​What a wonderful morning and lunch we had on Wednesday 18th October.  Fiona Kleinitz, on behalf of the Stroke Foundation, was our guest speaker at Meet and Mingle. Fiona had lived experience of stroke, and was a very passionate speaker.  Then we were fortunate to have Leading Senior Constable Lisa Atkinson from the Benalla Police who gave a comprehensive talk about Scams, which unfortunately are becoming all too frequent.
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This was part of our Get Online Week program, held as part of the Be Connected program and supported by the Good Things Foundation. After Lisa’s talk, we followed with a great BBQ cooked by the Benalla Lions Club, and enjoyed music provided by the U3A Ukulele Group. Robyn Lukey and Jenny Sawyer who use the Be Connected program were on hand to answer questions during and after lunch.

U3A Benalla were invited to have a table at the Carer’s Day which was celebrated at the Community Centre in Coster Street on Tuesday 17th October. My thanks to Geraldine and Corrie who sat at the table for three hours, and provided copies of our Newsletter and Timetable for those that attended. The Patchwork and Craft Group had made 44 material bags for the Carer’s, which was a great effort by the group.

On Monday 16th October Geraldine and I had a tour of the Town Hall with Elise Wood from BRCC. This tour had been suggested by the Councillors when U3A Benalla did our presentation to Council on 30 August.

The Town Hall Supper room, which the Councillors had strongly suggested to be a suitable larger meeting room, is currently used as a storage facility. To access it there is a steep, narrow set of stairs unsuitable for our age group. There is also a four-person lift which has to have a finger on the up key permanently for it to operate between floors.
 
Parking for 40 people would also be a problem at the Town Hall. In the adjacent car park, I counted three empty car spaces mid-morning, and we were told that this car park is normally full Monday to Friday, when our programs operate.  Car parking in Nunn Street was also fully utilised.

On October 11th I met with Elise Wood and Chris Greentree, both from the Benalla Rural City Council. Chris is the Ageing Well Officer for BRCC, and has developed a spreadsheet which can be utilised by the older community to find activities, clubs, health providers and many other aspects of life in Benalla. The plan is to make this information available not only to U3A members, but also members of the Benalla public two half days a month from February 2024. We looked at safety and other aspects of our Meeting room 2 which will be used for this project. The Men’s Shed are providing a rack for brochures which will be located in the foyer of the Seniors Centre.

The exciting news is that U3A Benalla now has 400 members! This is a 22% increase in membership from 2022. It reflects the variety and number of courses which we offer our members. My thanks go to each and every Convenor for the time and effort they put into making their courses so interesting and attractive.

Our presentation to the Mayor, Councillors and CEO of Benalla Rural City Council on 30 August went very well. I would like to thank Bev Lee for her assistance in putting the slides together. Geraldine and I expected the ten-minute presentation to be followed by 5 minutes of questions. However, we had about 35 minutes of questions, and Geraldine helped with quite a few questions which was great.

The Councillors related to the presentation. Cr King told us that he saw a photo of his grandmother in one of the slides, whilst another Councillor told us there were a couple of U3A groups that he thought he would like to join.

To sum up the questions, the Councillors were not interested in spending money and building on this site. They wanted current council buildings to be better utilised. To this end, Geraldine and I are going to be given a tour of the Town Hall with a view to seeing if the supper room there would be a suitable larger meeting room. There is a lift which services the supper room from the ground floor. However, the majority of our programs will still operate next year out of our current meeting rooms at 18 Fawckner Drive.

Another aspect of our presentation was that we told the Councillors that there were acoustic problems with the Auditorium. Council is looking at applying for a grant for a Hearing Loop for the Auditorium.

The Mayor and Councillors were receptive to the idea of changing the name of this building from the Benalla Senior Citizens Building to the Benalla Seniors and Community Centre. In the presentation I stressed to Councillors that relations with the Senior Citizens had improved, and that U3A felt the current name did not reflect U3A use of the building. The mayor asked for a formal letter signed by myself on behalf of U3A and Val Burke on behalf of the Senior Citizens saying that both organisations were in favour of the name change. This letter was handed to the Customer Service Department of BRCC on Thursday 14th September.

October is Come and Try month. If you would like to try a new or different U3A course to what you are currently enrolled for, please contact the Convenor of the course you would like to try, and go along to it. Likewise, tell your friends about U3A Benalla, and bring them along to something which interests them during October. There is no charge, and your friends may get the same enjoyment from U3A that you do.

Geraldine took part in the U3A Regional Meeting on Wednesday 12 September. Some U3A’s are finding 5 to 8 weeks courses are popular, including a First Nations Course. A Tutor data base is being launched sometime in September. However, this is more applicable to suburban U3As than regional ones.

The guest speaker for Meet and Mingle on Wednesday 18 October is Fiona Kleinitz from the Stroke Foundation.  This will be followed by morning tea. At 11.30 am we have arranged for Leading Senior Constable Lisa Atkinson to speak to us about cybersecurity, with a focus on 'Scams'.  A BBQ lunch will follow at 12 mid-day - also is part of Get Online Week. This is supported by a grant we obtained from the Good Things Foundation. We have also asked Jenny Sawyer and Robyn Lukey from our Be Connected program to answer questions about their Tech Savvy programs. The Ukelele group will provide a little music during lunch.

Two dates for your diaries. Wednesday 15 November at 10am is the U3A Concert and Patchwork display in the Auditorium. The program will feature the Recorder Group, the Ukelele Group as well as the Singing for Fun Group to entertain you. Please bring your friends as we want as many people as possible to enjoy the morning.

The second date for your diaries is Friday 17 November which will be our Christmas Lunch at the Red Stag at Myrtleford. Cost is $50 per head for the two-course lunch. There will be a bus leaving Benalla Bus Lines for those who do not wish to drive. Further details in next month’s newsletter.


Margaret Jenkins