U3A Hawthorn News

Number 79 - June 2005

UNIVERSITY OF THE THIRD AGE, HAWTHORN

Incorporated as Third Age Learning (Hawthorn) Inc. Reg. No. A0010798X ABN  41 360 939 238

Office 31 Wakefield Street, Hawthorn  3122

Telephone 9818 7371,  9818 3466

Correspondence ALL CORRESPONDENCE to PO Box 2210, Hawthorn, 3122

PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR JUNE 2005

What a terrific attendance at our 20th Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 20 April and what an atmosphere of enthusiasm and commitment!

Guest speaker, Professor Ian Young, provided us with a very informative talk about the future of tertiary education in Australia, and took a large number of questions from a very interested audience. It was most fitting that Professor Young addressed us on this auspicious occasion, as Swinburne University has been such an important supporter of U3A Hawthorn from its beginnings.

It was a great pleasure to welcome as special guests three Councillors from the City of Boroondara, Councillor Coral Ross from Gardiner Ward, a steadfast friend to U3A, new Councillors Dick Menting from Maling Ward and Luke Tobin from Bellevue Ward, and Ro Marks, who has provided great support from within the Department of Health and Aged Services.

I know that many of you had the opportunity to speak to our guests at lunch, and we all found their interest and engagement in U3A very heartening.

Councillor Heinz Kreutz of Lynden Ward, who is an Associate Dean at Monash University and therefore a great supporter of our programmes, has again given us a generous cash gift. I am sure you all join with me in thanking Heinz for his generosity, and for his work on our behalf.

At the Election of the Committee of Management we thanked and farewelled Treasurer Brian Adams, Committee members Pam Davis and Joan Harding, and Auditor Bill Anderson.

We welcomed to the Committee new Treasurer Peter Merigan, and Brian Amey who is one of our Tutors and also a godsend when it comes to understanding and repairing equipment.

The Committee for the next 12 months will comprise the following members, all of whom were elected unopposed:

Executive:

President Christine Watters

Secretary Peter Anderson

Treasurer Peter Merigan

Committee:

Meg Adams Office Manager

Brian Amey Equipment Manager

Fred Bolza Publicity/Promotions Manager

Brian Ferguson Newsletter Editor

Geoffrey Guilfoyle Functions, other projects

Pilar Manovel Volunteers Manager

Lynne Merigan Grants Manager, SAC

Ruth Muir Orchestra Manager

Derek Readman Curriculum Manager

Helen Williams Newsletter, other projects

Minute Secretary Pat Adam.

Other Managers and Assistants:

Many more people also work very hard to make your organization successful.

Those responsible for key functions are:

Pam Anderson Catering Manager

Joan Donlon Course Co-ordinator

Prue Ferguson Banking Officer

John Harcourt Database Assistant

Brendan Hayward Newsletter Printing Co-ordinator

Janet McCombe Newsletter Despatch Co-ordinator

Nola Meredith Orchestra Assistant

Hans van Dorssen Database Manager

Jill FitzGibbon has announced her retirement as Membership Secretary and we thank Jill for her many years of hard work and generous service to U3A Hawthorn.  Jean Giese has handed over management of catering to Pam Anderson. Jean has done a great job keeping us all well fed at events, for which we all thank her. A warm welcome to Pam.

I am pleased to advise that Richard Hartnett, who is a practising Chartered Accountant, has been elected as Auditor. We are very grateful to Richard for agreeing to give so generously of his professional skills.

At the AGM I mentioned that Peter Anderson and I attend regular meetings with other U3As in the region. A new forum of eastern suburbs U3As was established last August by U3A Nunawading, under the aegis of Vice-President Elsie Mutton.

The objectives of the Eastern Metropolitan Region U3A Forum are:

a.) To act as a lobby Group representing our regional interests to various government departments and other relevant bodies.

b). To share knowledge and expertise within the Forum, so as to be better able to meet opportunities and challenges.

c). To develop and undertake partnership initiatives of mutual benefit to our memberships.

Ten U3As participate at the bi-monthly meetings which are held at no cost to the individual U3As. These meetings are a really useful way of maintaining contact with the U3A community, and of exchanging ideas for the benefit of our organisation.

Many of us can often take for granted the very special nature of U3A Hawthorn. We are not only the biggest U3A in Victoria in terms of numbers and student contact hours, we also have the richest programme of courses available to members. For example, you cannot learn Ancient Greek at any school in Victoria but you can learn it from an expert at U3A Hawthorn!  Our excellent tutors and the active participation of members make our organization the success it is.

We are all looking forward to an exciting and eventful year. Plans are under way for twentieth-anniversary celebrations, and I hope you all will be able to participate in the festivities.

MUSICAL PROGRAMME DATES for 2005

10.30 - Tuesday 9 August 2005 - Choir Concert - Salvation Army, 7 Bowen St, Camberwell, Melway 59-K3.

