REGISTERED CHARITY NO ! N O V E M B E R ! u3asites.org.uk/wirral WIRRAL U3A. Anniversary lunch at the Riverhill

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1 REGISTERED CHARITY NO ! N O V E M B E R ! u3asites.org.uk/wirral WIRRAL U3A THANKS TO LYNN CLOUGH FOR THESE PHOTOS. MORE ON PAGE 6 Anniversary lunch at the Riverhill 59 sat down to lunch at the Riverhill in Oxton. This being our 2nd visit we were gratified to find the seating problems we experienced last year had been addressed. As part of the entertainment Chris Andrews read out a humorous poem. Remember:- When you buy a raffle ticket you are helping to subsidize the cost of some of our speakers and the catering and entertainment that makes our last meeting before Christmas a bit special. If you have a suitable item to donate as a raffle prize it will be most welcome. JANET S MUSICAL MUGS

2 Current groups Contact Dorothy Higginbottom Groups organizer for more details GROUP LEADER MEETING TIMES LOCATION Astronomy David Moore 1st Thurs at 2 pm Hoylake Buddies Lyn Clough See Buddies desk outside meeting room for information Craft Diane Adams 2nd & 4th Weds Upton Creative Writing Monica Price 4th Tues Oxton French Janet Belton 10 am alternate Fridays Moreton Local History Betty Nesbitt 3rd Thurs 1 pm Oxton Maths for Fun Derek Adams 3rd Thurs 10 am Upton Monday lunch Arranged by Meets after U3A Announced on the consensus meeting ends day Music Appreciation Janet Belton 1st Thurs at 10 am Moreton Philosophy Brian Gill 1st Weds Oxton Practical Art I. Roberts 4th Tues at 2 pm Claughton Science Mary Green 2nd Frid at 2 pm Birkenhead Scrabble Beryl Keggan 3rd Mon at 2 pm West Kirby Sunday lunch June Kerr varies Grove Hotel, Wallasey Strollers/Walkers Margaret Elston Alternate Mon 11am/10am Meet at start of walk Topical discussion Shirley Taylor 2nd Weds at 10 am West Kirby Wine Appreciation Sue Shaw 3rd Weds at 2 pm Newton village hall. 6 Bank Holidays and 5 Monday months affect some groups such as Strollers and Walkers as they alternate with the Williamson meetings.

3 Northwest Region news SUMMER SCHOOL AT NEWTON RIGG FEEDBACK Feedback forms returned Personal Achievement Quality of catering 95% 76% claimed to have made good or excellent progress Value for money 100 %! Attend 2018 summer school 91% said food was good/excellent 86% 35 participants ed their thanks to the organizers. LIVERPOOL MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY - LMS livemathssoc.org.uk Popular lectures provided free for members. U3A members are being offered a discount. Lecture - 18th December from 2-3 p.m. at Liverpool University - The fluid dynamics of chocolate fountains Booking essential - just in case we re fighting for front row seats in hope some stray chocolate comes our way. And you don t need to be a mathematician to work out that likelihood people read the Northwest region newsletter. It takes 3 days to it so it will now be sent by Mailchimp. REGIONAL MUSIC DAY Date: Dec 11th Venue: Quaker Meeting House, School Lane, Liverpool Cost: 8 Guest Speaker: Andrew Wilde Workshops: ukuleles, recorders, singing and musical appreciation Schedule: meet 10:30 for refreshments followed by a session with Andrew Wilde Lunch not provided Afternoon session: Workshops followed by a Magical musical mystery tour with guest Chris Decaux playing unusual instruments. See our notice-board at the Williamson for application details. or visit the regional website OUTINGS: Bridgemere Friday 17th November. Cost 12:50. Coach leaves the Williamson at 9:30 and arrives back approx 5pm. Playhouse 1:30pm Thursday 11th January. Cost 18:50. Fro nt stall seats for Baskerville - a comedy Sherlock Holmes

4 Group news Maths for Fun After working on various puzzles Derek introduced us to Mobi. Participants play simultaneously with their pieces in front of them but then we decided to play it like Scrabble. You can see the result in the photos. This game should appeal to dyslexics. Despite having to read the numbers upside down Dave was the winner. Monday Lunchers For our past 2 meetings we have taken ourselves to the Shrewsbury Arms in Oxton. Music Appreciation Did you know Schumann wrecked the tendons in his hands trying to stretch his fingers to emulate the spread achieved by another great composer/performer. He relied on wife Clara to play his pieces. With C as our theme for October we opened with Copeland s Fanfare for the Common Man. Several of us had brought selections from Coates. The Knightsbridge March turned out to be a good choice as the loud parts seemed to coincide with the dust-cart emptying the bins outside Janet's house. When Cygnets was played we were told that the notes if drawn are said to resemble the shape of a Turquoise blocs are one sided but the whites are double sided. HALLOWE EN My great-nieces covered jars with tissue paper before decorating them with spooky designs.with the lights off and a battery driven night-light inside this made a Hallowe en lantern. One of the girls seems to have mastered a new language! Plus and minus are back to back as are multiply and divide FOREGROUND MOBI PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVE BUCKINGHAM

