To join a group please contact the group leader to check on vacancies and programme.
To join a proposed group speak to Enid, Groups Co-ordinator at the Monthly Meeting or contact the group leader.
To suggest new ideas for groups speak to Enid at the Monthly Meeting.
Would group leaders please keep Enid informed of any changes to the information given above.
Associate Members should contact Enid for information concerning groups.

Our enthusiastic group have enjoyed visits and meetings in members' homes since our inaugural meeting in April.

An informative talk on clocks was given to us in May by Gillian, to which members were invited to bring a clock for discussion and valuation. It was interesting to learn that some of our oldest clocks are in Salisbury Cathedral.

Our June meeting was equally interesting when Ann, the keeper of the Guildford Cathedral Treasury, gave a talk on silverware. Ann gave us guidance on how to clean and store our silver. She suggested we clean silver in diluted Fairy Liquid and polish it with a soft cloth, or use Goddard's Silver Foam. Do not use Silver Dip, except on cutlery. Never clean silver on a flat surface as silver bends; use a cushion or pad to take the pressure. To store silverware use acid-free tissue paper, cloth, cotton-bags or silver storage bags (we have found a source of these). Do not store in newspaper, plastic bags or ordinary tissue paper.

Our visit to the Talbot Antique Centre in Ripley in July happened to be on the hottest day of the year. It was unfortunate that only three members turned up, as the Centre had laid on refreshments to cool us down.

In August the group met at Ewbanks Auctioneers where we were guided through the method of buying and selling at auctions. As it was a preview day, it was interesting to look at and discuss the items sent in for the sale.

Diary dates:

18 October - Postcards/Cards
15 November - Jewellery
December - no meeting
18 January - Stamps

Members outside our group will be welcome to join us on our visits/outings (visitors will be charged £1) and are asked to contact the group leader before the event, in case the date and meeting times have been changed.

One of our Group is skilled in the art of pastels so she led us into a new adventure, away from oils and water colours. We enjoyed exploring the effects obtainable with this very different medium where finger tips can be used to shade the colours on the paper or canvas. An important piece of advice was 'Remember not to rub your nose.' Face-painting is not on our programme!

We are indulging however in another oil painting tutorial soon, focusing on bluebell woods.

Our small group has continued to meet in each others houses and gardens over the summer. Sometimes we have been forced indoors because of the excessive heat outside!

We have experimented with wax resist and aqua pastels as well as our usual pencil and water colours, helping each other in a supportive, non threatening environment.

New members are always welcome. Don't be put off if you feel your house is too small - it is not obligatory to host a session!.

A highlight of this summer was a visit to the Farnborough Air Show which alternates with the Paris Air Show each year. We chose a day which just happened to be one of the hottest July days, about 35ºC and sweltered in a queue of people, waiting at 10.00am to get past the very slow security procedures now inevitable to gain entrance.

My own personal experiences of Farnborough relate to the 1950s and '60s recalling seeing the graceful Saunders Roe Princess Flying Boat flying past plus the amazing sight of the delta-wing Avro Vulcan jet bomber being rolled in flight in front of astonished crowds, sonic booms by jet fighter aircraft and in later years the Hawker Harrier vertical take off/landing aircraft and the Concorde.

This year the display had the highlights of the first viewing of the Airbus A380 - the potential 550 seat Super Jumbo, both on the ground and also in the air. A spectacular flying display by the Russian MIG35 which appeared at times to defy gravity with its vectored thrust technology and incredible manoeuvres at height. Also noteworthy was the sight of the Bell Tiltrotor which can fly both as a conventional aeroplane and then tilt its large propellers by 90 degrees to transfer to helicopter type mode.

We had less time to look at the exhibition hall, unfortunately, but a flight simulator on the Boeing Pavilion allowed visitors to try and land a Boeing 737 via the controls, whilst seeing the virtual landscape on an impressive 8' x 6' screen. One novice managed with some help to take off but after one short circuit of the airfield unfortunately landed in error on a school playing field!

In September we hope to visit the unique Shuttleworth Collection at Biggleswade, when the historic aircraft will be displayed flying at the Shuttleworth Pageant. What a pity that this weekend coincides with the 75th Schneider Trophy Anniversary Air Races at Bembridge and the Hovercraft Museum Open Days at Lee on Solent. You just can't do it all.

