This Group meets every third Friday in the month (with the exception of June when the Art Trail use the room). We meet at 10.30am in the Lower Gallery at the Burnham Museum. The meetings last around 2 hours or a little more with a refreshment break after an hour. Attendance is between 20 and 30 members with occasional visitors BUT we are able to accommodate up to 50 at the current location. Our format is first an hour illustrated presentation on a related subject followed, after a refreshment break, by a thirty- minutes illustrated presentation on the subject ‘I Collect…’. We have a monthly £2 fee which covers tea, coffee and biscuits and pays for the hire of the room.

Whilst the group leaders tend to give the presentations, we encourage any member to give their take on presenting a subject. This has been successful with some members taking up the challenge, and having done it once, having another go! Presentations by members have included Stained Glass by Chagall and the History of Weaving. In preparation by a member at the moment is the Story of Silk. Involvement in this way helps us to meet the u3a objective of ‘Learn, Laugh, Live’ and has encouraged members ‘out of their comfort zone’ with amazing results. The Group Leaders will help where necessary with PowerPoint and slide preparation in the weeks before the presentation.

Our subjects are varied and recently as part of Art we have included Literature and now will be including music, with presentations on the lives of composers, musicians etc.

Past subjects for the main presentation we have covered painting, studio pottery and architecture with subjects including Clarice Cliff; Gerard Hoffnung; Gertrude Jekyll; Joseph Emberton; Bernard Leach and Sir Edwin Lutyens as well as Liberty of London and A-Z of Art. There have been many more. As regards ‘I Collect…’ we have looked at subjects such as Dartington Glass; Stainless Steel Jewellery; Enamel Jewellery; Christmas; Roger Cockram (Studio Pottery) and Chinese Snuff Bottles plus many more varied collections. The main presentation for the September meeting is titled: “The Tale of Mrs. William Heelis, author, artist, nature lover – Better known as Beatrix Potter” and this will be followed by ‘I Collect…Mystery Objects!’

We always make new or prospective new members welcome and prior to our meetings send everybody on our mailing list a reminder email detailing content of the meeting.

If you want to come along, please do, especially if you have a specialist subject that you would be able to talk about; if you haven’t – then come along anyway.