetings

Meetings 10:30 to 12:00 (refreshments from 10:00) unless stated otherwise Wednesday November 16th – Crosthwaite Parish Rooms, Keswick Guest Speaker – Ted McArdle "The Liverpool Poets & the '60s Liverpool scene"

Finally a reminder about our Birthday/Christmas Lunch which will be in the Skiddaw Hotel on Tuesday, December 6th Full details can be found below, on our website or in the Events Diary. This is a very enjoyable social occasion and there will also be a quiz where points could mean prizes. Hope to see you there! Best wishes

Maggie Potts Chair, Executive Committee

Activity Groups New Groups Unravelling Economics - Jo Alberti (79199) Photography – Aline Hopkins (74626) Maths for Fun – Stuart Cresswell (79262) Bread Making – Julie Nelson (80221) Easy Wheeler – Christine Robinson (80979) Figurative Painting – Ted McArdle (44855)

Gill Frances

Groups Co-ordinator

Second Cumbria Network Energy Conference On 31 March 2017 Cumbria Network of U3As are holding an all-day conference on energy at Rheged near Penrith. This is a follow-up to one held in 2015 attended by 128 people from all over the North West. The emphasis in the 2017 conference will be complementary to the first meeting. Talks are planned on how the UK will meet its low carbon future in the light of last year’s Paris agreement, glacier melting and the effects of rising sea levels, planning the electricity grid to meet the changing pattern of energy generation, the position and impacts of fracking, community energy projects and the changing ways in which we will use energy in the future. A star studded line of expert speakers from universities and local companies has been assembled and the final speaker will be Lord Andrew Stunell, under-secretary of State for the Dept. of Communities and Local Government in the last coalition government. This conference will be a stimulating and thought provoking experience equal to the 2015 conference. The conference programme and a booking form can be found on the website.

Alan Robinson

Ambleside & District U3A [email protected]

Social Events Christmas Lunch - Tuesday December 6th 12:00 for 12:30 – Skiddaw Hotel 3 course Christmas Menu plus tea or coffee and mince pies @ £16:50 If you wish to attend, please send your payment of £16.50 to Julie Nelson, 41 Blencathra St., Keswick, CA12 4HT. Please include your name, phone number and email address if you have one. Payment may be cash or cheque made payable to Skiddaw U3A (Social) and should arrive by Nov 20th. Gluten-free diets can be catered for, but please state this or any other dietary requirement with your payment.

Menu Crayfish Tails, Smoked Salmon & Prawn Filo Basket Topped with a dill & lemon dressing

Homemade Pulled Pork, Roasted Pine Nuts & Apricot Terrine Wrapped in bacon served with bramley apple, red onion & cinnamon relish

Roast Mediterranean Vegetables, Brie & Thyme Bruschetta Sweet beetroot chutney

Roast Plum Tomato, Pepper & Basil Soup Roast Breast of Turkey With bacon wrapped chipolata, chestnut, almond & orange sausage meat, cranberry sauce & natural jus

Grilled Lamb Cradle On butter & black pepper mash, tarragon, port & redcurrant jus, rosemary infused Yorkshire pudding

Steamed Fillet of Hake On sauteed buttered spinach, potato & prawn confit, roast cherry tomato & basil relish

Wild Mushroom, Spinach & Stilton Strudel Sun blushed tomatoes & balsamic syrup

Traditional Plum Pudding Brandy sauce

Dark Chocolate Torte With white chocolate sauce

Homemade Chilled Winter Berry Parfait Brandy snap basket, spiced clementines

Duo of Cheeses With grapes, celery, biscuits & chestnut

Tea/Coffee with Mince Pies

Christine Robinson Social Secretary

Group Reports Gardening(Contd.)

Fell Walkers I have recently taken over from Bob Scanlon who has been running this group for several years. Recently numbers attending walks have dropped to a critical point. However I am hoping to establish a regular schedule and to post four walks on a bi-weekly basis so that there will be a two monthly schedule available at all times. The aim of the walks is to tackle the high peaks but at a leisurely pace. Often we shall use buses so that we can walk from one valley to another, however occasionally members’ cars will be used for circular walks. I am hoping that regular walkers will feel that they can post walks so that the schedule is not entirely of my own invention.

