This post allows comparison of readability and usability issues compared to the pdf version of the newsletter, specifically those experienced when attempting to read each on a small screen e.g. a mobile phone.

Link to pdf version of same content (not logged in, you will NOT see convenor contact details)

Please ignore the fact that this proof of concept (below) does not contain the fancy clipart and varied sectional dividers Jackie has used in the pdf version, that can be improved with more effort. Consider instead whether the font size is readable (without pinch-zooming) upon first opening the page below or pdf and what happens each time you rotate your phone screen from vertical to horizontal, or back again.

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Tracey’s penchant for a great song covers some of the great jazz standards, bossa nova and blues songs. She has performed for audiences of up to five hundred people, at many of London’s top venues including Whitehall, The Sheraton (Park Lane), Russell Hotel and The Renaissance Chancery Court Hotel. With her natural rhythm and phrasing, Tracey has received great compliments. She has been requested to perform at many prestigious private functions and events including the Ealing Jazz Festival. In addition to performing at many venues in the UK, Tracey has also performed in the US with well-respected players; saxophonist, Leroy Cooper (Ray Charles), drummer, George Miles (Jazz Hall of Fame) and Bass Player, Bernie Lee (BB King).

Organised by the Tea & Jazz group.
Open to all Windsor u3a members: £5 pp at the door.

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Local Coffee Mornings

The membership of Windsor u3a is > 600. If every member came to a Monthly Speaker Meeting, there would not be room for all. It is not possible to get to know everyone, but it is the ‘personal touch’ of committee members and convenors that has in the past been so very important in supporting growth and maintaining our numbers. Within Interest Groups good friendships are formed. The committee has decided to trial a new initiative to enable members old and new to meet and get to know each other. Local monthly coffee mornings are planned, like those for new members. These will be open to all members but will be for the convenience of those living in a local area. Convenors will be especially welcome, particularly if they would like to increase the size of their groups. The first Local Coffee Morning will be held on Datchet Green on Wednesday, 23^rd March. If these prove to be successful in Datchet, Monthly Coffee Mornings will be set up in other local areas, such as Ascot, West Windsor and Old Windsor.

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Interest Group News

A Group in Formation ‘Sewing Buddies’

Do you enjoy sewing and talking about sewing? Then you could find yourself among new friends who draw inspiration from each other’s creations as they work together. A new member brings her experience in a Surrey u3a with her. One of her groups was ‘Sewing Buddies’ and she would like to find some like-minded Windsor members to share her interest. Together the group could turn their hand to sewing of all kinds… dressmaking, curtain-making, cushions and even bags and there is the added advantage of being able to swap patterns, magazines and even scraps of fabric.

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Boys Toys: Steam Day at The London Museum of Water and Steam

Saturday 19^th March

Tickets for seniors cost £16-00 and include admission to the Steam Day and entry on all public open days during the year. I am investigating a group admission price for the Steam Day only and will advise. If you are interested in coming on the trip, please let me know by 6^th March. John Wiggins

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Cycling

Would you like to join our cycling group? We meet during the summer months on the third Wednesday of each month between 10 – 12am. Cycle rides are mostly off road, between 15 – 20 km in length and always start from Windsor. We stop for a coffee midway.

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Economic Affairs: It’s The Economy, stupid!

Prices are rising and so are taxes, yet support for the least well off and council budgets are being cut. Raw materials are in short supply and the country is under the threat of an inflation rate higher than it has been for years and high fuel prices too. Do you wonder why? Well, so do a small group of us who meet on the second Thursday of the month at 2.30pm to discuss economic affairs.

If you would like to join the group, contact Peter Todd, email him at chairman@windsoru3a.org.uk

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History of Design

In January, the group met in Dedworth’s Woody’s Café, a substitute for Windsor Castle which was closed for Covid reasons. They displayed their own ‘Designer Collections’. Convenor Chris Dufty showed two novel Christmas presents she had received. The first was a box of chocolates which grew legs when it was opened so that it stands proud of any tabletop. Strangely, it made the sweet treats irresistible. Chris also received a telescopically folding straw, complete with its own cleansing brush and packed in a glamorous copper cover. Useful for anyone who doesn’t like the bubbles of fizzy drinks to get up their nose and perhaps useful in these Covid times? Gill Hepsworth shared a gift she had received from her grandson, a “growable calendar” which contained seeds of salad vegetables and herbs. Strips of paper impregnated with seeds ready to be planted in pots at the right time of year, formed part of the page for each month. “Allotmenting” the easy way! Several other members showed Christmas cards they had received, the design of which pleased their eye. Georgina Blight’s contribution focused on balance and framing.  She also displayed a card that was a photograph of the large, circular, vibrant stained-glass window in the US’s National Cathedral in Washington. Sue White showed the card that made her laugh the most, another that she thought used typeface, colour and space boldly, but elegantly and a third which was inspired by the 1982 British animated television film, The Snowman. Marion Andrews displayed a collection of cards home-made by the younger members of her family and Ornella Mohan offered a beautiful depiction of Madonna and Child and, in contrast, a modern landscape showing innovative use of shape and colour.

Last month, in February the group enjoyed a visit to All Saints’ Dedworth to see the stained-glass windows there. These were designed for the previous church which stood on the same site and originated from the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. William Morris himself and other distinguished artists and craftsmen such as Burne Jones, Rosetti and Maddox Brown produced designs for the windows. To read more about these special windows see https://allsaintschurchdedworth.com/about-all-saints/our-history/# (A talk about them for our Local History group is in the planning stages. Look out for the date.)

