Welcome to the home of the Virtual University of the Third Age

 The Virtual U3A or vU3A is like a local U3A Group except that its activities take place on the Internet.

An important target group for the vU3a is older people who are isolated through location, illness or immobility - but all are welcome. We have members from around the world. 

Members of the Virtual U3A are encouraged to form their own informal learning and discussion groups, choose their own topics and share their experiences in the social areas of the site. It follows the principles of participative learning which have made the U3A one of the most successful educational and social groups for older people.

The vU3A's activities are carried out in writing using a secure, membership only, workspace. The vU3A does not create or deliver formal structured online courses.

The vU3A is now an independently run U3A group affiliated to The Third Age Trust just like any other.

 Activities

Our activities take place on a variety of interest pages in our wiki website hosted by PBWorks. A sample of which you can be found here.

There is no need to formally join any vU3A activity, you can just visit, read and make contributions.

There is usually much information to read which can be a great help for those venturing into new subject matter areas. Dropping in every now and again is the norm.

Coffee Shop 

There is the ever-popular Coffee Shop which is an agreeable place to visit and have a chat in the form of written comments in the Comments section of the page. The nice thing is you don't all have to be online at the same time to have your chat - particularly when there might be contributions from around the world, for example, Australia, as time zones are not a factor.

As you will be aware, electronic communications lack the subtleties of everyday face-to-face interactions so we have a few guidelines to make the wiki experience enjoyable for all:

Make others feel welcome

Create and maintain a friendly environment
Give praise
If needs be, turn the other cheek and forgive!

And don't worry there is always some one available to help!