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Events

Stone (Staffs) & District u3a Events are run on a regular basis throughout the year with invited speakers on a variety of topics. Contact Linda with any ideas for Speakers or Events.

u3a members can join in many free national Zoom events online. Current ones include laughter yoga, cryptic crosswords,
a talk on Turner and others on mindfulness and artificial intelligence.  https://www.u3a.org.uk/events/educational-events

Previous Events

Aid missions to Ukraine. 20th March 2026

This Speaker Meeting from Stone & District u3a was not just interesting; it was a roller coaster ride of emotions.

It’s easy to think that the war in Ukraine has finished, as all we see on the news at the moment, is war in Iran. But the truth is that it’s still going on. Ukrainian soldiers are still fighting; Ukrainian society is still under attack and Ukrainian people are still suffering. One person who knows this only too well, is Gary Fear.

Gary came to The Christchurch Centre to tell us about his 13 aid missions to Ukraine. He gave us the inside story of life in a war zone. He told us about the immense hardship that Ukrainian people are still suffering, and also about the lighter side of his aid missions.

Gary, who works full time as an estate agent, and two friends, first went to Ukraine before the war started. They had an old, battered car and thought it would be fun to drive it to Chernobyl, and christened the adventure, The Wobble to Chernobyl. This first trip to the country introduced Gary and his friends to Egor, their guide, and some of the people of Ukraine. The audience was shown pictures from this trip including Pripyat, an area of Chernobyl that became quite infamous after the nuclear accident when pictures of the swimming pool and amusement park were shown on international TV.

After the invasion, Gary knew he needed to do something to help those people he had met. He and his friends started fundraising with an aim to raise £1500 and deliver much needed food to those in need. They went to a Polish town on the border where Ukrainians were crossing into relative safety thinking that was where the aid was needed, but they soon found that food was not an issue on the border, but was needed in outlying areas and close to the front line. So, they went deeper into the Ukraine. When they got back to the UK, they immediately started fundraising again, and had raised £6500 by the time they were ready to go back. On this trip Gary met a severely disabled girl and her mother who were desperate for more medication. Gary managed to locate and purchase 6 months supply of the medication and delivered it to the family.

Gary continued to engage the audience with stories and pictures of his subsequent trips. He was able to show us pictures he had taken that show the real destruction of cities, towns and villages, together with the very basic living conditions that some Ukrainians live in. Mattresses on the floor of former school classrooms where up to 14 people were living. Locals sheltering in basements and bombed out buildings, often with little or no power. Gary said he felt humbled by the very people he was there to help. They had nothing, but wanted to give him something in return for the food. This was sometimes, just a hot drink, somewhere to sleep for the night, and one grateful man even gave him a missile that he had found after his home was hit. Unfortunately, Gary felt that he wouldn’t be allowed to bring it back to the UK on his flight, so had to graciously say no thank you!

During his first few visits Gary was not allowed close to the front line, but he met some Ukrainian Army Chaplin’s who took the food there for him. On later visits he was granted a permit to enter the conflict zone, and was able to deliver the food there himself.

He showed us pictures of a decimated village close to the front line which also had piles of burnt-out cars along the roadside. Gary explained that these cars belonged to civilians trying to escape the fighting but the opposition had opened fire on them. You could see the bullet holes in the wrecked cars.

He visited another village that had been without electric power for almost a year. With the donations he had already received he was able to buy a generator for the village, so at least they could charge their phones in order to receive the government warnings of where attacks were expected.

Once when Gary arrived a check point, he told the guard where he was going and what he was doing, the guard described one of the roads that Gary would have to use and advised him to drive as fast as he could along it, as the opposition soldiers were in the habit of targeting vehicles that were using it. This was one of the times that Gary felt terrified for his life. But he still continued. At one point Gary was so close to the Russian border that he received a message on his phone “Welcome to Russia”, On his twelfth trip Gary was witness to a full-blown missile attack min which many people died.

Gary’s slide show was filled with pictures of memorials that seemed to be in each city, town and village. The memorials were not only for the soldiers that had been lost, but also for the vast number of civilians, including children that had been killed in the attacks. One memorial was a giant pile of cuddly toys. He witnessed fresh graves in every town he visited, and on his 9th trip he saw a fallen soldiers funeral. He told us how the Ukrainian people are so respectful of the dead.

On each of his trips Gary has encountered a wide variety of people from the young to the elderly, from civilians to military personnel and also some foreign soldiers who chose to join the International League of Ukraine. He has been so touched by everyone’s fighting spirit and thankfulness that they haven’t been forgotten. When he has visited hospitals full of severely injured soldiers, he was overcome by the overriding requests form the soldiers themselves, for prosthetic limbs, so that they could go back to the front line and continue to serve their country.

Gary has become friends of some of the people he has met and has also met or been in contact with many people in the UK who have, or had family members in Ukraine.

