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University of the Third Age Port Phillip

U3A Port Phillip
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Course Guide – Public Events

U3APP Public Events

The U3APP public events are open to both U3APP members and non-members.

To view details of, and book into, a U3APP public event, click on the event name.

Sat Seminar - Fishermans Bend. An urban renewal project unlike any other in Australia, 2:30-4:00, on 21 Mar 2020, 54 available of 100 places

Calendar

<< Mar 2020 >>
MTWTFSS
24 25 26 27 28 29 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31 1 2 3 4 5

Membership

Login    
if you have joined, or
Sign up
to join U3APP
Login help
to get your username and password

Public Events

U3APP program WHAT'S ONin Port Phillip

Courses and Enrolment

View program

NOTE! and News

  • . New Courses and One-off Events in Semester 1 2020
  • . e-Bulletin Dates for 2020
  • . Dates for your Diary
  • . BreastScreen Victoria Mobile Van in the City of Port Phillip
  • . Sport Phillip Programs – City of Port Phillip

U3A news: local & world

Read the latest U3APP bulletins

Sign up to receive the U3APP e-bulletin

For U3A Network Victoria News including links to their newsletters click here

Read U3A Australia Alliance quarterly bulletins

Read U3A world news in U3A Signpost

Social Media

© 2020 U3A Port Phillip • Powered by GeneratePress
How to Withdraw from a Course

On-line:

  • Login to the U3APP website.
  • Go to “Your Courses and Events” in the Membership menu.
  • Beside the appropriate course name, click on Cancel.
  • If the course is full:
    • this will generate an email* to the Enrolment team so that they can offer your place to the first person on the waitlist.
    • IMPORTANT – press SEND, which sends the email to our Enrolment team, with a copy to yourself.
  • OR if the course isn’t full, you will simply be removed from the course list.

*If clicking on CANCEL doesn’t generate an email,

PLEASE NOTE that if you withdraw from a FULL course, your name will not be removed from the course list until the Cancel email is read and processed by our volunteer Enrolment team. This may take up to 2 days.

Via the Office: notify the office in person, or by email or phone.

If you clicked on WAITLIST and it did not generate an email, read on...

If you are trying to Waitlist yourself for a course, and your device doesn’t create an email automatically when you click on the word WAITLIST, you may either (a) create the Waitlist email manually or (b) fix the problem on your device permanently.

(a) Create the Waitlist email manually

Please follow the instructions below.

Open your normal email, then create a new email message as follows:

To:  [email protected]
CC: your email address
Subject: WAITLIST coursecode coursename yourname

Important: Please include your phone or mobile number in the body of the email, and then SEND.
———————————-

Here is an example of a subject line, requesting waitlisting for the Course 5C02 Current Affairs.

WAITLIST 5C02 Current Affairs Helen Vorrath

The critical bits are the word WAITLIST at the beginning IN CAPITALS, followed immediately by the Course Code. It helps if you put the course name as well, as it verifies that you’ve put in the correct code. Putting your name in means that if someone calls you to tell you that you now have a place in the course, they know who they will be talking to.

NOTE that everytime you wish to WAITLIST, you will have to repeat the above steps for the appropriate course.

(b) Fix the problem on your device permanently
Why does this problem happen?

When you click on a link on a webpage, it may take you to a new page, a new window, or it may generate an email, using something called the MAILTO: protocol.

We use this email option on the U3APP website to generate emails relating to Course Management: waitlisting, cancelling or apologising. Some U3APP members have found this doesn’t work for them, because their MAILTO: protocol is set wrongly on their device

The steps in (b) above will fix the MAILTO: protocol for the device.

Fix Email not Generating

U3APP uses the automatic generation of emails for several functions, such as WAITLIST and CANCEL (for full courses). Should an email not be automatically generated, you can fix the problem as follows:

• logon to u3app.org.au
• click on Courses & Enrolling and then Courses by Category
• find any course which is full
• copy the whole entry, from the course code to the word WAITLIST, for example
5B10 Friday Movie, David Robinson, 12:00-4:00, Weekly from 31 Jan 2020 to Fri 4 Dec 2020, Mary Kehoe Centre, Room 3, FULL (31 places) WAITLIST
• paste the whole entry into an email
• send the email to yourself
• NOTE that the above steps can be done on any Windows or MAC device, but the following step must be done on the device which doesn’t generate the email
• when you receive the email on your device, click on the WAITLIST link in the email. The waitlist email will be displayed. Do not press SEND in the waitlist email.

This should permanently fix the problem on your device, so from now you will be able to
o click on WAITLIST on any Courses & Enrolling page and the waitlist email will be generated
o click on CANCEL on any of your courses or events which is full, on the Your Courses & Events page, and the cancel email will be generated

How to go on the Waitlist

If you are disappointed to find that a course you would like to join is already full, we urge you to waitlist yourself.  This helps us know what the demand is for our courses, and whether we need to try to find more tutors for a particular subject.  Our enrolment team moves hundreds of members off Waitlists during the year (300+ in the first half of the year).

You can go on the Waitlist for any course or event which is shown as FULL.

If your computer or device is set up to handle email links, clicking on the WAITLIST button will automatically generate an email for you, and all you have to do is click or tap on the SEND icon.

Here is the normal process, which works for most people:

  • Login to the U3APP website.
  • