February 2009 - Issue 001

I suggested a newsletter to keep everyone abreast of the progress of vU3A and my requests for an editor fell on deaf ears, so here's a brief digest of some facts and figures from the temporary editor who is ready to vacate the post to an enthusiast.

As a result of the decision to go public on the first of January without the benefit of a feature in Sources and/or U3A News, new members have only been joining in a trickle, but this has enabled us to clarify our routines.  We now anticipate receiving publicity in the April edition.

Our first 30 members include four Australians, two from Scotland, and one each from United Arab Emirates, New Zealand and South Africa.  Most members put down United Kingdom which hides those from Scotland and Northern Ireland and Wales. 

I attended a DU conference on the subject of increasing the percentage of retired men and women who could use a computer and the Internet. I'm told that 80% of the over 65's do not use online services, indeed more than 13 million adults do not use the Internet, of which there are 10 million who are regarded as digitally isolated, that is without a computer and who don't interact online, although they might live close to, or even have a connected computer in their home. For many, their isolation is self-chosen and not a result of poverty or lack of education. It's as much about motivation, right guidance, confidence, etc.   I explained that we are not yet in a position to give instruction to those new to computers but once they had acquired basic computer skills including access to the Internet we will be delighted to have them join vU3A. The view of those at the conference was that due to the variation in ability's, group instruction was not very effective and one-to-one instruction has given the greater success.  I reported that we are looking at applying the buddies application where we have one-to-one contact over any distance.

We are asked to consider what we can do on Silver Surfers Day; that is on the 15th of May. Any ideas or volunteers?

Many of the delegates were from libraries and I took the opportunity to give them one of our flyers to display by their public computer and of my printed stock of 50, only one was left.

One of the features of pbwiki (on which our group pages reside) is that members can receive email notifications of any edits or comments that occur. At the moment the number sent out can be overwhelming unless you go for the option where you only get a digest once a day. Paul Baron will shortly give a description of how you can tailor your notifications by using RSS while cancelling the emails. More on that soon. Activity on our wiki has been considerable for a modest number of participants, particularly on the digital photography groups, book reading, and the superstitions group, to name just three.

We are continuing to have a committee member available three evenings a week for a text discussion on anything at all but so far there have been no takers.  I promise that we do not bite.  Currently we are meeting on Chatzy (room number appears on our wiki frontpage top right) at 8 pm GMT on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, but if no one else turns up we will leave the room by 8.15.

In view of the delay in getting our publicity, might I encourage us all to recruit new members.

john@wariner.waitrose.com
on behalf of the committee