Group News

As the weather improves and the days get longer so our groups continue to thrive. I have had regular enquiries to join different groups, especially from new members which is brilliant. I have even had enquiries from members of other local U3a's, as our range of groups is attracting them, so we must be pretty good at what we offer.

Our thank you to those of you who lead a group, the annual Spring Lunch, is on Tuesday 10 May at the Angel Centre. You should have received an invite from Rosemary Martin, who has kindly taken on the role of collating numbers on my behalf and we look forward to seeing you then.

Please remember if you wish to look at joining a group, to check your handbook first, as this will have contact details. If the information is not there, but is on the web, do please get in touch with me to follow up on it.

All the best and enjoy the start of Summer

Jan Dixon groups.u3aton@gmail.com

Group Leaders Spring Lunch

To say a 'BIG THANK YOU' to all of you who are group leaders, we would like to invite you to our annual Spring Lunch on Tuesday 10 May at the Angel Centre, Medway Hall. Arrival from 12.15pm; Buffet lunch from 12.45pm.

We all look forward to meeting up to celebrate the good of Tonbridge u3a.

Reading Shakespeare

Thursday 23 June and Thursday 30 June at 10.00am If you are interested in joining this group, please email︎ news.u3aton@gmail.com

Galleries, Exhibitions and Museums

Jane wondered if anyone would like to join her on 11 May for a visit to the V & A for the Beatrice Potter exhibition. 12.45pm at the entrance. Get in touch with Jane (contact details in your May Journal) if interested.

3 June 3 - British Museum - World of Stonehenge. You will need to book for 12.30pm on

020 7323 8299 or go online.

1 July - National Gallery – Raphael

5 August - Margate – Wandering English History - no booking necessary

2 September - Wallace Collection – French Rococco

Margaret Pavlidis ✉︎ margaret@tu3a-travel.org.uk

Play Reading 12 May, 9 June, 11 August

u3a Jazz Forum

We have offered the possibility of two meetings recently, one in November and another for April; both have met with low response. We are going to try again on Thursday 12 March at the Flying Dutchman in Hildenborough from 2.30pm - 4.30 pm. Prospective new members are invited to contact

Ken Thomas (contact number in your April Journal)

Wine & Food Group

We are a new U3A Group still settling in to how we manage our monthly meetings. This time we were “At Home” sampling some random wines of £8 -10 per bottle with interesting cheeses. We had 2 bottles of White wine – Jam Shed Chardonnay, a deep flavoured wine from Australia, and Santodeno, Pecorino Terre di Chieti, a fresh & fruity Italian wine, which we preferred. The 2 bottles of Red were – Fuzion Malbec from Argentina, beautifully soft and fruity, and Vino Nobil di Montepulciano, a nicely balanced more delicate wine. I think there was an even vote on our enjoyment of these two wines. There were four cheeses; two were delicious soft British Goat Cheeses. We also had one Sheep Cheese called Seven Sisters from the High Weald Dairy. This was a semi soft, delicate cheese, finely coated in Hebridean seaweed – yummy! The fourth cheese was Gjetost, a semi-hard cheese with a burnt caramel sweetness to it. It is so popular in Norway that it is also called Norway’s national cheese!

We not only thoroughly enjoyed our ‘tastings’, but we also had plenty left in our bottles of wine to take home and enjoy later. Anyone interested in joining us, please contact Jane or Peter (contact numbers in your April Journal) for details of what we are doing and where we will be next time. It may well be a Spanish theme….possibly Paella with Spanish wines….or maybe something else!