Dear Members,
Our General Assembly and AGM on March 7th was a day of mixed emotions. We all missed deeply Sandra Welham’s presence. At the same time her husband Bob helped us to remember the many positives, as I am sure Sandra would have wished. A big thank you to everyone who made the day as successful as it was.
Paul Corazzo read Bob’s President’s Report for 2023-24, in which Bob recalled the 15 years of his and Sandra’s involvement with our U3A. Bob was rightly proud of the way in which our Association has developed during this time and thanked the committees, associates, group leaders and members for all their support along the way. He also made special mention of Sandra’s role in helping to establish the ‘Ladies at Lunch’, ‘Let’s Sing Together’ and Cinema Club groups and the Goodwill team. Bob wrote that 2023-24 had been another positive year, in which the U3A Vall del Pop had moved from strength to strength. He also welcomed the strong new committee and thanked so many of the existing members for agreeing to serve another year.
I thanked Bob for the extraordinary contributions that he and Sandra have both made to our organisation. I told him that the committee members had already begun to discuss ways in which we can both honour Sandra’s memory and thank Bob himself at a more appropriate moment. You can expect to hear more about this quite soon.
Looking ahead, I told our members present not to expect any big changes to accompany the change of president. The table-top surveys we collected in January told us that the members are generally very satisfied with the way our organisation is running. Any changes will therefore be by way of fine-tuning this successful model.
At this stage I have in mind three priorities for my time as president, all of which will be building on our existing efforts:
- Attracting more new members, and not necessarily just from our traditional UK expat demographic;
- Connecting with charities and other voluntary organisations that are based in our area, or whose activities extend to cover the Vall del Pop;
- Using our website and social media both to support the above efforts and to ensure that we connect as best we can with any members who may struggle to attend our meetings in person.
I would welcome your thoughts on any of the above or indeed on other ways in which we can enhance our work for you.
Chris
March 2024