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Gardening 2

Our group had a lovely trip to see the snowdrops at Welford Park. The snowdrop season runs until the 6th of March if any of you would like to go. This group has a dozen or so members and would welcome more. We have trips once a month on the first Wednesday of each month, usually to locations within an hour’s drive of Windsor. Our next outing will be to Oxford Botanic Gardens on the 2^nd March.

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Walking Group

Meet at 10-15am on Friday March 25^th in the (free) Upton Court Road Car Park in Slough SL3 7LU), parking near the Scout Hut, at the far end. The walk will be through parks and playing fields to Eton, where, after coffee, we will return to the car park via Victoria Bridge and Datchet Golf Course. Total distance about 5 miles.

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Interest Groups of the Month

The Explore London Groups

These groups make trips to various places of interest in London, with members frequently, but not always, travelling on buses and using their senior citizen bus passes. They make very interesting excursions.

Explore London 1

The group planned a visit the Imperial War Museum, but were disappointed to find it closed. Opening hours had changed unexpectedly.  Alan Wheeler writes about their day out.

In February, I had the pleasure of joining Maureen Russell’s Explore London Group trip to the Imperial War Museum. We met up at Waterloo Station and walked past the remaining front entrance of the once Necropolis Railway opened in November 1854 by the London Necropolis Company, to carry corpses and mourners between London and the LNC’s newly opened Brookwood Cemetery in, Surrey. And it was still in use till 1941.

We then walked to the Metropolitan Cathedral Church of St George, usually known as St George’s Cathedral, Southwark. This is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark, the seat of the Archbishop of Southwark. The building was erected in 1848 and reopened after extensive war damage in 1958. It was designed by Augustus Pugin, famous for his work with Charles Barry on the design of the rebuilt Houses of Parliament, in decorated Gothic, from yellow stock brick with Portland stone dressings. Pugin was the first person to be married in the church on 10 August 1848, to his third wife Jane.

The cathedral houses a beautiful and poignant memorial to the late Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed on March 24^th, 1980, whilst celebrating mass in the chapel of the Divine Providence Cancer Hospital, where he lived, in San Salvador. He was killed for speaking out about what was happening in a land of cover-up and lies. Thirty-five years later, he was declared a martyr of the Church, killed out of hatred of the faith, and was beatified on May 23^rd, 2015. He was canonised by Pope Francis on October 14^th, 2018. The memorial is in the form of a large, beautiful, multi-coloured cross.

We then passed the house of William Bligh, at 100 Lambeth Road, of “Mutiny on the Bounty” fame – cast adrift by a mutinous crew in the Pacific in 1789 along with several loyal followers. The house has a blue plaque to easily identify it. Captain Bligh and his family lived in the five-bedroom property on Lambeth Road near the Imperial War Museum after he found his way back to London following the mutiny. The house came onto the market last year for £2.25 million!

We then walked to the Imperial War Museum, but it was closed as the opening hours had changed on the very day we arrived, so we then decided to visit the nearby Garden Museum on Lambeth Palace Road instead. It is Britain’s only museum of the art, history and design of gardens.

The Garden Museum is housed in the medieval and Victorian church of St Mary-at-Lambeth. The first church on the site was built before the Norman Conquest, and was integral to the religious centre established by the Archbishops of Canterbury in the 12th century. The structure was deconsecrated in 1972, and rescued from demolition by the museum’s founder, Rosemary Nicholson. The museum opened in 1977 as the world’s first museum of garden history; the churchyard was re-designed as a garden. Alan Wheeler

To read more about Alan’s day out with Explore London 1 group and to see more of his photographs, click here

Kings Cross Walkabout

A group of Explore London 1 members travelled to King’s Cross via Paddington station and enjoyed reminiscing with Paddington Bear, before taking the bus to Euston Road to visit the British Library, where they enjoyed more reminiscing. This time over an exhibition of Paul McCartney’s manuscripts and coffee.

Their walk continued through King’s Cross station where there are several interesting statues. (See website for more photographs). The walk proceeded through the retail centre to a redeveloped area of the station, Coal Drops Yard, where the architecture of old and new buildings mingles happily.

The group progressed over the Regents Canal and returned to Euston Road via St Pancras Old Church and cemetery, which is now a public garden. Its patron saint, St Pancras, was a Roman citizen who converted to Christianity, and was beheaded for his faith at the age of fourteen, around the year 304.
(Click here for more photographs of this very interesting area)

Explore London 2 Music Museum

Seventeen members visited the Music Museum in Brentford. This houses an amazing collection of mechanical, self-playing, musical instruments that tell the story of how people listened to music before the days of microphones and electronics.  The group were entranced by the demonstrations and explanations of how the music was made.

The tour culminated with the highlight of the day, a demonstration and mini concert on a Wurlitzer organ.  Several of the tour party have promised themselves a return visit to the museum to a Tea Dance, Concert or Silent Film Show when the organ can be appreciated in the context of its time. (More photographs on our web site). They finished their day with lunch at the Waterman’s Arts Centre, which is conveniently situated across the road, before returning to Hammersmith to catch the 702 bus back to Windsor. We look forward to hearing about their coming visits to Highgate Cemetery and D Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Thanks go to the convenors and leaders of the walks and visits organised for the Explore London groups. They work hard researching beforehand, the areas they visit and give much pleasure to those who take part.

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