Life of a U3a Roving Reporter

As I have always enjoyed meeting people, this sounded like fun. I envisaged a rush of members wanting to take up this great opportunity so did not immediately offer. A few weeks later, I was still thinking this was a job I would like to do so I contacted Alan Pengilley of the U3A and checked to see if he still needed someone. He told me I was the first and only person to come forward!

We chatted about the role and he asked me to contact Janet Harrison at the Wetherby News office to find out more. I was not expecting what she said next. They not only required 700 words each month and a photograph of the various groups I visited, but also a photo of me to go alongside the column, which was not a column, but more like a whole page.

Over the past five-and-a-half years I have had the pleasure of visiting and reporting on upwards of 40 U3A groups, attended numerous Open Meetings and AGM’s, Christmas Showcases and quizzes, interviewed Committee members about their roles, U3A members about their personal histories and adventures and reflected on what was happening in my own life and learning, and have taken hundreds of photographs.

Sadly, over the past few months many of these groups have ceased to meet and others have moved to online zoom meetings. So, my role as Roving Reporter has changed during 2020.

Along with Brexit, COVID-19, Lockdowns and vaccines, a new word has come into our vocabulary. For the first time in my life, I am hearing the same word voiced by an ever-increasing number of people. Hugh Pym, the Health Editor of the BBC summed things up when he used the word in the phrase ‘wall to wall uncertainty’ to describe the current feeling in the country.

As U3A members, people with families and part of a community, how do we learn to live with these uncertainties? How do we get used to not getting used to things? Maybe one of the answers is to give certainty wherever we can and learn to live with what we cannot control. Quite simple things like making a defined work/hobby area for each person in the house and writing a daily diary each night of what we have done during the day. Keeping in touch with friends and family and ensure that those we can support are aware of that. Zoom has become the new meeting point for so many of us, and the telephone and letters are still be welcome visitors to our homes. Community interaction, often via WhatsApp Groups is more important now than ever before.

In my capacity as a volunteer for Sustrans I walk The Harland Way most days. Sometimes known as The Triangle, it is a green corridor running through the heart of Wetherby, joining its various footpaths and cycleways with a series of beautiful bridges, all exposed during the winter in their full glory. The triangular nature of the Harland Way means that from almost anywhere in Wetherby, it is possible to join the network of footpaths on the triangle and walk to town, access the cycle parks, local schools, Spofforth and Thorp Arch, but above all it has become, in these uncertain times, a magnet for all ages, one that even Peter Harland (after whom it was named) could not have envisaged. This green corridor has become the route where chance encounters happen and where a passing hello is still possible. My role is to ensure the route is open and walkable. After the snow, there are lots of fallen trees which have been reported to the Forestry Team at Leeds City Council, who look after trees on council owned land.

So, if you like me embark on daily walk, enjoy it as one of the few certain things we have in this uncertain world.

If you are unfamiliar with The Harland Way click on the link to Ordnance Survey online maps The Harland Way Triangle, Wetherby (ordnancesurvey.co.uk)