Annual General Meeting
12:30 pm Thursday 26 March 2026
President’s Report
Committee of Management
Executive
| President | Shirley Fung |
| Vice-President | David McNamara |
| Acting Treasurer | Bryce Normoyle |
| Secretary | Lyn Davies |
Ordinary Members
| Andrew Barnett (Equipment) | Quintin Coutinho (Network, OH&S) |
| Robyn Buttling (Office) | Doug Wallace (Enrolments) |
| Milly Ching (Curriculum) | Warwick Wright (MyU3A System) |
| Neville Cook (Communications, IT) |
Overview
As of February this year, our membership stands at 1,682. We are proud to have among our members people from over 60 countries of origin, all participants enriching our experiences across cultures. Our learning programs are inclusive and enriched by the diversity among our members. We are very proud that more than 50% of our members volunteer to take up the variety of roles necessary to run our organisation efficiently. The unwavering dedication and invaluable efforts of our volunteers have significantly contributed to the success and growth of our organisation. To them, we extend our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation.
Courses and enrolments
To date we have192 courses very effectively delivered by 161 tutors. Our tutors are drawn from our cohort of members and from our community with offers to teach new and exciting programs. We thank all our tutors for their diligence and commitment in delivering meaningful courses that cater to the interests of our members and contribute to their physical, mental and social wellbeing. We are conscious of the need to keep pace with the rapid changes in the world around us, and this awareness is incorporated into the development of our courses. My thanks to our Curriculum Manager Milly Ching for her pivotal role in overseeing all aspects of the curriculum, timetabling and room allocation, to name a few from her long list of responsibilities. With our increasing membership comes the challenge of developing more courses to cater to all. Our membership is large, but not too large, and we can continue to monitor and maintain the quality of our courses. New tutors are always welcome to join us in our drive to engage our members in lifelong thinking and learning.
Summer School is an extension of our learning activities offered in the long break in January. Thanks to Summer School Coordinator Liz Haylock assisted by Don O’Gorman and Office volunteers, who were enormously successful in attracting enrolments into the variety of programs offered.
With an increasing number of exciting courses comes the challenge of finding space for our classes. Being close to saturation point for space at The Pines, we have had to look for external venues to accommodate our classes. This incurs increased costs, but I believe it is money well worth spending. We have a number of mutually beneficial arrangements with local retirement villages that have provided space free of charge on the proviso that their members may attend our classes in their village without being U3A members. These include Applewood, Domaine and Roseville. We thank their management and staff for supporting our programs. Our other external venues include the private homes of some extremely generous members. We thank them for their support. U3A Manningham also uses the venues of supportive not-for-profit organisations such as 1st Lower Templestowe Scouts, St Mark’s Anglican Church, Donvale Tennis Club, Donvale Bowls Club and the Veneto Club. Our commercial stadium venues, now operated by Aligned Leisure, are also working well for us. In my other hat as New Course Coordinator, supported by our Committee of Management, I shall continue to recruit new tutors and work on strategies to maximise the use of space for more classes.
From member feedback, our programs could benefit more people in our community, but not enough people in the community are aware of U3A Manningham and the programs that could be of benefit to them. In 2025, we set up a Promotions Subcommittee and in February last year they started a membership drive. As a result, we were able to welcome a considerable number of new members. I thank the Promotions Subcommittee members Peter Irvine, Maggie Gardner, Neville Cook and Doug Wallace for their unwavering efforts.
As in previous years, to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to enrol into some courses of their choice, we limited our members to 3 courses each at the initial enrolment at the end of 2025. On 14 January this year, the limit of 3 courses was lifted for anyone who wished to enrol in additional courses. Our tutors have the option of keeping 10% of places in their class for new members. The Committee of Management has found this arrangement works well, and hopes the practice will continue into future years. My thanks to Doug Wallace and his team for very ably navigating us through enrolment procedures, which at times were challenging.
Policies and procedures
Policies and Procedures Coordinator Doug Wallace, together with his team, spent a considerable amount of time revising and updating U3AM policies and procedures. My thanks to Doug and his team for their hard work in getting the relevant documents posted on our website.
Our Communications Team
We have a vibrant and very informative website, thanks to Neville Cook and his Communications Team. The site is inviting and welcomes both members and our community to see who we are, what we stand for, what we do and what to look forward to in terms of exciting programs and activities.
Member Wizard: our new membership management system
U3A Manningham has been well supported for many years by MyU3A, but every digital system has its life span of usability. The time has come to change over to a new system, Member Wizard, that is designed to manage U3A membership. My thanks to Warwick Wright for his many years of support for U3AM in the management and maintenance of MyU3A. At the beginning of 2025, preparation for changeover to Member Wizard was initiated by our IT and Equipment Subcommittee headed by Neville Cook. The plan was to change over to Member Wizard in mid-2026. Much of last year was spent testing the system for usability by a Steering Committee headed by Foong Sim Chin. This year, a Member Wizard team was set up for further testing, transferring of data and training for all our members.
