This issue of SIGNPOST completes my eleventh year of researching, editing and issuing this newsletter on behalf of the WorldU3A service. For five of those years I have spent at least six months every year managing and funding a school in a community of dispossessed and dalit (untouchable) families outside Hyderabad. The Headteacher tells me she knows of more than a dozen families keeping girls out of school to be hired out as baby-minders or skivvies or worse.

I hope I will be forgiven for using this medium for personal reasons, just this once, but readers may like the opportunity at Christmas to sponsor a child into school. Our accounts are totally transparent and not a penny is taken for administration. For more information click on http://msfoundationschool.org/sponsors.html

The purpose of this site is to provide the location and contact details for all of the present 90 U3A Organisations in New Zealand and there are probably more to come.

Aircraft enthusiasts will be interested in the 'Inventors Group' of Browns Bay U3A visit to see a WW2 Mosquito being rebuilt.
Thank you Garry Clark of U3A Browns Bay NZ.

Sci/Tech/Astronomy Groups: Latest news and videos can be found at

If you have the equipment and the interest there is a very useful website for Satellite Observers, with huge amounts of detailed information and links to other resources.

Embroidery/Quilting Groups: This is a commercial blog offering free quilting designs and tutorials by Jan Eskridge of Reanna Lily Designs.com.

The 'Quilter's World' Magazine also has a useful page of free resources.

This is a website with more than 200 documentary films, or links to those films, many of them polemical or controversial. "At freedocumentaries.org we strongly believe that in order to have a true democracy, there has to be a free flow of easily accessible information. Unfortunately, many important perspectives, opinions, and facts never make it to our TV or cinemas. We believe that the mainstream media increasingly practices self-censorship, and that it ignores many opinions and historical events. With the media distorting or ignoring information, it’s often very hard to get an accurate picture of a problem, even while watching the news".

Group Visits: Until the early twentieth century Compton Verney was home to the Verney or Willoughby de Broke family for almost 500 years. It has now been transformed from a derelict eighteenth-century mansion into a gallery of international standing, offering a combination of high quality attractions and facilities. Over twenty gallery spaces have been created.

Compton Verney is unique in that it is a place where art, architecture, landscape and learning fuse, to offer the visitor an experience that is completely integrated and accessible. You can see their programme for December/January here.