December Newsletter from the Chairman

Tis the time for silly hats and jumpers.  Wherever you are this December ‘Happy Christmas’,’ Feliz Navidad’, ‘Joyeux Noel’,’ Frohe Weinachten’ and ‘Buon Natale’ to you all.  Whatever your language Christmas is pretty universal in Europe although children in Spain get to have two Christmases, one on the 25th December, and the other on January 6th with the 3 Kings Festival (Fiesta de Los Reyes). If they are lucky, they get two lots of presents!

Wherever you are I hope you have a wonderful time – like many of you we will be sharing Christmas with our family and grandchildren.

For many the dream is to have some snow before the 25th to make it a white Christmas.  That I cannot guarantee (but then neither can the professional weather forecasters!) but we did have a few flakes of snow falling on us at Limpsfield Chart on Thursday 30th November.  Perhaps that was an indicator of what is to come!  Certainly, if Winter berries are a clue there do seem to be many holly berries this year – the saying ‘a mass of holly berries a severe Winter foretells’.  We shall see!

In November, our speaker, Linda Reagan (Murphy) gave us an insight in life as an actress in both film and television.  Certainly, her dyslexia hasn’t prevented her in becoming a successful crime writer.

As you know we have no meeting this month following the block booking of the hall by the Pantomime Company. So our next meeting is next year in January.  Keeping up our theme of entertainment we have John Field giving us a talk on Tommy Cooper – “Just like that!”

This will be on Wednesday January 31st at Crockham Hill Hall starting at 2pm.  To make life easier for our membership secretary can you bring and show your membership card on the door.  It really does speed things up on the day. Currently our membership stands at just over 170.

One of our strengths in our u3a is the way our members wish to share their expertise and skills through the 50 plus groups we have running. Some of you are new members to u3a this year and we would love to hear that you are thinking of starting a new group.

One of my Christmas greetings at the start of this newsletter was in German.  A new group is starting up in Westerham u3a which is on German Conversation.  This is NOT a beginner’s group but for those of you who did German but have become a little ‘rusty’.  Chris has put details on our website and will be giving out more info at our January Meeting.

And finally, 2024 sees me standing down as Chairman after 8 years in the post.  We always welcome new members to join our committee and the post that we haven’t filled over the last 3 years is that of Vice Chairman.   That post could be yours – please give this some serious consideration.

Have a good Christmas, don’t eat too much, and put your feet up, stay safe and stay well! 

See you all next year – 2024 is a Leap Year!

Best wishes