WELCOME FROM OUR CHAIRMAN
Dear Reader and Fellow Members of Ballymoney U3A
In 1938 as the crisis in Europe deepened the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, described the issue regarding the Sudetenland as a "quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing."
When we first heard about Covid-19 a year or so ago it was a bit like that. China is a long way away and we have had these scares before – swine flu, avian flu, etc, but they soon passed. The so-called Spanish Flu killed countless millions of people all over the world between 1918 and 1921 but there is no one alive today who actually remembers that awful pandemic. Time seems to have erased the memory of some of the practical steps used at that time to counteract it. Medicine has come a long way in the interim but victory over the Coronavirus doesn’t look as if it is going to be conquered any time soon, if ever.
Our entire world has been turned upside down. Many of the activities that we simply took for granted until only nine months ago have been suspended indefinitely. Some may never be resurrected. Life during the Spanish Flu pandemic has many parallels to life to-day except that 100 years ago the marvels of the technology that we now take for granted did not exist. At least to-day we can communicate using the internet via Zoom and other media which has been a Godsend. It has been a real life-line for organisations such as U3A.
Covid-19 has seen to it that this year’s programme has had to be curtailed, but thanks to our committee, only to a certain degree. Obviously, our monthly meetings have had to be suspended, as with other activities where we were required to gather together. But we have managed to put together a pretty varied programme of events that can be carried out either physically, within the current regulations, or by Zoom.
I sincerely hope, therefore, that it will continue to hold your interest in U3A for as long as this “plague” continues to disrupt our normal lives.
Keep safe.
John W D Pinkerton, Chairman
In 1938 as the crisis in Europe deepened the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, described the issue regarding the Sudetenland as a "quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing."
When we first heard about Covid-19 a year or so ago it was a bit like that. China is a long way away and we have had these scares before – swine flu, avian flu, etc, but they soon passed. The so-called Spanish Flu killed countless millions of people all over the world between 1918 and 1921 but there is no one alive today who actually remembers that awful pandemic. Time seems to have erased the memory of some of the practical steps used at that time to counteract it. Medicine has come a long way in the interim but victory over the Coronavirus doesn’t look as if it is going to be conquered any time soon, if ever.
Our entire world has been turned upside down. Many of the activities that we simply took for granted until only nine months ago have been suspended indefinitely. Some may never be resurrected. Life during the Spanish Flu pandemic has many parallels to life to-day except that 100 years ago the marvels of the technology that we now take for granted did not exist. At least to-day we can communicate using the internet via Zoom and other media which has been a Godsend. It has been a real life-line for organisations such as U3A.
Covid-19 has seen to it that this year’s programme has had to be curtailed, but thanks to our committee, only to a certain degree. Obviously, our monthly meetings have had to be suspended, as with other activities where we were required to gather together. But we have managed to put together a pretty varied programme of events that can be carried out either physically, within the current regulations, or by Zoom.
I sincerely hope, therefore, that it will continue to hold your interest in U3A for as long as this “plague” continues to disrupt our normal lives.
Keep safe.
John W D Pinkerton, Chairman