Minutes Meeting 1st February 2016

University of the Third Age Moraira-Teulada
Minutes of the Meeting held on 1st February 2016
at the Salon G.L., Teulada.

It is confirmed that the President and representative of the Deputy Secretary attended this Monthly Meeting as voted in at the AGM on 1st December 2014.
Jill Cole welcomed everybody this Meeting, especially the 35 new members, and said that since the beginning of the New Year we had enrolled 189 new members. Jill explained the emergency procedures and said that the lift should not be used in the case of evacuation. It was requested that mobile phones were either turned off or put on silent. Jill then asked if everyone had collected their raffle ticket.
David Haxon read out the synopsis of the Minutes from the 4th January Meeting. The full minutes had been posted on the Website and were proposed by John Freeman and seconded by Colin McNae. The minutes were approved by the members with a show of hands.
There were no matters arising from the minutes.
President’s Address
Jill thanked the Group Leaders who had attended today’s meeting and said it was good to see so many.
Jill apologised that the Newsletter had had the U3A name the wrong way round, and said that special permission had had to be obtained from the Teulada Town Hall which enabled us to use Moraira first.
The members were reminded that if anyone was a member during 2015 they would receive the benefit of a 50% reduction of their renewal fee. However in accordance with the Constitution if renewals are not made by the start of the meeting on 7th March, then the membership will be treated as lapsed and the renewal fee after that will revert to the full fee of €10. There is still another chance to renew the membership on 18th February at La Senieta, as well as on the 7th March until the start of the AGM.
Jill reminded the members that nominations are still needed for Committee positions, especially Secretary; this is a vital position that will enable the U3A to continue. NO NOMINATIONS had been received at this meeting so far.
Another First Aid Course is being offered, but a much shorter version than last year, this time it will only last a couple of hours and cost €15 per person. The organiser needs a minimum of 6 people and the course will cover emergencies, injuries and illnesses faced by seniors. It is called Everyday First Aid & CPR and full details can be found on the website.
A new Social Sub Committee has been formed led by committee member Steve Higham. Steve would like more non committee members to join him so that a social calendar can be put together. The first meeting will be in Bar Relax on 9th February at 10 am.

REPORTS

Treasurer

This report was given by Carin Derksen

On January 4th, we held the following amounts:

Contingency  € 4.000,00
Deposit account € 6.000,00
Current account  € 4.249,73
Cash in hand  € 556,48
Total € 14.806,21
 Income
 Jan 4/7/ renewals 889 4445,00
 Jan 21 new members 154 1540,00
+ 5.985,00
 Expenses
 Jan 4 pétanque group 23,83
 rummikub group 38,75
 golden oldies music group 100,00
 dep.secretary/ stationery 24,45
 newsletter printing 32,00
 raffle gift 50,00
 salon rent & coffee 137,00
 Jan 7 treasurer/ virus scanner 59,95
 Jan 22 mail box rental 2016 62,19
 gift for accountant 12,20
 group leaders diner 1200,00
-/- 1.740,37
 Today, on February 1st, we hold the following amounts
 Contingency € 4.000,00
 Deposit account  € 6.000,00
 Current account  € 8.049,73
 Cash in hand  € 1.001,11
 Total € 19.050,84

 

Group Coordinator

Shirley Baehr welcomed all the new members and the Group Leaders who had attended the meeting. As ever Shirley reminded everyone that details of all groups with their details can be found on our brilliant website and that there is a closed group forum on Facebook which is an excellent way of finding out information, sell items and be kept notified of group activities.
There were a lot of new groups being offered today and Shirley briefly outlined them as follows:
Poetry Group. This will be an informal group meeting once a month, anyone interested should contact Shirley direct.
Matters Arising. This is hoped to be a lively, humorous and informal discussion group. The subject each month will be chosen the month before with all members agreeing. A subject has been chosen for the first meeting and again Shirley should be contacted if anyone wants to join in.
Francophile. This will be a group of like minded people, and will discuss anything French from food through to living in the country and politics. The Breton CrĂŞperie has been chosen for the first meeting, contact Shirley for further details.
Line Dancing. This group will meet locally with a professional teacher and 12 people are needed to get started. Contact Lynn Clark.
Classic Car Group. Initially this will be open to anyone who has a Classic Car i.e. over 25 years old. The meetings will be held every second Saturday of the month from 12.00 – 15.00 at the Jacaranda Restaurant. The contact for this group is Anne Castle.
Healthy Cycling. This group has been running for a few months but needs more members. Contact Lynn Clark for more information.
Scrabble. This used to be a popular group but had to cease and Shirley said she would like to get it running again so appealed to someone to come forward.
Computing. The Group Leader is in the UK indefinitely due to ill health and Shirley appealed for someone to come forward to run the group until he recovers.

Walking Football. Shirley congratulated this group on having a competition with a group of “footballers” from Los Montesinos. The Mayor attended and there are a lot of photos on the website.