Getting there: Take tram #75 in Camberwell Rd to Bowen St Stop 45. There is also adequate parking. No refreshments afterwards

10.30 - Thursday 11 August 2005 - Orchestra of U3A Hawthorn Winter Concert. Hawthorn Town Hall

10.30 - Thursday 4 November 2005 - Orchestra of U3A Hawthorn Spring Concert. Hawthorn Town Hall.

Getting there: For both orchestral concerts, take tram #16 in Glenferrie Rd to Burwood Rd Stop 73. Only 2 hour parking.

The Orchestra of U3A Hawthorn - Winter Concert Program

Conductor: Christopher Martin.

PROGRAM: Rossini: Overture: Barber of Seville

Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in Eb for Violin and Viola.

Schubert: Symphony No. 8

Entry: $5 to cover music copyright expenses and light refreshments after the concert.

Please book with the office to help us with arrangements for seating and catering. Events finish close to noon.

People Profiles by Michael Clark

FRENCH AND SCIENCE

The French Teacher

CELINE RAPPOPORT is a very French, French teacher but both her parents were Polish. Her father migrated to Paris in the late 1920s and there married her mother, a similar migrant. But terrible things happened. Following the German invasion and occupation of France in 1940, her father was deported to the horrific Auschwitz. and there perished.

Her mother wanted to leave behind the miseries of Europe and the war so in 1947 she came to Australia bringing Celine, a schoolgirl, and her brother. They had nothing except £5O in cash, raised from the sale of the key to their Paris flat. Yet a new life unfolded for all three. Celine, though at first homesick for France, and with difficulties at school especially with English, eventually settled. In time she married Paul, (now a U3A Economics tutor) and has children and grandchildren. Her brother prospered in various ways, her mother remarried.

Celine's French conversation class is amongst those in our organisation which does more than instruct. It uplifts. Her method is to require her members to prepare and deliver conversation pieces (later at home she corrects the scripts for any errors). She leads a discussion which invariably becomes animated. Though she insists she is not "academic" she provides an ideal stimulus from the combination of her love of her native language and her own warm personality.

The Physicist

BRIAN AMEY as a boy on his father's Gippsland farm was so handy that he used to repair the farm equipment. After Melbourne High School he returned to the farm but at the end of a year sensed the need for a different vocation. He qualified to enter University of Melbourne  where he graduated in physics and electronics.

This led to a series of technical posts. One of these was at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital where he spent much of his career. He set up a new biophysics department and was involved in the development and application of advanced medical engineering/electronic equipment, for instance ECG and EEG. In the treatment of Parkinson's Disease he handled a machine in the operating theatre for the insertion into the skull of a probe which deactivated the dysfunctional portion of the brain by freezing, using liquid nitrogen at -80C.

Ten years ago he joined Michael Plier-Malone's geology class and later became co-tutor covering everything else neatly labelled "and the universe". This year Michael is taking a break and Brian successfully continues the class with Norm Ellis. Brian has three great interests outside science: car rallying, gliding which he has pursued for 30 years, and his girlfriend Jennafer. In our brief talk (4 hours!) he mentioned his parents: his mother died a few months short of 90, his father reached 104.

"Well", I said, "that leaves you another 40 years as a U3A tutor." "Undoubtedly", he answered without any of the qualification usual from a scientist.

How Grandma Learned to Play the Computer    by Ione Fett

There is now a user-friendly guide and support for over-fifties computer learners. If you are finding the technology and jargon daunting, and your memory for computer processes less than perfect, this book is for you, either for learning or for reference.

It is quite different from others in print. Instead of delivering lists of instructions that are often difficult to understand, its informal point-by-point approach makes it easy to follow and it is enjoyable to read.

The book offers a practical range of computer processes covering Solitaire, letter writing, using email, and searching the Web for information. These are presented step by step, avoiding jargon and with many illustrations in colour. The book sits flat and is printed on one side only for ease of use beside the computer.

It puts a human face on computer learning, and is amusing and entertaining.

Ione Fett has degrees from the Universities of Melbourne and London and a Ph.D. from Monash University, from which she retired in l986 as a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology.

Cheques for $29.50 with order to Dr. John Goldrich, 9 Eden Valley Close, Vermont South,  VIC  3133  (telephone 03 9801 3956). John Goldrich is a retired management consultant with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Liverpool, tutors part-time in computer use and greatly assisted with this publication.

Editor's comment

This is a remarkable book; by far the best of its kind I have ever read. For those starting out on the great adventure to learn what a computer allows you to do, and for those who have some experience, it will broaden your knowledge and guide you through the initial stages of starting-up, writing letters, sending emails and browsing the Internet.

THIS IS YOUR NEWSLETTER.

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