Poynton News
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Poynton News poyntonu3a.org.uk Issue 31 Spring 2020 AGM Resolution – The Background Short Walks Organiser – Needed Urgently For the beginning of its first year the Poynton U3A Joan is reluctantly stepping down from organising the committee determined that the membership fee short walks at the end of this session, so we are should be £10 per annum. This has continued and looking for volunteers to lead the walks, and a person remains the same in our 10th year of operation. But who would take over as organiser. The organiser we are now aware that this is unlikely to continue very liaises with the walk leaders to establish a programme much longer. You will have seen from the report for of walks for the year, using the walks already this year’s AGM that from that figure of £10 we pay established, with variations, plus a few new ones. £3.50 to The U3A Trust. This provides us with the Walks are normally about 2 to 3 miles long and take essential membership which makes us part of the about 1 to 1.5 hours. A rota is drawn up with all walk national U3A movement as a charity. It also covers leaders including the organiser taking their share of insurance for all U3A members while they are leading a walk. Poynton Post is emailed asking them to engaged in U3A activities. You will also have seen that include the month's walks in their next edition. The we pay an additional amount of £1 per member for idea would be that the more volunteers there are to use of the Beacon record system which we have lead walks, the less each person has to do. The format adopted (as have at least 400 other U3A’s) since it is not set in stone, and could be changed to suit the provides a firm base for our membership records and needs of the group. Unfortunately, if no organiser or our contractual requirements under the new data walk leaders are found, then the group will have to protection legislation. And so we are left with £5.50 finish. It would be preferable for Joan to show the for financing our various activities for members in ropes to any potential volunteers over the next few Poynton. While it has become a bit more difficult to months, so if anyone is interested, or would like to operate within this figure, we have still managed know more, please come and see me at a General through “good housekeeping”. Meeting, or you can send an email to [email protected]. Alternatively, you can However, we are now aware that the U3A Trust will contact Joan Stepto. have a motion at its AGM in August of this year concerning the £3.50 per capita payment. At the Sandra Batchelor - Groups Coordinator moment we don’t know what proposal is likely to be Meanwhile our Walking Group (pictured below) strides put to that AGM or when it will come into operation. on. See Page 12 for views of their latest jaunt. But I think we can be sure that it will mean an increase. It is for this reason that Poynton U3A’s Committee is putting a resolution to our AGM in March to give it authority to change the local payment figure on the assumption that it will be essential to do so because of the increase in the per capita payment to The U3A Trust. It seems probable that we might have to do this for 2021. David Sewart Page 1 Registered Charity 1147261 Committee News Chairman’s Remarks the train to start you often heard the regular metallic sound as wheeltappers with their long-handled For two of our committee members our AGM on 17 hammers struck the wheels and listened to the sound March is their final meeting. Both by then will be from their hammers to determine their integrity. rounding off contributions of two consecutive three- Cracked wheels, like cracked bells, don’t ring true and year periods under our new constitution. the whole safety of the train rested on these men who Lynda Green, as our Events Organiser has, more than were heard but hardly ever seen. Anne and Lynda anyone else, showcased Poynton U3A in our area, have carried out such roles for us. They have been making sure that we had representation and presence regular providers of feedback on the integrity of our at the wide range of local meetings, most of which operation. And our committee, especially our arise from the calendar of events which our Town chairman, will greatly miss their reports and Council publicise. Throughout her period of office she comments. Our thanks to them for their contribution has quite literally set up our stall and become the face to our organisation. of Poynton U3A for us. But perhaps her greatest David Sewart contribution for our members has been to our annual Christmas parties, designing the seating plan, ordering refreshments and providing tablecloths and table Diary Dates decorations. Successful Christmas parties don’t just Monthly General Meetings materialise by the waving of a magic wand. They are 3rd Tuesday in month at 2.00pm - Poynton Civic Hall the result of careful and extensive planning. But no (Doors Open at 1.30pm) amount of planning can cover every eventuality. And st it will usually be Lynda who comes to the rescue on April 21 Victor Crawford - North West Air these occasions. Someone who has spent their life Ambulance delivering babies, on one occasion on a boat on our May 19th John Taylor - B.Sc. Herbal Medicine canal, with all the complexities and possibilities - ‘Herbs for Health’ including the associated with that activity, is not at all likely to be treatment of colds, flu and fazed by anything that seems to be going wrong in a osteoarthritis Christmas party! June 16th Paula Rabone - My time in the Just like Lynda, Anne Wynn, who also has a nursing Crown Court background, has filled a vital role while remaining for st the most part in the background. Anne has been our July 21 Dave Joy - Liverpool Cow Keepers - official “Welcomer”, meeting with those just joining ‘A Family History’ us, making sure that those who come along as new members have a background to our U3A activities and following up on specific requests for information and Thanks to everybody who has contributed to the advice. She above all others on the committee is the current newsletter. If you would like to submit person who has had by far and away the most articles or photographs for a future newsletter, individual contacts with our members and for many please email your contribution to years she ran coffee mornings in Wetherspoons for [email protected] or give it to a them. A significant number of Third Agers in Poynton member of the Newsletter Group. The next copy are members of our U3A. Often they say hello to me date for the Poynton U3A Newsletter is June 8th 2020. when I’m walking around Poynton. They recognise me Message to all Group Organisers: When you email because I say a few things at the beginning of our your group members about arrangements, please General Meetings but I don’t always recognise them send a copy to [email protected] so outside the meetings. The reverse is true for Anne. that we can keep the website up to date. Thank you. It’s not that most people know her, rather it’s that she knows most people. When I was a boy my family didn’t have a car so our holidays always began with a train and in those days it was a huge locomotive. Those were the days of steam and at large railway stations as you were waiting for Page 2 Registered Charity 1147261 Members’ Corner Journeys through Time and Mind What’s in a Name? Why do we reach the stage when we find it hard to Whilst taking a U3A short walk along the Poynton remember names and faces of people we know so Canal we were in conversation with a fellow walker well, and see often? We suffer the cringe-making, who commented on the amount of narrow boats seemingly endless seconds when we begin to lining the route. She has become quite fascinated by introduce one familiar person to another, equally the names of the boats and wondered how and why familiar, and we flounder as the mind goes blank. they had been chosen Some people use word association tricks to As we are owners of such a boat, we were able to tell remember names; not something which I find works her how we came to call our narrow boat 'Parys' for me. It leaves me so busy thinking about the (pronounced 'Par ace'). This is our story. crucial words until I have long lost the thread of any kick-start which might work. Whilst working in South Africa, Sandra and I took a holiday break into the Drakensberg Mountains, in the The flip-side of this coin is having very distinct Transvaal. We came across the lovely, but wild, memories of faces, and sometimes the names, of folk freshwater nature reserve by the name of Parys. A who briefly crossed my path many moons ago. wonderful time was spent on the reserve where we Trixie, who sat next to me in 1974 on a flight to New hired a rowing boat and toured around the islands York, and who never seemed to stop talking for the and amongst the wild life that lived there.