5 Group news continued swan. Another interesting snippet was aired after listening to an orchestral version of Crimond. Apparently the Scottish church did not sing psalms. Instead these were set into metrical psalters for outdoor use- creating tunes that folk could march to. The Chameleon from Flanders and Swan got an airing. Suddenly we realised we hadn t listened to any Chopin which we did before clamouring for the Hippopotamus song- well it was from a CD Children s Favourites so we all sang along with the CD, re-visiting our childhood listening to Children s Hour on the wireless. Sunday Lunch We had a good turn-out and the chef by special request had prepared bread and butter pudding which was our party s unanimous choice for dessert. I happily ate my left-over chips for tea since I was allowed to bring them home. Walkers. John Keggan led the October 2 hour walk from the Ridger pub in Newton. Our route took us over the pony paddocks off China Farm Lane, through the Larton complex and on into Royden Park where we circumnavigated the lake as well as touring the walled garden. By the way the ticket machines for parking charges have yet to be installed. Apparently our council used the wrong powers to instigate these charges and there was a legal challenge. So for the council it s back to the drawing board. We returned to Newton by the path running behind Torpenhow which gives glorious views of Stapledon woods in autumn colour. The little community of Newton boasts a village hall and some of the tidiest allotments I have ever seen. And the Ridger fed us like kings. This is one of the pubs the Monday Lunchers use. Daphne sent us on our way with jars of home-made preserves from her allotment produce. I have to wait a few weeks for my jar of pickled cabbage to mature. STROLLERS A strong contingent of Strollers turned up to explore Eastham Woods. The narrow path running alongside the Industrial estate was muddy in places but despite recent rain it was mostly good underfoot. Being half term there were plenty of families out and about. We actually saw an angler catch a fish on the incoming tide.

6 Heswall Science Day The Science of Ageing The way we age is 25% controlled by our genes but our lifestyle exerts a massive effect. The greatest jump in ageing occurs in the 75+ age group. Research is focussing on what triggers muscles to deteriorate. Transplant a young muscle into a 50+ person and it will age rapidly. It s a pity GPs don t prescribe exercise. Inactivity is costing us as much as war and terrorism.the reason why older folk can t develop much muscle despite exercise is because we can t produce the vital proteins necessary for the process. From skull to face Our speaker worked with a team that tackled age progression in missing children, as well as cranial facial recognition on badly decomposed bodies where DNA and fingerprints don t survive.our skulls denote our sex and ancestry. The original methods of clay modelling faces on skulls has been replaced by a robotic arm sculpting in response to images from scans. They use Photoshop as part of the process! So how much has to change before you fail to recognise a person?it s heartening to learn we humans outperform computers at this. And did you realize folks look different lying down? The audience failed to recognize a death shot of Marilyn Munro on a stretcher. The Wonderful World of Sugars. Round every living cell exists a defensive miniature forest of sugars. These sugar molecules are far more complex than the DNA molecule. Just 6 different sugars stuck together in different ways gives trillions of potential glycocodes. A flu virus endemic in waterfowl populations only needs a tiny mutation to jump the species barrier and crack the sugar code in our lung cells. What use is Science? Our final speaker was a materials engineer with a provocative sense of humour. Bio-diversity, psychology, THE GATE OF FLAGS Janet led the November 2 hour walk. Starting in Birkenhead Park we walked up to and around Bidston Hill before returning to our start point. We saw these flags embedded into a gate on the Bidston Observatory site MORE OF LYNN S PHOTOS

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8 Brain Boosting Tips Straining to hear stresses the brain. Get your hearing checked out. Challenge your brain Tackle a new sport, hobby or skill Eat fruit and veg. Avocados top the list of brainboosting food. Get enough sleep. Keep those i phones and ipads out of the bedroom! Exercise to increase oxygen supply to the brain. INCLUSIVENESS AWARENESS Manchester Airport has been listed as one of the worst airports for accessibility for disabled travellers along with East Midlands, Exeter and Heathrow. Birmingham, Prestwick, Glasgow Humberside, Inverness and Norwich were graded very good whilst Liverpool was rated good. New but faulty? 400,000,000 MoT records show 1 in 6 cars fail their 1st MoT yet the government plans for MoTs to begin with 4 year-old cars. What were the commonest faults for failing the MoT? Lighting! 169,000 Tyres! 101,000 Drivers view of the road! 98,000 Brakes 60,000! Suspension! 27,000!