2025
SUBSCRIPTIONS 2026
The Sherwood u3a Committee are confirming that for another year we will not be increasing your membership
subscription for 2026/2027 which will remain at £21 for both full members and postal members.
The newsletter is now being printed in-house. If you wish to have a copy of the newsletter each month starting
in April you can pay an extra £10 with your membership fee when you renew. Please note: we will not be able to
accept requests for newsletters after you have paid your membership renewal.
MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
RENEWAL FORMS can be obtained from the Members’ Secretary Terry Dillon. If you are unable to pick up your
form you may ask another member to do this on your behalf. However please note this will apply up to the
February 2026 meeting only.
PAYMENTS – You can pay as follows:-
a) By cheque ensuring that the cheque is made out to Sherwood u3a.
b) Through your bank via the BACS system – details are sort code 30.98.97. Account No. 39742862. Please
put your name in the reference section.
c) By Credit or Debit card at a meeting when returning your form.
FORMS –
a) all renewal forms should be returned to Terry Dilllon, Members’ Secretary by post or at the General
Meeting by Thursday 12th March 2026 (March meeting) at the latest.
b) Please ensure that the form is completed correctly and signed. If a joint membership please ensure
that both members sign the form before returning.
c) If your form is not returned and your subscription not paid and you have not contacted Terry it will be
assumed that you no longer wish to continue to be a member of Sherwood u3a.
You will also note that you now have a choice of whether to continue as a full member or revert to a Postal
Member who are o ered all events, outings, groups etc. as a full member but will not be able to attend all
Thursday meetings. This is useful if you are unable to attend future Thursday meetings due to other
commitments.
It is important to understand that if you have not attended any of the previous Thursday meetings this year as a
full member you may be asked to revert to a Postal Member to allow another member to attend. However you
will retain the date you joined and should vacancies occur and you wish to return to a full member you are able
to do so.
Any vacancies in the full membership will be o ered to the postal members in date order.
GIFT AID – Please Tick the Box
If you are paying Income Tax, please complete the information where a request for Gift Aid is asked for as
Sherwood u3a get 20% back for Gift Aid. Every £1 received 20p is returned to Sherwood u3a as Gift Aid which
goes towards keeping our annual expenditure down.
Any queries should be directed to: –
Terry Dillon (Mrs.), Members’ Secretary.
***********************************************************
SHERWOOD U3a Beacon News for Members
- Good news!! We are now beginning to use Beacon email to send messages to members. You may have already received a message if you are in Afternoon Tap Room Games, Gardening Group 2, or Strolling – where the Christmas meeting had to be cancelled at short notice.
- We will soon be sending emails to all members and hope to send Newsletters too via Beacon email in future. It is important that we have members’ up-to-date email addresses so please add them to your Membership Renewal Form, or email them to me, Kate Kiely, at beacon1@sherwoodu3a mansfieldwoodhouse.org.uk. We appreciate that there are still members who do not use email so we will continue to contact you in the usual
way. - Where Group sessions are being cancelled for whatever reason, we are asking Group Leaders to send emails out by 8 am on the morning of the event. This is particularly relevant to all the walking groups who meet from 9 am, so we are asking Members to get into the habit of checking their emails in the morning.
Beacon emails won’t look any different to your usual emails but will have the following statement at the end of the email: This email was sent by Beacon on behalf of … (name of Group Leader) Gradually, over the coming weeks, you will notice that your committee will move away from using personal email addresses for committee business, and will have new email addresses like the one above @sherwoodu3a-mansfieldwoodhouse.org.uk. - This is simply for administrative reasons and to ensure continuity when a committee member leaves their role. Their replacement committee member will simply inherit the email address.
A Reminder about Beacon and Information for New Members. Kate Kiely, Beacon Administrator
Beacon is an online management system designed by u3as, for u3as and it is currently used by over 600 individual u3as across the country: It allows us to manage data and to communicate with members easily and e iciently via Beacon email
• It is a time saver for those who manage membership and group information
• With new regulations on Data Privacy, it ensures that we comply with all legal requirements
- In the future we plan to send Newsletters via Beacon email and, as you know, we ran some tests in March to find out if there were any problems with doing this.
- Thanks again to all those who let us know they did receive the email and Newsletter without any issues occurring. We did find a few minor teething problems, such as incorrect email addresses which we have now resolved. If you never received a test copy of the Newsletter via Beacon, please get in touch with me as soon as possible and let me have your email address for checking purposes. We plan to run the same test again with April’s Newsletter, which means you will still receive your Newsletter from Margaret as usual, and in addition another test copy via Beacon. In May we plan to switch over entirely and you will get your copy of the Newsletter via Beacon. Email me at: beacon1@sherwoodu3a-mansfieldwoodhouse.org.uk
************************************************************************
INVITATION TO GROUP LEADERS’ MEETING
Tuesday 21st April 2026 IN TURNER LOUNGE from 10am till noon.
Monday 5th October. IN TURNER LOUNGE from 10am till noon.
- Kate Kiely and Sue Davison, Group Coordinators.
******************************************************************
SUBSCRIPTIONS 2026
The Sherwood u3a Committee are confirming that for another year we will not be increasing your membership
subscription for 2026/2027 which will remain at £21 for both full members and postal members.
The newsletter is now being printed in-house. If you wish to have a copy of the newsletter each month starting
in April you can pay an extra £10 with your membership fee when you renew. Please note: we will not be able to
accept requests for newsletters after you have paid your membership renewal.
MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
RENEWAL FORMS can be obtained from the Members’ Secretary Terry Dillon. If you are unable to pick up your
form you may ask another member to do this on your behalf. However please note this will apply up to the
February 2026 meeting only.
PAYMENTS – You can pay as follows:-
a) By cheque ensuring that the cheque is made out to Sherwood u3a.
b) Through your bank via the BACS system – details are sort code 30.98.97. Account No. 39742862. Please
put your name in the reference section.
c) By Credit or Debit card at a meeting when returning your form.
FORMS –
a) all renewal forms should be returned to Terry Dilllon, Members’ Secretary by post or at the General
Meeting by Thursday 12th March 2026 (March meeting) at the latest.
b) Please ensure that the form is completed correctly and signed. If a joint membership please ensure
that both members sign the form before returning.
c) If your form is not returned and your subscription not paid and you have not contacted Terry it will be
assumed that you no longer wish to continue to be a member of Sherwood u3a.
You will also note that you now have a choice of whether to continue as a full member or revert to a Postal
Member who are o ered all events, outings, groups etc. as a full member but will not be able to attend all
Thursday meetings. This is useful if you are unable to attend future Thursday meetings due to other
commitments.
It is important to understand that if you have not attended any of the previous Thursday meetings this year as a
full member you may be asked to revert to a Postal Member to allow another member to attend. However you
will retain the date you joined and should vacancies occur and you wish to return to a full member you are able
to do so.
Any vacancies in the full membership will be o ered to the postal members in date order.
GIFT AID – Please Tick the Box
If you are paying Income Tax, please complete the information where a request for Gift Aid is asked for as
Sherwood u3a get 20% back for Gift Aid. Every £1 received 20p is returned to Sherwood u3a as Gift Aid which
goes towards keeping our annual expenditure down.
Any queries should be directed to: –
Terry Dillon (Mrs.), Members’ Secretary.
***********************************************************