Barry Brook

French

The French group reconvened after quite a long summer break; consequently some members felt a little rusty and in need of WD40! However, this was certainly not the case as stories about the holiday period were successfully recounted in French or Franglais! During the earlier part of this year, the group had subscribed and listened to episodes of ‘News in Slow French’ from an internet site . The word ‘Slow’ being relative to how fast French people normally speak! From now on it was decided to subscribe to a different learning medium which provides bimonthly magazines and CD’s. The fortnightly meetings of the French group continue in the Council Chamber Room of the Town Hall where the electronic white board can be used to advantage to view videos, podcasts, clips from Youtube as well as information bulletins from TV5Monde. During the last meeting articles from Le Monde were translated which included a report following the carnage at Nice on July 14th this year. To contrast this, the session ended by listening to a rendition of ‘La voix du silence’ , the original version being one of the most successful songs by Simon and Garfunkel, ‘The Sound of Silence’.

Gardening

Halle Stenhouse

The group is settling in to a pattern of visiting gardens both members gardens and gardens open to the public interspersed with some more informative sessions but as winter approaches we have a talk by one of our members and then a DVD on a gardening topic.

We have remained within Cumbria for our visits this year and visited gardens of enthusiasts. One visit was to a private garden where the owners had clearly purchased the house in order to develop the garden. Another was owned by a ‘Green’ fanatic with more done for wildlide than for the comfort of the owners. I am still concerned that we are looking too much and learning too little, should we try to change the mix or is everyone in the group content?

Elizabeth Barraclough German There always seems to be a lot of laughter during our meetings which proves that German isn't necessarily the dour subject it is sometimes made out to be! Members are working to improve their conversational skills, topics including holidays, favourite foods and hobbies. To encourage more familiarity with the flow of the language, we have been reading “Café in Berlin”together. It is a simple reader which follows the exploits of Dino, a young Sicilian living in Germany and trying to learn the language – we can sympathise with his difficulties! We have now progressed to the next book in the series “Ferien in Frankfurt”. Rôle play, covering situations one might encounter travelling in German speaking countries for example a visit to the doctor or booking accommodation, allowed some of the group to really express their inner Thespian (they know who they are!!). We have also read and translated German magazine articles, covering diverse subjects, from Munich's Oktoberfest via the current craze of colouringin books for adults - “Yoga mit Stiften” - to the German fascination with our own royal family. After a short break, meetings have restarted in the Council Chamber with several new members and we are looking forward to improving our German, learning more about the culture of Germany, Austria and Switzerland and having lots of fun - viel Spass – while doing so.

Alyson Lehninger

Group Reports Modern Greek Language With a language as difficult as Greek (alphabet, phonetics, syntax etc.) continuity is essential, otherwise what has been learned is soon lost. Although the group of six is totally committed to the language we have struggled during the summer months to find times when more than two or three of us have been able to meet. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties caused by endless other commitments, I have the feeling that we made the right decision and that everyone has benefited to some extent from the continuity. Even when I have not been available the members of the group have tried to keep up the momentum by meeting independently, and in this we have been greatly helped by the very willing participation of Yorgos Tsintas, to whom we are all very grateful.

Now that autumn is upon us and we have returned from distant places, and our summer visitors have finally departed, we hope to be able to resume our Wednesday morning meetings and once again establish a more regular rhythm of study. Should anyone who already has a rudimentary knowledge of Modern Greek wish to join us they would be most welcome. Our meetings are always convivial affairs and I have the impression they are generally looked forward to.

Doug Thomson

Skiddaw U3A Group Support Fund Expenditure to November 2016  Social cycling: Walkie Talkie  Circle Dancing: Ipod  Scrabble: Dictionary and Turntable  German: Magazine Subscription  Spanish: Online subscription

£ 74.50 £119.00 £ 71.95 £ 72.00 £ 43.09

NOTICEBOARD Do you have an item you want to sell or an event you want to promote? Just send the details to [email protected] and it will appear on our Noticeboard.

Christmas Fayre Underskiddaw Village Hall Saturday, November 26 Christmas Fayre for the whole family, 12-4pm at Underskiddaw Village Hall, Millbeck. Home produce and cakes, Christmas gifts, crafts and decorations, home made lunches and mulled wine, games and bottle tombola. Also on sale, the 2017 Underskiddaw Christmas Calendar.