The North West Region of U3As

Supporting U3As and their members in the NW of England
NW U3A Home Page
Latest News
Diary Of Events
Report on Myerscough
Report on AGM & Lecture
Report on Energy Day
Seminar Day
Newsletter No 8
Newsletter No 7
Events at NW U3As
Contacts & Committee
NW U3A Website Links
Archive Pages
NW REGION OF U3As Home Page

This website gives News and Information about the NW Region of U3As and its activities.   
 
For latest updates please see 'Latest News'


The North West Region of U3As was set up early in 2009 as a result of an EGM of the Third Age Trust in spring 2008 establishing Regions as an entity. These regions are those that the government uses for regional development authorities and other matters  (i.e. for the NW the Counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and all Unitary Authorities contiguous with these).  
 
All U3As in the NW are by right members without any payment.
 
One function is to support the NW Trustee on the Third Age Trust (TAT) and to act as a conduit, in both directions, for information between TAT and individual U3As and local networks. Another function is to arrange activities open to individual members of NW U3As.  These include Residential Schools, Day Conferences and visits. We also facilitate information exchange.
The NW Region of U3A's differs from local U3A networks. Local networks such as the Lancashire Link, Pennine Link etc concentrate on fostering local collaborations between U3As and organising local meetings. They have geographic boundaries set by themselves and in some cases (e.g. Pennine Link) overlap more than one region. Membership of networks is voluntary and most charge a small membership fee to their constituent U3As. There is no restriction on a U3A being a member of more than one network.
On the other hand the Region is defined by TAT, all U3As are members and no fee is charged. The cost of providing statutory functions (e.g. an AGM and appropriate notifications) comes from central funds whilst individual events such as study days, regional residential schools have, overall, to be self financing by making a charge to participating individuals.  Of course it is up to individual U3As to offer such support as they think fit to their own members to participate.