U3A Band. Once again this group had had a great evening and members said how much they had enjoyed it. Congratulations to John Hopwood and the band.
Golf Group. Thanks and best wishes were sent to Group Leader Rona Hurst who is currently recovering from an operation.
Shirley said she is always on the lookout for new groups and ideas and would willingly help anyone set up while they get started.

 

Travel Group
Carol Mantle announced the following trips:
A new trip was announced to Lisbon taking place on 19th – 26th September. The group will fly to Lisbon from Madrid and return by coach. The cost for this will be €585 and full details were on the board next to the travel desk and on the website.
Overnight Trips are:
A trip in February/March 2017 will go to Cambodia and Vietnam. The provisional cost of this is €2800 with a single supplement of €1000 and includes a mini cruise; for full details refer to the website.
A trip will be made to Croatia with a Cruise and Excursions from 10th – 30th September 2017. The provisional cost is €2400 pp and is based on 2016 prices so could be subject to change. Our U3A will occupy the whole boat, and there are only two cabins left.
Javea U3A have asked if any of our members would like to join them on a day trip to Valencia to see the Fallas museum on 26th February. Details are available on Javea U3A’s website.
Full details of all trips are available from the travel group and can be found on the Travel Webpage and on the display boards adjacent to the Travel Desk.
Carol continued that following a Travel Group meeting, and backed by the main committee, the group has decided that in future only cash and cheques will be taken to pay for any trips. This method of payment has been used by Moraira-Teulada U3A since the association started 8 years ago with no problems. Each Leader is responsible for collecting the money for their particular trip and to ask them to take money by Card, Paypal or bank transfer would increase the workload considerably. The only request that the Travel Group makes of the members in order to make payments is to attend a monthly meeting, meet a travel group member in Moraira or send a cheque. This, they believe, is not asking the members of a great deal, to continue making payments as in the past. The Travel Group has been assured by various banks that cheque books will continue to be issued.

Cultural Arts
A brief outline was given by Beverly & Hugh Stewart of some of the events planned for February in the local vicinity.
4th February. At the Cine Jayan in Javea, Aida will be broadcast live from La Scala Milan.
4th February. A live broadcast of La Traviata from the ROH at Cine Roma.
19th and 20th February. Auditori Teulada-Moraira presents Rigoletto
25th February in Calpe and again on 11th March in Ondara – Sounds Familiar presents “Let’s face the Music Top Hat, White Tie and Tails”.

Advance Notices:
16th March. Teulada Moraira Lions presents “Satchmo”, a tribute to Louis Armstrong at Espai La Senieta.
21st March. Richard Jones directs the magnificent opera Boris Gudonov by Mussorgsky.
6th April. Giselle is being presented by Peter Wright.
25th April. Katie Mitchell will present the opera Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti.
18th May. The world premiere of Liam Scarlett’s new ballet, Frankenstein, is being presented.
27th June. Benoit Jacquot’s production of Massenet’s opera Werther will be presented.
For full details of all events please refer to the U3A Moraira-Teulada website.

Members/Committee Liaison Officer
Brian Nicholls introduced himself for the benefit of the new members and explained his role.
Brian said that although he was unable to attend the last committee meeting, his points were read out by Jill and still discussed by the committee.
CHARITIES. Though this item has been discussed many times by the committee, it was considered at length again. The usual response is that our Constitution prevents us from giving any part of the membership fees to charity. However the constitution does not mention charities specifically, and Art. 23 prevents giving members fees to any profit making concern but Fund Raising for Charity is a decision for the committee.
Brian quoted directly from the Committee Minutes. “In general the opinion was that it was nice to belong to an organisation that does NOT rattle charity boxes and put up ticket prices in order to raise money for any particular charity. ALL Groups are perfectly free to fundraise for charity as long as its group members agree. This happens with the Knitting Group and the U3A Band. Any money collected will need to be transparent and audited.”
FREE COFFEE. This was discussed and the committee’s response is that coffee will only be provided at the AGM and the Christmas Meetings.
NIKKI LUXFORD. Nikki has now left the CBN and taken up a post with a Charity Organisation in Malawi.
GROUP LEADERS EXPENSES. Shirley Baehr is now able to sanction expenses of Group Leaders up to the amount of €70.
Brian said that he and Ceda Panajotovic wanted to say thank you to Shirley for organising the Group Leaders meal, which was enjoyed by everyone who attended.

There were no matters arising from any of the reports.

Jill introduced the Guest Speaker, Jackie Phillips, who is the President of MABS: This stands for Marina Alta Breast cancer Support, and although they look after people with all types of cancers, it was too costly to change the name, and Jackie hoped that everyone would realise this. The support group covers the area from Valencia to Gibraltar, and Jackie gave a history of how the group was formed, and the members found it very interesting.
Jill thanked Jackie on the members’ behalf and she was given a gift in appreciation and received round of applause.

The raffle was drawn for a €50 voucher to be used at Iceland, and was won by Anne Castle.

There was no further business and the meeting closed at 11.40.

The next Monthly Meeting will be on 7th March 2016 and will be the Annual General Meeting.