Issue number one hundred and forty (August 2012) in a series of Signposts from the WorldU3A Service, sent once a month to U3A members anywhere in the world.

Feel free to copy any or all of this information in your newsletters.
 Please send snippets of possible interest to the editor, Tom Holloway.

Please welcome our new WorldU3A Steering Group coordinator, Dianne Delchau. "Originally a teacher, I joined U3A Sunshine Coast, in 1997 and by 2000 was Class Administrator then eventually Vice President. and was involved with the organisation of the U3ASC conference and the development of a 5 year Strategic Plan.

In April 2006 Rick Swindell and Tom Holloway came to U3ASC, for a seminar on the Timewitnesses project. Rick convinced me to join U3A Online and by the end of that year I was the Administrator. The following year I added President to my roles, a responsibility I relish given the new opportunities that Skype and Flashmeeting offer".


2009 saw remarkable and highly significant changes taking place in the University of the Third Age movement in Australia. Recent years had seen the formation and growth of State networks of rapidly expanding U3A groups, and then a first meeting of the Presidents of the NSW, Victorian and ACT Networks together with U3A Online took place in Orange, in conjunction with the NSW U3A Network conference in March 2009, to establish U3A Alliance Australia (U3AAA). Since that time the Alliance of U3As in South Australia, the Queensland U3A Network and the U3A UWA – representing Western Australia – have joined U3AAA the U3A Alliance Australia.

Our picture shows Jim Hales(Qld), Peter Flanigan(WA), Rhonda Weston(Qld), Diane Delchau(Online), Elsie Mutton(Vic), and Allan Haggarty(NSW). WorldU3A service extends hearty congratulations to all those concerned and to Lindsay Glen, the U3AAA Chairman.

Music Groups: The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE) is custodian of the Alan Lomax Archive, a priceless collection of recorded music, dance, and the spoken word. Our mission is to facilitate cultural equity. We preserve, publish, repatriate and freely disseminate our collections.

ACE practices cultural feedback by disseminating thousands of recordings, photos and videos through educational partners, free online resources and partners, and publishing partners; by repatriating artists’ rights and royalties to their estates and families; and by repatriating recordings, film, photos, with our comprehensive notes and data, to those communities.

Sci-Tech Groups: In this excellent journal many of the most important research reports (e.g. nature nanotechnology) require registration and payment; however, the abstracts usually provide enough information for a good overview of the subject.

Underlining the importance of this fast-growing area of the world, NATURE now has a separate website to announce research results and news for Asia and the Pacific rim countries.

See also the website of the U3A Asia Pacific Alliance.

Design and Architecture Groups: There is still time for you to vote in the annual Carbuncle Cup run by the Building Design website. There are six entries in the current list of ghastly buildings, and you can browse through them and choose which in your opinion is the Most Awful. (FYI the editor really found it difficult to choose between that twisted horror 'the ArcelorMittal Orbit' and the equally ghastly Cutty Sark On A Bottle).

Greg Mankiw is a Professor and Chairman of Harvard's Economics Department. His graph showing 'Life Expectancy at Retirement' is worth studying, although at this stage most of us will not be able to take advantage of the information.

For something a bit closer to home, however, Londoners (and others in the UK) might find the map at http://life.mappinglondon.co.uk/ very interesting.

The first results from the UK's 2011 Census became available on 16th of July 2012. Census statistics provide a detailed snapshot of the population and its characteristics, and underpin funding allocation to provide public services.

The estimated population of England and Wales is 56,075,900. This first release of 2011 Census data provides household estimates, and population estimates by age and sex, for England and Wales and local authorities. Out of the wealth of interesting information available on this website, the section at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/browse-by-theme is very useful and the diagrammatic comparison with the 1911 Census results showing the effects of two world wars at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/interactive/vp1-story-of-the-census is particularly revealing.


Here are some GEMS from U3A Online Rick Swindell's newsletter, but they surely merit a wider audience. They can be found online at https://sites.google.com/site/u3aonlinegems/home

Thanks Gizmos Best Freeware for the following 4 GEMs

How to Know If Your Computer Is Infected http://tinyurl.com/cpjz58h

Free, Strong, Effortless Security For Your Internet Usage. All your web access goes through
Spotflux servers to screen out the bad stuff before reaching your computer.
http://tinyurl.com/d28oag8

Copying many files from your computer to (say) a USB can be a lengthy process. Here’s a
handy tip to greatly speed the process. http://tinyurl.com/cq248m7

How to be Safer and Speed Up Your Surfing with this New Security Feature in the Firefox
and Chrome Browsers http://tinyurl.com/d58such

Thanks Bob Rankin for the following 4 GEMs

Seven Tips for Savvy Online Shopping http://tinyurl.com/c6yf7v9

Five Cool Things You Can Do With Skype http://tinyurl.com/choofxl

What's Hiding On Your Hard Drive? http://tinyurl.com/bos5ops

AVG Threat Report: Are YOU Vulnerable? http://tinyurl.com/d9x4wsr
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