Winter Lunch postponed to 17 September

William Angliss Institute has advised that recent lockdowns have meant that trainee chefs have lost too much time and so will not be able to deliver the promised Winter Lunch on 27 August. The institute has offered us the alternative date of Friday, 17 September for this lunch. Apart from the change of date all arrangements, including time, table allocations and entertainment, are unchanged.

We hope that all registered members will be able to accommodate this change. If so, there is no requirement to register again. If you have registered for 27 August but are not able to attend on 17 September you may choose to move to the Spring lunch set for 30 September (see details below). If you wish to move to the Spring Lunch or have other questions concerning this deferment, please contact the office at citymelb@u3a.org.au.

We very much regret this disruption and ask for your understanding.

Spring Lunch bookings

Thursday, 30 September, 12:30-3:00 pm
William Angliss Restaurant, 555 La Trobe Street, Melbourne

As noted earlier, we will be holding a Spring Lunch on Thursday, 30 September. As per the Winter Lunch, the Spring Lunch will cost $35, which includes a three-course meal, a drink on arrival, door prizes and musical entertainment. Tables take up to eight people.

When registering, members should indicate on the Trybooking system their interest in sitting on a certain table (e.g., Let's Do Movies Friday).

Bookings may ONLY be made online through Trybooking (www.trybooking.com/BTGWK).

Bookings open from Friday, 20 August, at 10 am and NOT before.

The U3A office will not be taking bookings.
Download the flyer for your fridge!

Forthcoming Forums and webinars

Enrol now through the MyU3A Portal (see below). Note that enrolments for webinars and Forums now close at midnight the day before the event.

The Forum is back!

Saving the ABC

A forum presented by Dr. Lorraine Harrison
Thursday, 21 October, 3:30 pm
Performance Centre, Library at the Dock, 107 Victoria Harbour Promenade, Docklands (trams 11 and 48)

The ABC has never been under such serious attack as it is currently: significant funding cuts, major staff and program losses and a concerted push by vested interests to privatise it. Dr Harrison will overview the campaign of ABC Friends to counter this assault and ensure that Australia has a well-funded, independent public broadcaster. She will outline the critical importance of our national broadcaster and its role in our democracy.

Lorraine is a member of Friends of the ABC Victoria and a co-convenor of the Inner West ABC Friends local group. She has been a social worker for over thirty years and is passionate about contributing to the sustainability and the very survival of our national broadcaster.

The Forum will be followed by drinks and savouries.

Webinars

Justin Art House Museum: Naoshima Art Island, Japan

Thursday, 19 August, 2.30 pm

Presenters: Charles and Leah Justin

Join Charles and Leah Justin who have been collecting art for over 40 years. They share this collection through their house museum experience in Melbourne. They are avid travellers who will share their experience of visiting Naoshima Art Island in Japan.

Art in a Frame 2

Thursday, 14 October, 2.30 pm

Presenter: National Portrait Gallery Canberra staff

This is our second virtual visit to the National Portrait Gallery, coming during History Month. So this program will explore portraits of people who have influenced Australia's development and history.

Enrolment information

There is no cap on the number of webinar participants, but places for Forums will vary depending on venue capacity and COVID restrictions. To enrol:

• log into MyU3A and search for "Forums/Webinars/Events" via the Classes 2021 list; or
• send an email to the office on citymelb@u3a.org.au; or
• leave a voicemail on 9639 5209.

Prior to the webinar each enrolled member will receive details of how to participate.

Note: Enrolments for webinars and Forums close at midnight the day before the event.

For further information, contact the office on citymelb@u3a.org.au.

Spotlight on our volunteers: Janet Strachan

Fortunate are those U3A members who, in the midst of tedious lockdown number 6, are transported every Thursday afternoon via Zoom to the drama of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, translated by poet Seamus Heaney and complete with heroes and villains who bear little relation to those of current times. If only COVID were as easy to slay as the monster Grendel!

This short course is just the latest of many delivered by Janet Strachan over the years: T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, WWI Poetry, and Hamlet on Stage and Screen are just some of the delights enjoyed in happier times. It's great to see Janet back after a couple of very difficult years for her: first she lost Michael, her husband of over fifty years, and then almost immediately was herself diagnosed with cancer and has spent the past year undergoing treatment.

Janet was born in Taliesin, a village in west Wales, and trained as a primary school teacher, leaving the confines of her village for a job in London where she would teach the English how to read and write! A tough ask as her class contained over forty children of many different (sometimes warring) nationalities. After a couple of years she sought respite and adventure as an au pair in Rome. It was there she met Michael but wasn't immediately smitten: she wrote to her parents that she had met an "Australian hobo" travelling round the world. However, when he later turned up in London and they met in Piccadilly Circus, Eros worked his magic and romance blossomed. They married six months later and, a year after that, boarded the Fairstar bound for Melbourne where she received a warm welcome from Michael's family.

After having a daughter and a son, Janet took an Arts degree at Monash Uni and subsequently spent twenty-six years teaching History and English at Haileybury School. The family went back to Wales on holiday many times to see family and for Janet to introduce her children to the landscape of her childhood: the estuary of the Dovey and "the blue remembered hills" of Cader Idris beyond, in winter white with snow.

A Welsh speaker, she holds her Welshness close, always singing for Wales when they play rugby, but barracking for Australia in the cricket, especially when they play England for the Ashes. Now the estuary of the Yarra has replaced the Dovey, and the landscape on view from her Docklands flat is an urban one. Her children and four grandchildren all live in Melbourne and Janet shares her home with Nessie, a small Cairn Terrier who has no blue hills to remember and is content with her city walks.

Thank you Janet for your amazing resilience and your wonderful introductions to great literature, especially at this time when we all need an escape from the present. Your students are looking forward to seeing you face to face for a celebration as soon as circumstances permit. And if members are looking for a novel to help them through continuing isolation, Janet recommends Francis Spufford's Light Perpetual, described as a "sweeping and intimate celebration of the gift of life".

Merilyn Harris

Victorian Seniors Festival Reimagined

The Victorian Seniors Festival for 2021 has been reimagined to go online for this continuing COVID year. Download the program brochure for details of the events. One of these includes a series of monologues by our very own U3A MC Script Writing Group (see the news item in the ebulletin of 21 July).

You can also find out about the latest developments at: https://www.seniorsonline.vic.gov.au/2021-victorian-seniors-festival-reimagined