One such person is Dean Gatley, whose son Jordan was killed in Ukraine. Dean asked Gary to take a photograph of his late sone back to Ukraine, to be added to the memorial where he fell. Later Gary was able to pick up a medal awarded to Jordan and bring it back for his father. Dean also accompanied Gary on his 5th aid mission. And Jordan’s picture now adorns the vans that Gary uses. Gary now often takes photographs of the fallen back to Ukraine on behalf of families here in the UK.

Gary fundraises wherever he can and uses all the money to buy food, generators and power banks which he delivers to those in most need. He doesn’t buy goods in the UK to ship out, he buy’s them from supermarkets and other places locally in Ukraine. There is no shortage of food in the country, but what they lack is the ability to take it to those who don’t live in the cities, and to those who are near the front line.

Gary isn’t part of any well-known charity; he just felt that he had to do something to help the people he has already met. His original guide, Egor advises him where the aid is needed and arranges pick up points when he can. In some places they are advised NOT to create a gathering as this would make them a target for the opposition drones.

Some of Gary’s statistics for you;

He has made 13 aid trips so far. His next one will be on 1st May this year.
He has travelled over 51,000 miles
He has raised (and spent) over £154,000
He has delivered over 7,550 bags of food (that equates to about 45 tonnes)
He had provided 22 generators and 5 power banks.

Gary has battled through extreme cold, as low as -21 C, suffered vehicle issues, poor road conditions and personal danger to deliver his aid to those that need it most. When asked when he would stop, he replied, when the war is over!

Pipes and Pipe Smoking 30th January 2026

By our own member Kath Adams on the fascinating subject of pipes and pipe smoking.  The meeting was well attended.

Kath entertained the audience with a very factual and humorous presentation showing the historical beginnings of pipes and smoking. She began by donning her smoking jacket and hat, and sitting on her very own smoking chair as would have been used by gentlemen about town in the past. 

Tobacco was first brought to the UK by Sir FrancisDrake and was made popular by Walter Raleigh.  It’s said that one of his servants saw him with smoke coming out of his mouth and threw a bucket of water over him to “put him out”.  Whether this is true or not we’ll probably never know, but what we do know is that smoking became widely popular.

The audience were shown images of the earliest pipes, made from stone, through to the pipes that we would easily recognise today. Pipes have been made from various materials, stone, clay, wood, porcelain and Measham and in so many styles, from basic bowls with a stem to highly decorated pipes depicting whole scenes or characters.  Kath had even brought some of her own collection in for the audience to see. Pipe smoking was very popular, with the size and decoration of your pipe being used almost as a status symbol, or merely to show off.  Pipes were made to remember people places and happenings.  In fact, no subject was out of bounds, even erotica!

Kath, a member of the Pipe Academy (Academie International De La Pipe) amused the audience with stories about the characters that were depicted in some of the pipes. Thank you to all who attended and those who helped to organise the meeting.  Our next Speaker Meeting will be held on Friday 20^th March.

SPEAKER - Mike Taylor - Restoring neglected ancient woodland - 19th September 2025

He worked as a steel worker for 30 years before swapping the steel mill for the woodlands. Together with his wife Julie they have been restoring neglected ancient woodland in Shropshire since 2010.
Mike coppices a different area of woodland every year for the benefit of plants birds mammals and insects. Coppiced trees regrow over the following years. Many native trees provide raw material for crafts. Creating handmade unique wooden items support woodland restoration in a yearly cycle of coppicing   

It was a most interesting talk with plenty of questions and answers afterwards. Mike also brought with him some of the many items he had made from the wood he had coppiced. As everyone enjoyed the afternoon there will be a follow up talk by Mike early in 2026.

OUTING – Linda Thompson – Fungi Foray

On Monday 21st October 2024 a fungi foray was arranged at Parkhall Country Park. It was led by Chris Voisey, a local amateur mycologist. It was well attended, and many different species were identified. A plethora of photographs were taken over this two-hour walk. There was much enthusiasm for more outings like this and Chris has agreed to repeat more forays next year but earlier in the month when there should be more fungi to discover. Thanks once again to Chris for a most enjoyable and informative outing.

SPEAKER MEETING –‘Lesley Smith at Tutbury Castle’

On 25th March 2024 we were privileged to see another great performance by Lesley Smith on her last appearance at Tutbury Castle. This time, she brought the mighty warrior queen Boudicca to life; recounting how she rose to lead the Ancient Iceni tribe in a failed war against the Romans. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and amusing talk, followed by a scrummy cream tea.

SPEAKER MEETING –‘Have yourself a Wild Christmas’
To a packed house audience in the Christ Church Hall, on Friday 24th Nov 2023, speaker Kevin Reynolds gave an amusing and informative talk with a carefully curated slideshow. He showed strangely imaged Victorian Xmas cards, told the origins of that popular Xmas plant, the Poinsettia, and debunked the idea that Prince Albert was the first to introduce the Xmas Tree to Britain, also explaining our pagan use of the holly and ivy. An enjoyable time had, plus refreshments, for only £2.00.

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