Incidentally a Fokker Triplane replica has just flown over - amazing, you can see everything here at Fetcham!.

Ballroom Dancing is a great success!! All couples are benefiting from being taught by a professional.

Between much laughter we are actually learning to dance and who knows we may one day have our own Dance Team.

So watch out Surrey???

All enquires if you wish to join to Enid.

Under the able guidance of David we have started this group. Early stages yet, but if you need to give your brain a reminder to work this is the group for you. No pressure but with like minded members who knows what can be achieved. Even members that have played in the past are finding that there is always something to learn.

All enquires to Enid

Over the summer months we have continued to explore our menu and have had themed meetings on casseroles and cold desserts. We also attended an interesting evening demonstration on ice cream makers (the vodka-laced tomato sorbet was particularly good), Magimix food processors and expresso coffee makers, with delicious samples to taste.

We had, what we hope will become, our annual picnic at Polesden Lacey. As you can see from the picture, we all had a good time and again it was a lovely hot summer's day. We have also enjoyed a splendid barbeque hosted by Connie and Tony. Husbands were honorary members for this and Tony was head chef. Next month we will return to our menu and 'hot puddings' is the theme.

During the past months we have 'explored' Kew and Kew Gardens and more of the City. We spent a day in Dulwich visiting Horniman Museum and the Dulwich Art Gallery.

Rivers have been on our 'visiting list' with two recent outings taking us to both the Fleet and Jubilee rivers.

In August we had an 'away day' in Chichester. Thankfully the extreme weather had moderated and an enjoyable trip took in most of Chichester's places of interest. The Cathedral was magnificent and the Refectory did a good lunch! An unexpected pleasure was a private tour, by the Mayor's Mace Bearer, of the City's Council Chamber - very splendid with many original features.

Tempting though this all sounds our membership is, unfortunately, still at full capacity.

So far this year we have had some very interesting walks to Kensington, Westminster, Covent Garden and Soho. Apologies to Carole and Hans but we also made Islington - it was not intended at the outset but there was a break in the weather.

The British Museum can wait for another rainy day. We will include the west side (Blair country) of Islington at a later date. For many reasons numbers have been down but we are a happy, jolly bunch and always have a good time.

On Monday, 25th of September we hope to cover Regents Park and Primrose Hill.

We continue to meet each month and in June spent the day at the Family History Centre in Islington where we all experienced the benefits of searching on-line as well as the effort of using the heavy BMD registers! In July we watched a DVD on Genealogy supplied by the U3A Library and as a result are going to visit the Society of Genealogists in the City on the 28th September.

Several of our members have been making great strides using the web-sites devoted to Family History and have been contacting distant relatives for the first time.

The two French groups celebrate Bastille Day, 14th July, in Lesley's garden with their traditional Kir républicain.

We hope to go to Leonardslee Gardens on Tuesday 5th September.

The last meeting before the winter break is on Tuesday 3rd October, to Wisley RHS Gardens, ending with tea in the café.

Under the guidance of our very able instructress the members of our 3 groups are getting fitter and have now progressed so the classes are not so gentle. In between laughter and exercises we have very happy members. Members can always enquire if we have any available spaces.

The next meeting of the IHG is at Ian's house on Monday 16 October at 10am. Geoff will be giving a talk on either Brunel or the Bluebell Railway. On 20th November we have an outside speaker, Dick from Hounslow U3A, who will be talking on ancient wood working techniques, including demonstrations; same venue at 10am. On 18 December a Christmas outing and meal is planned. Beyond that in January we have Ken talking on early broadcasting technology with his usual magnificent demonstrations.

So an excellent programme is in store and visitors and new members are welcome. In addition Jack is organising an outing to the Crossness steam pumping engines on Sunday 29th November, starting from the Leisure Centre car park at around 10am.

Although we are holding no formal meetings this summer, work has continued on inputting 1901 census data to the large database for Leatherhead, Bookham, and Fetcham covering the period 1851 to 1901. Now that we have access to all this data, it opens up many avenues for social historians to examine areas such as population movements; life expectancies, social classes; role of servants; family sizes; etc, etc.

We will be restarting in the Autumn and determining our new programme.