The team structure:
Project Manager
Neville Cook
Project Team Leader and Application Support Manager
Foong Sim Chin
Steering Committee
Gabrielle Jang
Doug Wallace
Project Team
| Liz Haylock | Jagdish Virdi |
| John Ho | Dick Wong |
| Olive Lee |
Our grateful thanks to the Member Wizard team for the many hours of hard work undertaken to assess and test Member Wizard for suitability for U3AM. The team has been holding training sessions for our leadership teams and for our members, and we are now on target to change over at the beginning of Term 2.
Committee of Management (CoM)
My thanks to CoM members for the skills that they bring to U3A Manningham, and for the professionalism in their day-to-day management of their responsibilities. I appreciate how each and every member is able to face challenges and stresses with good humour and resilience, always acting with the wellbeing of our members in mind.
Several CoM members are stepping down from their positions of responsibility. We thank Bryce Normoyle who has been our Acting Treasurer for 2 years while we made our difficult search for a treasurer. We were able to nominate Bernice Charity for Treasurer at the beginning of 2025, although health issues kept her from assuming the Treasurer’s duties. Bryce very kindly offered to continue as Acting Treasurer. Sadly, Bernice passed away, and Bryce generously continued in the role. Graeme Martin has waited many years for us to find him a replacement as Manager of Functions and Catering. Like Bryce, he offered to stay on until a replacement was found. Thank you both for your outstanding contributions for decades of service to U3A Manningham.
Manningham City Council
We value the support of councillors and staff of Manningham Council, who keep us informed of changes and updates of policy, and we are grateful that they put the safety and wellbeing of our members as a priority. We appreciate what they offer in beneficial lease and rental arrangements. Our special thanks to Mark Chang, Community Venues Officer, who has worked very closely with us to ensure the occupational health and safety of our members. We thank Manningham Council, arranged through Mark, for changing over our old tables for new, lighter and sturdier ones. There are still OH & S issues to be resolved between U3AM and Manningham Council, which I am sure our Equipment Manager Andrew Barnett in collaboration with Mark will soon resolve. Our thanks to Andrew Barnett who, as Equipment Manager, meticulously keeps track of all our equipment through his detailed Equipment Register. I am not exaggerating to say that Andrew knows every piece of equipment on site, and sees that they are all maintained in good working order and accounted for.
U3A Network Victoria
U3A Network Victoria represents us at State Government level and is a well-respected voice for senior Victorians. It provides us with many opportunities to share and discuss ongoing issues with all U3As across the state. Each U3A operates individually with Network providing support. Our thanks to our delegate, Quintin Coutinho, who attends Network meetings and reports back to our Committee of Management.
U3A Eastern Metropolitan Region
This cluster of U3As in our region meets and shares information, ideas and support on a regular basis. We share ideals and support one another as we face similar challenges, membership issues and operational concerns. Meetings are usually held at the end of each term. I attend these meetings to keep in contact with other U3As and to share ideas about planning and management.
Our volunteers
Many of our volunteers work in our Office, attending to every query and need of our members. It can be quite a balancing act for them to address queries relating to so many different areas of U3AM. My thanks to our Office Manager Robyn Buttling for her initiative in training office staff to access our computer for information that enables them to better assist our members.
Each year we hold special events to express our appreciation of the contribution of our volunteers. We thank Events and Catering Manager Maureen Bowman for organising the luncheon to go with each event. In November 2025, as part of our drive to encourage social connectedness, U3AM held an Oaks Day Celebration as a take-off of the version at Flemington. Thanks to organiser Graeme Mills, the event was enormously successful and has motivated us to work towards more events that promote social engagement.
To the future
In relation to our succession planning, we have the following in place:
- appointment of assistants to all positions of responsibility
- storage of essential documents in a digital form that is readily accessible to members when they take up positions of responsibility
- subcommittees as training grounds for members who will eventually step up to fill management positions.
In relation to accommodating new members and continuing to attract existing members with exciting programs, we have in place:
- recruitment of tutors to develop courses that are not only relevant to our members, but also keep us in touch with changes in our global learning environment
- location of more external venues particularly for music-related courses that require soundproofing
- collaboration with other not-for-profit organisations in sharing parallel programs
- development of programs to address the gender imbalance in our membership; we currently have just over 480 men as members
- continuation of our exciting Thursday seminar program to attract external presenters from a range of professional backgrounds with a view to adding them to our tutor group
- investment of funds in technological equipment to keep us in touch with advancing technology.
Thank you
It has been another fulfilling and exciting year for me as President. I thank every member of the Committee of Management for support and guidance as we worked through the priorities and objectives identified for the year. Special thanks to David McNamara, who remained on the Committee as Vice-President to assist me in my duties. To each and every volunteer may I express my gratitude for what you do in making our U3A Manningham a welcoming environment to which we all belong.
Shirley Fung
President
March 2026