By Brian Platts (Southwell u3a Chair, 2021–2024)
Recruitment & Reaching New Milestones
We became one of the so-called "Pathfinder" u3as in a national recruitment initiative, starting our own Recruitment and Retention group, which was shortly followed by a separate Publicity group. We held stalls and open days on the Market Square to showcase our activities, and we stood in the doorway of the Southwell Co-op, bothering shoppers!
By 2023, we reached the magic number of 800 members—a milestone we had flirted with pre-Covid but never quite achieved. Rosie Barnes of Upton was duly celebrated as our 800th member, and I was invited to give an interview about the u3a on BBC Radio Nottingham off the back of an article of ours published in the Newark Advertiser.
As you'll no doubt know, our membership has continued to grow since that time, and on our current trajectory, we will soon reach 1,000 members. We do sometimes wonder whether we can have too many members; however, for the time being at least, the advantages of higher numbers—supporting more interest groups, creating more social activities, achieving economies of scale, and keeping subscription prices down—still far outweigh any possible disadvantages.
Innovating with Short Courses & Workshops
I am also very pleased that we have continued to run an annual programme of short courses and workshops over the past four years. On a visit to see our children in Australia, I visited Canberra u3a (which boasts 4,000 members in a city just shy of 500,000 people!) and was intrigued to see that they didn't have many regular interest groups, but instead ran large numbers of short courses.
We already ran some ad-hoc workshops, but combining such workshops with short courses on everything from smartphones to solar heating, and plumbing to philosophy, seems to have proved very popular with our members.
A Heartfelt Thank You & A Call to Action
Like every other Chair, I must pay great tribute to the many committee members, Group Leaders, and other officeholders who supported me in my three years as Chair and who continue to keep the u3a show on the road. It really is a case of "By the members, for the members."
"I wouldn't underestimate the time and effort that is sometimes needed, but I personally got a lot in return from my time as Chair. My advice to any of you who might be thinking about possibly becoming a Group Leader, joining the Committee, or even becoming Chair is—just go for it!"