December update

The new committee, elected by the membership at the AGM on 9th December, held their inaugural meeting on 11th December and roles for the coming year were agreed. These will be published shortly once the necessary administration has been finalised. The Christmas break is now very close and u3a activity is likely to diminish until the New Year.

Monthly meetings

Our monthly meetings are now held in the Salvation Army Citadel, 16-20 Church St, Rushden NN10 9YU. If you have not yet attended a meeting there but are curious about the venue, details including photographs and maps showing nearby parking and bus stops are available here.

If you are coming to one of our monthly meetings we offer the following guidance to make things run smoothly:
☆ The doors are normally open from 1:30 so please do not arrive too early.
★ Please have your machine-readable membership cards ready as you enter. (If you lose your membership card a replacement can be issued for a £5 fee.)
☆ We ask you not to linger in the foyer after swiping in, but to make your way quickly into the hall.
★ As many of our members are less than fully mobile we ask the more nimble among us to sit in the balcony where possible.

Talks calendar:

Date	Venue	Topic	Speaker
2025
20th January	Salvation Army Citadel	What Time's The Midnight Buffet?	Vince Eager
17th February	Salvation Army Citadel	Hercule Poirot	Steve Dimmer
17th March	Salvation Army Citadel	Musical Trio with clever ditties	Sweet FA
14th April	Salvation Army Citadel	To be arranged	TBA
Note: the April meeting is a week early to avoid a clash with Easter Monday.
19th May	Salvation Army Citadel	Topic under discussion	Roger Brown
16th June	Salvation Army Citadel	You do not have to say anything but...	Nick Cosgriff

If you would like to see what interest groups we run, please have a look at our groups page. You will note that some groups meet fortnightly, so if you need more precise dates of meetings or details of the topic, please click this link to the calendar:

The calendar will open in a new tab (which may not be obvious if you are viewing this on a phone or small tablet) and you can return to this page by closing the other tab.
The Computer Group has changed venue and days of operation, and the Sunday Lunch Group has resumed meetings. Further details of these and all other groups on our groups page.

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We would like to remind members that we no longer offer the u3a central magazine Third Age Matters without charging for it separately. We have to pay the Third Age Trust a substantial sum each year for these subscriptions, so have decided to implement a £5 annual surcharge for those members who wish to receive the magazine. This applies to both new and existing members. While this may be a disappointment to those of you who receive the magazine we are sure you will accept that the surcharge makes things fairer for all members, including those who do not subscribe to Third Age Matters, and also that £5 per year for 5 copies of the magazine delivered to your door by today’s standards constitutes remarkable value.

If you want to know more about nationwide u3a activities without paying for Third Age Matters you can receive interesting monthly newsletters from the Third Age Trust: sign up for these here.

What is the u3a?

Previously known as the University of the Third Age and as the capitalised U3A, the u3a movement is a unique and exciting organisation which provides, through its u3as, life-enhancing and life-changing opportunities. Retired and semi-retired people come together and learn together, not for qualifications but for its own reward: the sheer joy of discovery! Members share their skills and life experiences: the learners teach and the teachers learn, and there is no distinction between them.

For the full story of the u3a movement's national organisation, the Third Age Trust, click here to open the national u3a homepage in another tab. For further details of the Higham and Rushden u3a, please carry on browsing this website.

If you would like to join us you can find a membership application form here or among the many documents available on the Administration page.

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Higham & Rushden u3a treats your rights seriously. Our Privacy Policy and Data Protection Policy set out how we deal with your personal information: click on the links to see the documents, which will open in a new tab.

There is a page on our website entitled Wellbeing. If you know of any useful resources regarding health and wellbeing matters which we can share with other members, please let the webmaster know.

We still welcome entries of general interest for the Motley page so please let the webmaster know if you have anything you would like to contribute. A recent addition to the page is an entry for Care and Repair Northamptonshire, which is worth a look if you need home maintenance.

Members' Portal

Our u3a keeps basic records of members in accordance with GDPR, in order to manage u3a and group activities. Members are able, and indeed are encouraged, to check and edit where necessary the information we hold about them by clicking on the button below (which will open the portal in a new tab). The method of logging in changed in April 2023 and to access the portal a username (your email address) and password are needed. Full details of how to create a password can be found here.

Our duty of care to both members and group leaders means that we have to request all members to provide details of a person to contact in case of emergency. We also ask members who have a mobile phone to register its details: group leaders may not be happy to allow members without a mobile phone to go on trips in case they become separated from the rest of the party.