Profiles of Patrons and Officers

Dr Nick Coni, Patron

When earlier this year the Council invited Nick Coni to become a Patron of U3A (Cambridge) it was recognising the crucial role that he had played in founding the organisation more than a quarter century ago.
Nick Coni was a consultant geriatrician at Addenbrooke’s when, in 1980, he was awarded a travelling fellowship from the Royal College of Physicians to visit facilities for the medical care of older people in France. While there, he was greatly impressed by another French development, the Université du Troisième Âge in Toulouse.

This led to a very fruitful association with Peter Laslett and their decision to hold a public meeting in Cambridge followed by a successful Easter School in 1982. This in turn was followed by the launch of the U3A in Cambridge, Peter being the first Chairman and Nick the second.

A considerable amount of legwork was called for in those early years, but due to the efforts of a group of very able enthusiasts, many of whom are still active in the organisation, it has flourished both locally and, thanks to Peter’s vision, nationally (and has taken a direction much less prescriptive than the French prototype).

Nick has subsequently served on Council and has organised classes in table tennis and, more recently, the Spanish Civil War. His greatest asset is Sally, and they have happy memories of the years when the annual U3AC parties for the tutors and for the helpers were held at their home in Barrow Road.

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Christine Jones, Chair of Council

Chris Jones joined U3A (Cambridge) in 1999, the motive being that she wanted to swim at the Leys School. That was the beginning, but she soon added to her involvement in U3A, for instance by joining the recorder group, and taking part in a number of other activities. Then in 2004 she became Chair of the Cultural and Social Activities committee, and in that capacity an ex officio member of the Council. Three years later, having been elected to remain on the Council, she became Vice-Chair and is now in her third year in that office.

Chris’s career had been in education. She had worked briefly in London as a translator before coming to Cambridge to train as a primary school teacher. During her years as a primary school music specialist she took piano teaching diplomas externally from the Trinity College of Music. She also obtained an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) certificate.

In 1997 she retired from Mayfield School - and embarked on a further bout of training, this time in order to become a Blue Badge tour guide. She has always been very impressed by the far-reaching scope of U3A, and the valuable role it plays in the lives of retired people. Chris says that she feels fortunate to be part of such an enterprising organisation.

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Charles Bonney - Vice Chair of Council
Charles Bonney, though he is a Londoner born and bred and deviated to “the other place” to begin his legal training at Pembroke College, has settled in Cambridgeshire now and was elected our new Vice Chair at the recent AGM. His legal career at Oxford, Lincoln's Inn, and the Chancery Bar, where he specialised in tax, trusts, property and partnership law, culminated in publication of a “rough guide” to solicitors' partnerships and supervision of the relevant part of Halsbury's Laws of England.

When he retired to Arrington in 2006, after several years of full-time caring, he soon made an impact and is now Vice Chairman of the Parish Council and Treasurer of St. Nicholas Church. These duties he fits round interests in Rome and the Grand Tour, Baroque music, Opera, choral singing, gardening, wine, the culinary arts and walking his Shetland Sheepdog of the moment. The present incumbent is Jack, who Charles describes as “an exhausting and endearing mix of hyper-energy and mischief”, but it was while walking a predecessor at nearby Wimpole that he met Liz Crow and was recruited to U3AC.

He joined courses on German with Jill Tatham, music with James Day, John Muir, David Waldman and John Hunter and sings in the U3AC choir (as well as the Comberton Cantabile). He was inspired by a German book he read at the Handel Festival at Halle to run a short course on Handel's time in Rome, which, he says, probably ought to and maybe will, become longer. U3AC he welcomes as enabling him to widen his social horizons beyond life in a small village and offering others an extraordinary range of courses. “I am fully committed, “ he says, “to doing my bit to continue the work of this pretty amazing organisation.”

Is there a chink in his armour? “Well, I hope I will be understood (if not entirely forgiven) if I suspend my new found loyalties to Cambridge at Putney, Twickenham and Lords!”

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Jeremy Clare, Treasurer

Jeremy Clare qualified as an experimental psychologist after studying at the then Rutherford College of Technology. His career took him between industry and the academic world, finishing with 14 years at Cambridge Consultants Ltd (CCL).
After two years of research with the Hotel and Catering Training Board, he joined British Aerospace, in Bristol, researching human vision. (He was a founder member of the Applied Vision Association.) After nine years, he came to Cambridge, with a Ministry of Defence fellowship in the Kenneth Craik Laboratory.
Two years later, still living in Cambridge, he worked in London, setting up a human factors department in a systems house. After four years came the move to CCL, where he worked on artificial intelligence.
He retired early, at the age of 54, and had no intention of doing nothing. His wife had come across U3AC and encouraged him to join. He enrolled in a military history class, having had a long professional interest in the subject. It was one of those classes where members take it in turn to give talks, and he went to the office to check the digital projector. It was then that Carol Spong suggested that he should run a PowerPoint course.
That began Jeremy’s active involvement in getting the U3AC computers sorted out, and working to improve the website. That led to the suggestion that he should stand for the Council, which he joined two years ago.
As the search for new premises got into top gear, Jeremy took on the role of project manager, using experience gained in industry. From the AGM this year, has succeeded John Hunter as Treasurer.
What appeals to him about U3AC? To answer, he looks back at the vision of Nick Coni and the other founders. He sees, and demonstrates, a great value in keeping active in retirement.

