A Group Leader reported that they were trying new strategies to help group members to participate more fully by taking on sections of the session. She will give feedback to let others know how successful it has been. 

Another group leader had experienced difficulties in getting members to participate regularly and contribute to the sessions. She felt that some members did not have a good comprehension of what participation in IGO groups involved. Another group leader recommended a u3a publication More Time to Learn (2014), as an excellent resource to help group leaders. It was suggested that IGO might like to have some guidance like this available to new Group Leaders. Other Group Leaders also felt that training would be helpful. 

Regarding IGO participants, there was some discussion about members who sign up and then do not join groups. The IGO New Members meeting tries to invite a proportion of these into meetings to encourage group participation. 

One group leader felt that publicity for IGO was not extensive, and that News Extra was not distributed widely enough. He asked whether new channels of publicity could be opened up. 

Another Group Leader would like start-up groups to become more visible on the website. At the moment, potential members may not be aware of the existence of these groups and therefore are not encouraged to sign up. 

Another Group Leader asked whether IGO could become a u3a network or separate charity like other u3as. There was some discussion surrounding the pros and cons of this, including autonomy, financial management and support from the trust. Catherine added that this was a subject that had been raised by the Trust before and that this was something that IGO and the Trust may consider in the future. 

The PowerPoint presentation from the meeting is attached as a PDF file.

We are putting together a new Group Leaders Guidance document and a Members Guidance document. These will appear on the Help and Information section of the website soon. Please read them and let us know if there is anything you think should be changed or added.

The Beacon calendar for November is attached.  I have updated the Schedule for most groups but ran out of steam before I got to the end.  You can add this yourself if you want to.

I am currently extending the bookings for these meetings until the end of December 2025.  The links will remain the same, and I will notify you when I have done so.

You may have noticed that the Beacon group entries all now include an entry for Venue.  Groups which meet on Zoom have either Zoom, Zoom INT, Zoom LRN or Zoom IGO 3.  The first of these means that the group does not use an IGO Zoom account, and the others denote the IGO Zoom account used by that group.  This information is for my benefit – I don’t think you need to know or do anything with it.

This is attached. If you would like to use an IGO Zoom account for your group, you can see which slots are free.  If you do use an IGO Zoom account, it would be helpful to me if you could check that I’ve put it in the right place and let me know of any errors.

If you want to make a change to a Zoom booking, can you please include the full name of the group, and the day and time when the group meets.

It was suggested at the group leaders meeting on Wednesday that the name Start-up groups is not appropriate, so I am asking for alternatives.  We create aStartup X groups when a member or members express an interest in having an X  group but do not want to lead it themselves. People can sign up on Beacon, and when there are enough people there, we get them together to discuss how the group can get going. Some suggestions would Potential X group, Possible X group, Sign up to X group but I think there must be something better.

This is a chance for you to meet up with other group leaders. The Informal Group Leaders Meetings will be scheduled 2 – 3 times a year, depending on levels of Interest and meeting for a maximum of 90 minutes. It is intended that the Informal Meetings will be kept to a maximum number attending of 12, so that there is time for everyone to contribute.

To join, visit the Beacon Members portal and find Group Leaders Informal Meeting

To all our group leaders for your sterling work!

From Catherine on behalf of the IGO team

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• Beacon Calendar
• IGO Group Leaders Meeting 2024 – PowerPoint presentation
• IGO Zoom Generic Calendar