Ideas to Keep Learning - 5
Continuing our series which shares great ideas and the latest ideas and suggestions to help you keep active, keep connected and keep learning.
Set up a schedule
The schedule could include fitness, usual U3A groups’ meetings on-line, necessary trips to shops (following guidelines on social distancing), gardening, knitting and keeping a diary. Please share any diary thoughts you have with National Office via the U3A Diary project email:
Create a fabric statement
Ask your group members to produce a small piece of either sewing or painting then put them together when this is over to express "How we dealt with the Coronavirus" for your U3A. Barnet U3A upcycling group have started this and will soon have a photo to share with us – check back soon. · The Crawley U3A Singing For Fun group, are still singing but putting together songs from YouTube & Spotify for members, who all have lyric books, & adding a few for those they don’t have lyrics for. It’s amazing how many songs most members know by heart!
Painting is one of the best things that you can do at the moment
Five hours can seem like five minutes, and the concentration can bring results that you could never dream of. The laughter, smiling and correcting mistakes can bring feelings of satisfaction as well as looking at the completed piece thinking “Did I really do that?”.
Maintaining language skills
Keeping in touch with each other is important so that, at the end of all this, people don’t feel that they have forgotten what they’ve learnt. Our languages subject adviser, Sylvia Duffy, has added some useful hints and tips to the languages subject adviser page to support French groups at this time.
How other U3As are doing it
Newquay U3A has set up a blog as a way for interest groups to remain engaged remotely. Read about it on our blog Sources online
Newquay has also started a virtual nature quiz on their website: https://newquayu3a390904652.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/nature-quiz/
Tony Kaye, Harrow U3A, has found a way to keep his Musical Comparison group through his blog, sharing the music privately and then collating members responses. Read more about how he's doing it here, https://sources.u3a.org.uk/2020/03/20/classical-music-comparison-group/… Do you have a musical group? How are you keeping it going?
Bailgate U3A are planning an exhibition for when they are able to meet again. They have asked as many members as possible to bring along something that represents their time social distancing. It could be powerful and will certainly be interesting.
U3A Dronfield and District Art Appreciation Group has an active email system of communication as meetings can no longer take place. They choose a weekly subject of an artist starting with the letter ‘A’ for week number one. Each week will be another artist following the letters of the alphabet. Here’s hoping that social distancing is all over by the time they would have reached the letter’ Z
Board games
Playing board games such as Scrabble and Cluedo can be great when you can’t leave the house. Why not share them with other members over videoconferencing? Put your phone on Facetime while you’re playing and it’s almost as good as being in the same room.
Play table tennis, even without a table
Believe it or not, it is quite practical to practice at home without having a table by using what is known as ‘dummy’ strokes. Follow our tennis subject advisers’ s instructions and watch a useful video on the subject advice website page.