Issue number one hundred and forty-two (October 2012) from the WorldU3A Service, sent on the first of every 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.
Printable pdf


Jeevan Lohani (U3A Nepal), Akiko Tsukatani (U3A Japan), Tom Holloway (WorldU3A), Thomas Kuan (U3A Singapore),
Dianne Delchau (U3A Online Australia), Kathrine Fenton-May (U3A Durban, South Africa), Dr Sajjan Singh (U3A India)

Announcing MY U3A - a WorldU3A.org Project
An invitation to meet and greet U3A friends from anywhere and everywhere


Encouraged by the strategy adopted by the Core Group of the U3A Asia Pacific Alliance, seen above at the 2011 international U3A conference in Singapore, we want to extend the project we started many years ago.

Are you visiting another town, city or country? Would you like to get in touch with U3A people there - perhaps even arrange a meeting or request some helpful information?

We will be happy to put you in contact with a person in the place you wish to visit. They will then be able to provide you with further details to enable your visit to be arranged. Confidential information (email addresses and contact phone numbers) will not be shown here, but can be requested on our contact form. Such information will NOT be passed to anyone without the owner's permission.

Click here to see a list of some U3A groups and learn something about each one, but we would like to extend it to include the many more U3As that are active throughout the world. To update current entries, or to have your U3A included in the list please use the Contact form to get in touch.

WorldU3A Steering Group: We are delighted to welcome Anita Reyes of California as the U3A U.S. Affiliate member in our WorldU3A Steering Group. An active member of U3A Online, she is a counselor, art therapist, writer/editor, educator and personal historian with master's degrees in both Counseling and Gerontology.

She has developed and taught courses in parenting, nutrition, art therapy, computer skills, life story writing and book design at counseling centers, high schools, and community colleges.

For years she was an instructor at the Gerontology Centers of California State University and University of Southern California. As director of Learn Online Academy, Anita now provides online teaching and learning opportunities for people all over the world. For a list of free online webinars available, visit: http://omnicareworld.com/107123.html

Photography Groups: Welcome to the Digital Photography School! Discover how to improve your use of your digital camera with our Digital Photography Tips.

We are a community of photographers of all experience levels who come together to learn, share and grow in our understanding of photography. Here are a few of the most popular Portrait Photography Tips from our archives, but there's lots more freely available.

Use them, or lose them: This website provides an urban walking route planner for many UK cities. Get a route map between any two points, including your journey time, calorie burn, step count and carbon saving. It’s quick, free, and will prolong your active life.

Even better, there are many 'themed' walks described for city-dwellers - historical, architectural, all sorts. Search for walking directions using the journey planner, or try one of the suggested themed walks.

And also, an interesting study reported in the American Psychological Association website suggests that changes in walking gait might be an indicator of cognitive decline in ageing.

 

Gardening Groups: This year's Great Seed Swap takes place at Wakehurst, West Sussex, on Saturday 20 October 2012, from 11.00am - 5.00pm. Swap spare seeds from the plants growing in your garden with seeds from garden vegetables and flowers grown by other enthusiasts.

In her just-published Seedswap guide, Josie Jeffery introduces the exciting new global seed swapping movement, looks at why plant heritage is so important and gives us plenty of advice on how to go about getting involved, and there are 5 shiny new copies of her book to give away!

U3A International Conference, Chinmaya Vibhooti, Pune: the Indian Society of U3As are pleased to announce that the full and final programme is now available here and also a list of speakers.

Places are still available if you email Dr Dak - isdu2001@yahoo.co.in - Secretary of the Indian Society of Universities of the Third Age. Conference begins October 12th.

Computer Groups: For software is there such a thing as a 'free lunch'? Perhaps - and you might even find it at Freeware but before downloading anything make sure your virus definitions are up-to-date.
Book Groups:: Play-reading groups are a fun way to tackle difficult plays such as Shakespeare's. They are a good way to get your feet wet if you have always wanted to act but have been too shy, and they are also a good way for literature students to understand difficult texts by hearing and performing them aloud.


Here are some GEMS from U3A Online Rick Swindell's newsletter. A complete GEMs Archive - pdf printouts of all prior editions - can be found at www.u3aonline.org.au

If you enjoy jigsaw puzzles, take a look at this site. It's an online collection of Flash-based puzzles, ready to solve simply by dragging with your PC's mouse. The pieces make a satisfying click as they link together http://thejigsawpuzzles.com/

Keen Talks is "an awesome library packed with video material, delivered by renowned intellectuals around the globe" with information in various fields like science, technology, health, and psychology http://keentalks.com/

How I’m preparing to get Alzheimer’s. A 6 minute thought-provoking video (ty Nancy Pachana – Australia) http://tinyurl.com/9x74mp2

What's a Screen Shot, and how do I make one? This brief non-technical primer takes you through the process of capturing a picture of what’s on your computer screen and emailing it (ty Ask Leo newsletter) http://tinyurl.com/9h3vfga

GEMs makes extensive use of shortened urls. If you want to check the trustworthiness of a short url before opening it, copy or type the short url into this site first http://unshorten.it/

How do different memory options interact with one another? http://tinyurl.com/8ebptqk

Why I'm not a fan of System Restore *discs* http://tinyurl.com/8vnr345

Can a Virus Destroy Your Hard Drive? http://tinyurl.com/9c2jdlp

There is almost nothing worse than losing important files when you experience a finger fumble, brain freeze, or computer crash. Here are some Free Tools to Recover Deleted Files. http://tinyurl.com/8zt2fxt
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