Well we are on the home straight now as we head towards the most unique of Christmas.
It very much feels like there is a balancing act between the desire to normalise Christmas as much as is possible and the common sense of limiting contact. I fear the price will have to be paid in the New Year. Rose and I don't really have that dilemma as Kate cannot join us from Germany and my sisters all have family who are quite rightly in their bubble.
Oh well, just means I will win (cheat) at the traditional board games we always play!
Christmas Concert, we are counting down now to our Christmas Concert on the
21st December at 10.30am. Thanks to all the contributors everything is prepared and ready to go. We are doing everything possible to encourage as many U3a members as is possible to get ready to view our Christmas Concert. You can do your bit by helping us to help members to be ready to watch. It will be something completely new and alien for most. I suspect we will not be joined by significant numbers though.
You should start receiving notices of the Concert over the coming days.
First and foremost, this is a Concert for you the loyal members of HUG and a celebration of how we have found ways to stay together.
Watching the Concert and maximising the experience, as this is a first for us there are a number of things I would suggest. Firstly I am not going to be putting up song sheets as we would do ordinarily because I want to make the videos as large as possible for those viewing. Secondly, I suggest getting comfortable with maximising and minimising the chat window so that again the viewing screen is as large as it can be. You can then minimise whenever you want to type chat to bring that facility back. There is a small square type icon usually bottom right (it looks like a speaking bubble) It will show the icon with a line through it when chat is active so click on this to close chat then do the opposite to reopen chat.
If you do not already, I suggest watching in Landscape rather than standing up your tablet in portrait. Also, if you don't already, check out how to enlarge your screen size to get the most from our streams.
I will be sending out song lyrics for the U3a people who would like to sing along.
On Monday the day of the concert I will go live from 10.00am in order to give people the chance to get logged in and settled down for 10.30am start.
At some stage we will repeat the concert especially for ourselves and include play along as well.
Hug Social, we will continue to quiz and feature original songs and look at new for us songs as well as having a cheeky strum along!
The Blues Course is progressing well and is necessarily focussing upon the basics and learning that there are many facets to the Blues to get to grips with. A you know my pet hate is Zoom and my experiences with the course have not diminished this. It is marginally better than using cans and string to communicate!
Original Songs, the challenge is out there for you to get creative and once again write original songs. Especially those who have not done so before. Remember you can always collaborate! Think it would be good this time to stay away from anything Covid related and perhaps look to the future. Or any topic is fine. Poems are also good.
Heswall Hall, latest news is that the Trustees have taken the decision that the Hall will remain closed until the Spring.
Dates and meetings, we would normally be setting dates for stopping meetings and when we would resume but these are not normal times!
On Christmas Day I presume you will have thing to do! I will though switch on the stream at 10.30am for a little while so if you want to come on and Chat for a few minutes that would be nice, who knows may sing some Christmas songs! (not me!)
The following Friday is New Year and I will stream to anyone who wants to join in.
So go on get back to your Christmas shopping and I will find as many excuses as I can to avoid doing so!
Stay safe
Dave