Newsletter Registered Charity No: 515733 November 2019 Tynedale Learn, laugh and live. Meet people, learn new skills and have fun. Monthly Meeting: November 5th 2019 Peter Regan: Charles 2nd, Earl Grey and the Reform Bill eter Regan spent over 20 years working for the Open P University. Since retirement, he has acted as a WEA tutor and as a Newcastle City Guide, a guide to Northumberland churches and has spent 10 years working as a guide and gardener in the arboretum at Howick Hall. He lives in Warkworth and has a healthy obsession with trees. We meet at 2.00pm in the Great Hall for registration and tea/coffee, followed by announcements at 2.15pm and the talk at 2.30pm. At the AGM on March 3rd, two members of your committee will be finishing their three year term of office so we are looking for new members to fill these vacancies. Might you be interested? Tynedale U3A Business Secretary I am coming to the end of a very enjoyable three years serving you as Business Secretary on the committee. The role, in brief, involves dealing with correspondence - both postal mail and emails, preparing the agenda for the monthly committee meeting, taking minutes at the committee meeting and then typing up and circulating the minutes by email. All you need to qualify for the position is a knowledge of Word processing, the Internet and good organisational skills. If you would like any further information you can contact me on 674896, or have a chat at one of the monthly meetings. Sally Pearson, Business Secretary Tynedale U3A Newsletter Editor I have thoroughly enjoyed producing the monthly newsletter for the last three years but I feel it is time to let someone else have go. The role isn’t overly taxing as long as you are fairly organised and you would be able to put your own mark on the design and layout of the publication. Items for inclusion are usually emailed to the editor so confidence using Information Technology would be useful. I produce the newsletter using Microsoft Publisher, but any desktop publication programme could be used. As well as the digital version on our web site, we also produce some printed copies for those members who are unable to access the Internet. For more information, you can contact me using the details on page 8 of this newsletter or speak to me at the monthly meeting. Sue Charlton, Newsletter Editor https://u3asites.org.uk/tynedale 1 Geology Group In October, the group concluded their season of field trips with a visit to Scotland, which entailed an overnight stay; Sue and John Loader and Colin Gallagher having earlier in the year done a considerable amount of research and travelling to plan the visit. Our base at Marshall Meadows Country House Hotel was a good choice, with excellent accommodation and food and easy access to the geology at Pease Bay, St Abbs Head, Eyemouth, and Burnmoor. 15 hardy souls gathered at Pease Bay Devonian Sandstones in Pease Bay on a damp morning and paddled along the beach to view Devonian Sandstone (deposited some 400 million years ago) with evidence of flash flooding and early microbial life in the rock. Then on to St Abbs Head where the group split to undertake one of the several options prepared by the organisers. Depending on the option chosen, there was a wide variety of geology to examine including Andesite, Basalt lava and Tuff, a Dolerite Dyke, Agglomerate, Faults and Greywacke, all The group at St Abbs Head of interest to the group but perhaps hard going for you the reader. Dinner that evening was a very enjoyable, social affair with conversation occasionally diverting from geology to more mundane matters such as Brexit! The following morning saw an early start for visits to Eyemouth and Burnmoor (not forgetting lunch at Eyemouth Golf Club) to view more igneous rocks, a volcanic vent and Devonian Sandstone lying Dinner at Marshall Meadows unconformably on volcanic rocks. Finally, in the afternoon, the sun appeared to welcome us back to England after a most interesting and Eyemouth worthwhile visit. Our thanks are due to the organisers for all their considerable efforts and time spent in arranging the visit, also to Steve Rozario who was extremely patient in helping us to identify what we were looking for. John DeStefano Another contribution from our successful Limerick and Poetry competition held at last year’s AGM. He now knew his habeas corpus There once was an old Latin scholar Was different from a rigor mortis Who got all hot under the collar His own alter ego He knew amo, amas, amat Could say ecce homo Used to go something like that veni, vidi, vici and quo vadis Then he wondered why he should bother He was determined that nothing