An overview of the U3A Movement:
The U3A Movement was started by Professor Pierre Vellas in Toulouse in 1972 with a summer school for Third Agers. The summer school was successful and in 1973 he started the first U3A providing educational opportunities for members on a regular basis with university staff as teachers. In 1975 he also founded the International Association of Universities of the Third Age (IAUTA). IAUTA now has members in twenty three countries. The principles of the U3A movement were brought to the UK in 1982 with a successful Easter School in Cambridge; but with the major change that we rely on self-help education where "teachers become learners". Our first U3As were created in 1982 and the Third Age Trust as a national affiliating body was founded in 1983. There are now more than 820 U3As in the UK with a membership of over 272,000 which is growing at a rate of around 8% per annum. It is the only national education organisation in the UK run entirely by its own members.

The aims and objectives are:
To encourage and enable older people no longer in full-time paid employment to help each other to share their knowledge, skills, interests and experience.
To demonstrate the benefits and enjoyment to be gained and the new horizons to be discovered in learning throughout life.
To celebrate the capabilities and potential of older people and their value to society.

The Virtual U3A (vU3A), which went live in January 2009, is an online-only U3A, affiliated to the Third Age Trust. One of its principal aims is to provide the U3A experience for those who are rendered isolated in some way by circumstances or geography and unable to play a full part in a terrestrial U3A. More information is available on the public website www.vu3a.org where one can also apply for membership. Why not pay it a visit? And if you know of anyone who might benefit, please pass the information on.