Past events from 2024 onwards are listed here. Some highlights from earlier days appear below.

Snippets from the past

First meeting in our new venue. Chester u3a held its first 'in person' meeting since February 2019 on Tuesday 5th October 2021 at the Festival Church in Queen Street. There was lots of coffee and cake with opportunity to see around the new venue and meet a lot of the u3a crowd. The Music Performing Group also serenaded us from the gallery. The event was also on Zoom for those who couldn't make it in person and a couple of the pictures are from the Zoom feed.

Our latest Treasure Trail was launched on 27th August 2022. It starts near the old Shot Tower (by Waitrose) and takes you on a fascinating walk round parts of Chester. Follow this link to the Treasure Trails page where there is a downloadable file of instructions.

Explore the Tidal Dee was a short programme run a few years ago by Stuart Murray. The programme involved the geography of a shifting river, canalisation and land reclamation, the natural world of the Dee, coastal paths, cultural and historical links and the heritage of the Dee: mining, shipbuilding, salmon, cheese, steel, and aircraft

Home is Where the Art Is - One of our members Alison Lingfield appears in this BBC One show at 3:45pm on 24th July. As she told us - 'The show is hosted by Nick Knowles and three artists come into the buyers home and design a piece of art based on individual briefs. I wanted a piece to celebrate my tenth anniversary with the chorus I sing with.'

Members enjoyed the specially commissioned video talk that replaced the May 2020 monthly meeting. We could all watch Jim Holmes talk on the Mongolian Altai on-line. The landscapes were breathtaking and the stories of peoples nomadic lives intriguing. We saw how the United Nations Children's Fund is helping remote communities with a serious education shortage and learn how difficult it is to reach the very far west of this vast country. Visit remote communities that hunt with eagles and drink tea with camels' milk, then travel with herders as they prepare to move to spring pastures, and see how the schools follow them.

Industrial Heritage 3 group visited Bidston Lighthouse & the Observatory Bidston Lighthouse on 4th March 2020. Did you know that the lighthouse on top of Bidston hill is the farthest from the sea in the world? It has a very interesting history which our guide Stephen extolled as we saw the exhibits on each floor before taking in the panoramic view from lantern room at the top. The view stretches from the Dee estuary along N Wales coast to the Great Orme & then from Formby Point south to Liverpool and the Mersey estuary. After coffee & excellent homemade cakes we moved on to the Observatory, another building with an interesting history from the domes on the roof to seismic experiments in the cellars.

Popular Science was very popular once again on 19th February 2020. After doing a sterling job of steering the Popular Science ship for around ten years, Janet Money has chosen to give up the helm. I’m sure everyone who has enjoyed the wonderful selection of talks that have been delivered in that time would wish to thank her for her guiding hand. Grateful appreciation was expressed at the start of the meeting and Janet was given a bunch of flowers as a small token of thanks. Janet has been succeeded by the team of Helen Pulford & Mal Waite who promised to do their best to follow in her footsteps – although she’s a very hard act to follow. Thankfully, there are plenty of people locally who are able and willing to assist with science-based talks. Popular Science Feb 2020 On this occasion, around 80 people gathered in the lecture theatre at Bishop’s High School to enjoy two talks given by Chester U3A members. Each talk was excellent in its own way, featuring two experienced lecturers with different skills and styles along with two very different and yet very engaging topics. Aren’t we lucky to have such talented and generous members? Sue Foy started proceedings with a re-worked and updated version of her ‘A Life Less Plastic’ talk and presented information that was as worrying and scary as it was fascinating. She was followed by Peter Goodhew whose humorous and absorbing talk on Liquids, accompanied by paintings and everyday objects to help demonstrate certain points captured the imagination as well as the intellect.