should stop him So he joined his own U3A Now he had mastered laborious Latin And soon learned to swing and to sway So he took up Geology Conjugating and declining French, Spanish, Astrology Verbs and nouns all abiding A portfolio of U3A learning With the rules he had crammed yesterday Janet Sole https://u3asites.org.uk/tynedale 2 Group News Thank you Our thanks to two of our recently “retired” Group Convenors; Gillian and Christine, from the Food group and the Garden Visits group respectively. We greatly appreciate all that they have done to enable these groups to function for our benefit. The Garden Visits group is currently bedding down for the winter but we plan to re-activate it for next spring. Photography Group Now approaching its first anniversary, the Photography group meets monthly to review images and exchange information on composition, camera use and digital editing. Recent projects include landscape and abstract photography, monochrome images and close-up work. We welcome both new and experienced photographers. If you are interested in joining our friendly, supportive group, please contact the group co- ordinator: Bill, on 01434 608170 or email [email protected]. The group meets on the second Tuesday of each month from 2 to 3.30 pm in the Curlew Room at the Northumberland National Park HQ in Hexham. Scots Gaelic I am delighted to tell you that we have a new group, The Scots Gaelic group. This is a group for beginners of Scots Gaelic. Learning will be via online tuition and group meetings. The group meets alternate Wednesdays, 11.00am - 12.00pm, in Riding Mill. Our thanks to the group Convenor, Penny, for taking up this role. If you are interested in joining this group please get in touch with Penny by email at [email protected] or tel 01434 682939 He who hesitates … … misses an interesting discussion. The Theology group is now firmly established. Just last week their discussion was centred around the question “Is God Green”. You might have missed that discussion but this group is brimming with new ideas and ways of examining our thoughts and attitudes to religion, in the widest sense, and how it fits in our life today. If you are interested in joining this group please talk with Pauline, email: [email protected] tel 01434 605857 The Games People Play Have you got a reasonable memory, and are you good at observation, tactics, adaptive strategies? Sounds a bit like a CV for a career in politics! But we have a much better idea. Although we have an established Mahjong group with experienced players, we are looking for members who would like to learn to play Mahjong. Mahjong is a tile- based game developed in China in the early 20th century during the Qing dynasty. It’s a game of skill, strategy, calculation and a degree of chance, and probably addictive. It’s commonly played with four players. Please get in touch if you are interested in joining this new group. Blue Remembered Hills We have just opened Tynedale U3A’s 60th group: Blue Remembered Hills. This is a group for ex mountaineers, hill walkers and rock climbers etc. They will hold their first meeting on Wednesday 20th November at 7pm in the Heart of England pub, Market Street, Hexham. New members will be very welcome. Our thanks to John for taking up the convenor role. For more information, contact John by email: [email protected] tel 01434 602584. Cont. on page 4 https://u3asites.org.uk/tynedale 3 Cont. from page 3 Have you a well trained nose? Have you heard the term “forms legs” or “tears” or “smells like a sweaty saddle or a musty old attic”? Can you identify the fruits, flowers and herbs in your glass? These are wine related questions. There is a lot more to know about wine than it’s just pleasant, or sometimes not so pleasant, liquid in a glass. It’s a fascinating subject and it would be so good to be able to select our wines confidently. So we would like to start our second Wine Appreciation group. You don’t have to have a well trained nose to start, although we do know that one of our members does have and is professionally well qualified in this field so he may help us out. Please do get in touch if you are interested in joining this new group, we would like to get started soon. Art Appreciation There is room in Art Appreciation 1 for a few more members. Meetings are on alternate Mondays, 10.30 am - 12.00pm in the Abbey meeting rooms. The group has an interesting programme studying women in art. The programme includes artists from the 14th to 20th century with painters, sculpture, cinema, photography, fashion design e.g Sophonisba Angiussola to Georgia O’Keefe, Rose Bertain to Coco Chanel, Kathryn Bigelow to Yoko Ono.