"I don’t think any of us are too old to learn something new"
The Discussion Group
The Discussion Group is taking its Summer break. We return on 13 September 2024. We used to be the Study and Discussion group, which sounds a bit “back to school”, doesn’t it? Perhaps it was, though I don’t think any of us are too old to learn something new. This group has been part for the Driffield and Wolds u3a for over 20 years now and we still find interesting things to talk about. So what do we do?
We meet once a week in the spring, autumn and winter with a break for the summer, and we talk about things. What kind of things? Over the 5 years that I have been a member we have discussed history, art, science, medicine, books, poetry, mathematics, politics, our heroes…and pretty well anything we can think of.
As the Study and Discussion Group we always started our meetings by having someone talk about something for half an hour or so. Then we’d discuss it. What we found was that we tended to enjoy the discussion a lot more than the “lecture”, so now we often just launch into the discussion. From now on we are the Discussion Group.
We don't have a set format for our meetings. If we’ve chosen a topic where one of us thinks he or she is an expert, then they might talk about it for 5 or 10 minutes before we discuss it but usually we’ll just launch into a discussion. One thing is almost guaranteed: the discussion will range far beyond what we originally intended.
"the discussion will range far beyond what we originally intended."
"we’re not a bunch of intellectuals"
I’ve certainly learnt things. I would say I learn something new every week, even if it’s that everybody is wrong except me.
Have a look at our programme for the coming weeks and see if there’s anything that grabs your interest. You can also look at our past topics. I should say though, that we nearly always end up discussing a much wider range of stuff than the topic implies.
Do you fancy joining in? If you do you’ll be most welcome. You shouldn’t feel daunted. We don’t all feel we have to contribute every week. Indeed, sometimes I just sit and listen for the entire meeting.
And we’re not a bunch of intellectuals. Well, I think I'm an intellectual, but somebody usually puts me right.
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