Issue 31

Autumn 2008

Previous

Next

Next

Previous

u3a.harrogate@googlemail.com

Group News cont’d

Painting

A small crop of paintings emerged from our trip to Richmond at the end of July and we paid a visit to the FEVA festival in Knaresborough with special emphasis on paintings of course.

The following weeks were devoted to pictures of animals and birds resulting in some likenesses of pets large and small.

Looming in the background throughout this period was our impending exhibition in September. Each member had been asked to submit at least one picture and our usually leisured sessions were transformed into a frenzy of industry to get things done in time.

A small selection of these pictures was on show at the AGM day Open Morning at the Cairn Hotel but to see the full collection meant a trip to St. Andrews on the following Tuesday.

Fortunately the weather was only moderately wet on the day and we welcomed an encouraging flow of visitors, some of them U3A members, the rest the curious population of Starbeck who popped in to see what was going on and enjoy a coffee at a very reasonable price.

The exciting climax of the quarter saw 18 of our members making a visit to Nice – yes that Nice. Where better when you are looking for some sunshine in October? And we were rewarded with six days of clear blue skies, azure sea and unbroken sunshine. Our hotel was central close by the “Vieux Nice” (old Nice). The narrow lanes with steep steps and multi-coloured houses were just ideal subjects for our sketches and photos. The many charming restaurants of this area provided us with our meals and evening entertainment.

We ventured out on the frequent local buses to Villefranche, Beaulieu, Eze, Monte Carlo and St Paul en Vence for sketching and photo excursions. We also visited the Musee Matisse and Musee Chagall.

We all agreed that we had had a really successful holiday and look forward to producing exciting paintings inspired by our visit.

Bill Mallinson/Peter Kearney

Philosophy

We started the new academic year with a session on Fredrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900. Nietzsche was a German Philosopher, who didn’t like Germans and in fact, only disliked the French and the English more. A man of great intelligence and perception, he was appointed Professor of Philology at Basel university when only 24 years old and still in the middle of his doctorate at Leipzig. Brought up in a strict Lutheran household he became an agnostic who critised contemporary society for having abandoned its religious beliefs and moral way of life, without putting an alternative in place. He is wrongly held to have had ideas later taken up by the Nazis who claimed his philosophy supported them. Despite having a very short working life (at the age of 34 poor physical and mental heath caused him to withdraw into seclusion) his influence was great.  In one of his works, he declared that ‘God is dead, and we killed him’. Some time after his death a church in London had a banner outside saying ‘God is dead’, Signed Nietzsche. Underneath was written ‘Nietzsche is dead’, Signed God.

For our next session Terry Collins presented an exercise in knowledge, entitled  ‘Seeing is not believing’, in which Terry discussed and proved with experiments, which we all took part in, that every thing we think we see, is not necessarily what is actually there.

We now have 20 members in the group and for the first time a waiting list. As we are essentially a discussion group, I am thinking of forming a second group in the New Year which would start by looking at the Ancient Greeks.

If you are interested in joining either Group email me at:

Two Philosophers were walking down the Shambles in York where there was a woman leaning out of an upstairs windows on each side of the street arguing. ‘They will never agree with each other’ said one Philosopher to the other. ‘Why not?’ asked the second. ‘Because they are arguing from different premises’ replied the first.

David Broadley

Scrabble

Scrabble is held every second Thursday in the month and not the first as indicated in the pink list previously issued.

Joy Able