This year started in January with our expected host being taken ill so we had to put a replacement programme together at short notice, however we were able to get a couple of videos of some great old favourites Holst and Elgar. The first video was a visual interpretation of Gustav Holst's 'The Planet Suite'. The performance was by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conducted by David Atherton. When Gustav Holst wrote this piece, the planet Pluto had not been discovered so Holst's version did not have a piece of music written for this planet, however the video was finished with a piece called 'Pluto - the Renewer' written by Colin Matthews in a style as he believes Holst may have written it had Pluto been discovered at that time. The visualisation for the entire performance was brilliant.

We followed this with the world premier of Robert Walker's realisation of Edward Elgar's unfinished piano concerto. Although Elgar was famous for his Cello and Violin Concertos, it is not widely known that Elgar wrote many 'sketches' for a piano concerto which he never got to finish and this was Walker's attempt to show how the work might have sounded had Elgar actually got round to writing it. This was a most fascinating evening and everyone was fascinated by the performance of the soloist David Owen Norris.

In February we had an evening like no other. 'African music with a difference'. The difference was that our host had collected quite a lot of African Instruments (don't ask me where she got them) and we were expected to accompany the music on the CD's, we had bongo drums and other drums, along with shells, harps, etc., some to rattle, some to bang, some to blow, some to pluck and some to strum. I had never realised what a talented bunch we were until that time, it's a shame no one recorded our efforts on tape.

It is unusual for us to see many videos but our March program included one also, this time 'Evita'; the version with Madonna as Eva Peron, it was very sad but brilliantly performed and we all went home singing. I feel sorry for the neighbours.

In April and in June two of our members played us many pieces of music which had meant a lot to them during their lifetimes and although both had predominately classical music there were no pieces the same. Elgar, Liszt, Beethoven, Chopin, Bizet and others against Bach, Mozart, Faure, Schumann etc. there were overlaps with composers but not the same music.

May saw us with a wonderful Country & Western evening, King of the Road, Stand by your man, Blanket on the ground, Harper Valley PTA and many, many more - all of my favourites.

In July we had a video of the National Parks of America accompanied by lovely music which we were asked to name, but with several American composers we were struggling, but it was delightful to see winter scenes during this current heat wave, it helped us to feel cooler even though the temperature was still high. We finished the evening with some beautiful bird songs. No I didn't recognise any of them, but they are music after all.

Later, this year being the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, we couldn't let the year go without one evening devoted to this great man.

As the name implies, we don't take our scrabble too seriously! We play in twos or threes and allow 'looking up'. We usually lubricate our minds (and tongues) with a glass of wine. If you are a high flier intent on winning the next tournament this is not for you! If, however, you enjoy an occasional light hearted game do ring Janet and find out in whose house we are meeting. We rarely have more than six turn up on the same night, but if you feel that would be too big a group for your house don't worry - we have enough willing hosts.

The two Sunday Lunch Groups joined together for a special event in June. We travelled by shared cars to Kingston, where we boarded Turk's river cruiser 'The Yarmouth Belle', and set sail for Richmond.

Since the last newsletter, we have explored countryside round Shere, Norbury Park, Milton Heath, Polesden Lacey and part of the Wey Navigation. We walk on the 4th Thursday morning each month and always end up at a local hostelry for those who wish. The exception was when we walked round Polesden Lacey in July, where we finished with a picnic in the grounds.

Admiring the carvings in Norbury Park.

By "The Temple", the highest point on The Nower.

Starting our walk round Polesden Lacey.

The highlight of the summer was our trip to Ridge View Wine Estate near Ditchling, East Sussex. We travelled by minibus on a very hot day and enjoyed an excellent tour round the vineyard and winery, followed by generous tastings of three of their sparkling wines! We had lunch in a nearby pub, washed down with jugs of Pimms and all agreed it had been a very enjoyable, informative day.

On another occasion, we happily sampled the six Richard and Judy summer wines. We are planning to attend the Harvest Supper in the cellars at Denbies in October, with a tasting of the first pressings from the 2006 harvest. In November, the four U3A wine appreciation groups are joining together for an evening tasting, with supper, in the Harrison Room at the Barn Hall.

Cheers!

The 16 strong lively group, starting out in February this year, have enjoyed several tasting sessions at members' houses with two outdoors in July and August. We also visited Denbies in June with two interesting tours separated by lunch in the Conservatory.

In September we are going with Group 3 to Lurgashall Vineyard, West Sussex to sample non-grape wines with lunch locally.

We are enjoying ourselves!

Price includes coach transport from Bookham from Lower Shott and St Nicholas Church