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2013

Thank you for your interest in the Totton University of the Third Age group. We meet on the second Wednesday afternoon of the month from 1.45-4pm at the Eling Masonic Hall, Lexby Road, Totton, SO40 9HD. Generally at each monthly meeting we have a speaker and members are brought up to date with group activities and can opt in to activities/new groups. We currently have groups for Walking, Theatre, Bird Watching, Lunch Club, Genealogy, French, Italian, Book Appreciation,  History, Craft, Singing, Art, Philosophy and Wine Tasting. Annual Membership/joining fee is £12. Extra costs would be for refreshments and any costs incurred from the activity eg theatre tickets. Members are encouraged to think about hosting an interest group in their home and sharing any skill or hobby they have with other members.It is a very friendly group and membership is growing all the time. Visitors can come along for two monthly meetings paying £2 per entrance fee before deciding if they wish to join.If you would like any more information, contact the Secretary, Ann 02380 867417or Sue via suelivelybird@talktalk.net We look forward to meeting you.

January Meeting

Mike Mockler

For over 30 years, Mike has travelled the world in a quest for unforgettable encounters with wildlife and stunning photographs of the natural world. And, for more than a quarter of a century, he has shared his passion for wildlife with others through his photography, writing, lecturing and, most notably, his tour-leading and safari-guiding. Today Mike showed us images from his recent tour of Canada and South America.

February Meeting

Nick Thomas

Scripts for comedians

Good talk to a full meeting Nick has written humour for broadcast, publication and live performance since 1982. His credits include 23 series of BBC Radio 2's News Huddlines and 8 years for BBC Radio 4's Week Ending. His highly-praised speechwriting and radio presenters' show prep services have been running since 1994. Further writing successes include a BBC Radio 2 music documentary, fringe theatre (London, Brighton and Edinburgh), scripts for live performers of all kinds, corporate video, PR for small businesses, and a regular column in the Radio Magazine plus many other magazines and newspapers.

March Meeting

Mike Read

The Robin or Barn Owl

The Barn Owl – Under the Cloak of Darkness

The hall was full to hear Mike's talk.The Barn Owl is one of Britain’s most popular birds.  For 18 months, Mike joined nature’s night shift and the resulting presentation shows a world we rarely glimpse.  Based around this beautiful bird, it also features other UK owls and various other nocturnal creatures.  The unique photos and Mike’s observations gave us a new insight into this magical world.

April Meeting

A.G.M.

Janet Mason

Memories of a Victorian Childhood
and WW 1 in verse

Members voted for all the committee and Officers and John thanked all those who worked throughout the year to make Totton U3A a success. Janet Mason gave an interesting talk about her father's scribblings as she called them but these were as good as many a credited poet and the poems of his first world experience brought to mind the horror of warfare.

May Meeting

Army Presentation 

The Army for Today

Three officers attended our meeting one of them a woman with three postings to Afghanistan defusing home made explosive devices – a very brave woman. She stood one side of the slide screen, the other officer took up the post opposite and between them described the role of today's modern army.  

June Meeting

Rev Timbrell
Discovering Dorset

A very good speaker who kept us entertained He lived and held ministerial posts in Lancashire for 17 years before moving to Poole 15 years ago. One of his best anecdotes concerned his early life as a curate when he found that he could earn £40 for digging a grave at the local cemetery and filling it after the burial ceremony. As £40 was a princely sum to an impoverished curate he took up the challenge. On his first job he spent the whole day digging a hole 7ft 6 ins. deep only to be told that it was 6 inches too short for the proposed coffin. He then spent more hours enlarging the hole which he completed at 2 o’clock in the morning. By then it was raining and he found himself at the bottom of the grave, cold and wet. On attempting to climb out he broke the shovel and after many unsuccessful attempts he finally emerged from the grave.

July Meeting

Trevor Sapley

Mary Rose

The speaker was entertaining from the start appearing in costume from the Tudor  times when Henry VIII ruled the land and sea. The Mary Rose was built at Portsmouth between 1509 and 1511. Named for Henry VIII's favourite sister, Mary Tudor, later queen of France, the ship was part of a large build-up of naval force by the new king in the years between 1510 and 1515. Warships, and the cannon they carried, were the ultimate status symbol of the 16th century, and an opportunity to show off the wealth and power of the king abroad.

August Meeting

No Speaker

Cream tea

September Meeting

Last minute cancellation through ill health. The replacement speaker was Andrew
Reid  a respiratory research volunteer specialist for COPD.  Helping people breathe more easily by better management of asthma and chronic lung conditions. The research nurse and a scientist were also in attendance. A photographer took hundreds of photos for their own website.  http://www.uhs.nhs.uk/ClinicalResearchinSouthampton/Trials-and-facilities/Get-involved.aspx

October Meeting

Geoff Watts

Sarah Siddons

Geoff has researched Sarah's life with great zeal and with reason she seems a remarkable actress "Wonderful stories are told of her powers over the spectators. Macready relates that when she played Aphasia in Tamburlaine, after seeing her lover strangled before her eyes, so terrible was her agony as she fell lifeless upon the stage, that the audience believed she was really dead, and only the assurance of the manager could pacify them. One night Charles Young was playing Beverly to her Mrs. Beverly in The Gamester, and in the great scene was so overwhelmed by her pathos that he could not speak. Unto the last she received the homage of the great; even the Duke of Wellington attended her receptions, and carriages were drawn up before her door nearly all day long."

On the night of May 2, 1797, Sarah Siddons's character of Agnes in Lillo's Fatal Curiosity suggested murder with "an expression in her face that made the flesh of the spectator creep." In the audience was Crabb Robinson, whose respiration grew difficult. Robinson went into a fit of hysterics and was nearly ejected from the theatre

November Meeting

Gerald Ponting

Shakespeare's 

Fantastic Gardens/Garlands

A rose by any other name, gilding the lily, the primrose path – these flowery Shakespearean phrases have entered the language. Around 180 kinds of flowers, fruits, trees and other plants are mentioned, some of them many times, in the plays. Twenty-nine scenes were set in gardens.

William Shakespeare clearly had a great interest in flowers and plants and mentioned them to set a scene or to identify the season – or for less obvious reasons. In some cases, associations obvious to Elizabethan audiences are less clear today. Who would realise that roasted crabs meant crab-apples rather than shellfish?

December Meeting

The "Young" ones
Ukulele band
Entertaining Young Once ukulele ensemble enjoyed by all of us with audience participation in the singing familiar Christmas songs. Tea and mince pies once again to celebrate the occasion. £80 of prizes went in the draw to raise £126.