THE September meeting of Crediton and District u3a was held in the Boniface Centre on September 17.

The meeting was a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding of Crediton and District u3a in the autumn of 2015 and was attended by about 90 people.

The chair, Liz Ouldridge, in introducing the meeting, said that it might be longer than usual as everyone present would, in addition to the free pen already given on entry, they would be getting a slice of celebratory cake and a cup of non-alcoholic punch at the end.

Inviting our first chair, Jane Innes, to cut the cakes she commented on the immense progress we had made in our first 10 years.

Jane gave first mention to the person who gave the inspiration and provided the impetus for the establishment of our u3a was the long-time mayor of Crediton, the late Frank Letch MBE.

Frank was speaker at our first meeting proper in November 2015, where he gave a talk with the title “Feet First”.

Looking around the room Jane identified a number of individuals that were present at that first meeting from whose number the first committee was formed and three of whom are still committee members.

Crediton and District u3a now has over 270 members with 26 subject groups.

After making the first cut of the cakes, Jane then handed things over to Liz to introduce our speaker.

Martin Pailthorpe gave a talk on the natural history of areas of the Northern Hebrides and Connemara in Western Ireland.

After thanking our speaker for his fascinating talk, Liz announced the serving of the cake and punch.

The cake – which was quite delicious – was made by Lisa Tarr of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Tarr in Crediton High Street and the punch was made to a recipe provided by Fenella Rundell.

Keith Barker