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Clem Messenger, Administrator & Secretary

Clem Messenger was brought up in Cambridge. She went to Queen Mary College University of London to study for a degree in Marine Biology. During this period she learnt to dive – and has used that skill more recently in Australia.

Work at the BBC as a researcher for the programme Pets and Vets was followed by a period with a public relations company. For three years she was employed at the Institute of Dermatology.

A change of life style happened when she and her then husband decided to leave London and live ‘off the land’ on the leeward side of the Brecon Beacons, where all the rain falls! Prior to this she decided to train as a primary teacher and completed a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education at the Froebel Institute, Roehampton. However she ended up teaching chemistry in the local comprehensive school in Wales before returning to Cambridge to live in Wandlebury.

Her son was born, and when he was two and a half she returned to teaching at the Meridian Primary School, Comberton, then at Sancton Wood Infant School.

Following this, she taught sciences for 17 years at the Perse Junior Girls’ School – returning, two and half years after retiring to fill an urgent vacancy.

On retirement she joined U3AC, which her parents had belonged to from its early days. She worked as a volunteer in the office, enjoying the opportunity to meet people – and to do things previously outside her experience. For example, she joined a bridge class.

She is an enthusiast for U3AC because it offers people a new life and the chance to be part of a community which is ‘fluid’, where one can meet people in the many and varied courses.

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Peter Woodsford – Director of Studies (Lectures)

Peter, who grew up in Dorset, began his association with Cambridge when he won an Open Exhibition at St. John’s, graduating with an Honours Degree in Mathematics in 1963.  In that year he took a step which had a major impact on his life – he went with the Voluntary Service Overseas organisation to Uganda, where he met and married his wife Sue, who was also with VSO.  Peter taught maths and physics at Busoga College Mwiri, a leading school in the country.  He and Sue returned to UK in 1967 but have maintained close ties with Uganda ever since and will be going there later this year for the Centennial celebrations of the school.

With a Diploma in Computer Science obtained with distinction back in Cambridge in 1968, he took up a research post in the University Computer Aided Design (CAD) group, where he wrote GINO, an innovative and widely used computer graphics software package.  He then joined Laser Scan, the first company on the Cambridge Science Park, where he was concerned with the development of computer mapping and geographic information systems.  He retired in 2009 as Chairman of the company, then called 1Spatial.  He is now non-executive chairman of Snowflake Software.  Peter also played a leading part in industry bodies in the UK and Europe and held a visiting professorship in Geomatics Engineering at UCL.  He was awarded an MBE for services to the geographic information industry in 2010.

Of his role in U3AC, which he joined in 2005, he says: “I have been a persistent German student, also active in Africa Forum, and I like to take on each year a subject of which I know little or nothing (eg Venerable Bede, Eminent Diarists, Happiness in Georgian London).  I give a course entitled ‘Maps in the Computer Age’ and have organised the Heidelberg Exchange (2008-9).”  His other interests include allotment gardening (“we have two”), cinema, cycling and travel (especially by train).  Elected to the Council in 2010, he became Director of Studies (Lectures) this year.  Asked what his plans were he said:  “As well as seeking to maintain the high standards we have had in the past, I hope to make good use of our own members and of some academics at the beginnings of their careers in the programme of Wednesday lectures.  I also hope to coordinate these with the Norah Boyce Science lectures”.

Carlos de la Riva – Director of Studies (Courses)

Carlos learnt about U3A Cambridge shortly before retiring from the Babraham Institute. The Institute arranged a series of presentations designed to help staff plan their retirement. Carlos retired in 2007, and immediately joined U3AC.

He worked at Babraham for 21 years. The Institute head-hunted him from the University Department of Anatomy, to help set up a new laboratory.

He came to the UK in the late 1960’s, from Bolivia, at a time when the economy of South America was weak, and Europe was a great magnet.

After working for a time for the Ministry of Agriculture in Cambridge, he was eligible for a bursary to go to college. However, as at that time he was not a British citizen, he did not get government funding. He did receive a grant from the County Council, and studied at the old Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (CCAT) for an external London degree. After a period working in the Department of Anatomy, Carlos went back to Bolivia to join the Bolivian Mining Corporation. He found its ethos unappealing, and returned to Cambridge after three years, and rejoined the Department of Anatomy.

U3AC, Carlos declares ‘is a wonderful concept, providing a venue for people who have retired to come together – as a kind of third age club’. He puts strong emphasis on this social benefit, and in his first year with U3AC taught a ‘social card games’ group – still running and now in its fourth year. He attends classes in German, classics and military history. This is all part of a busy life, which includes serving as a volunteer for the local charity CamMind.

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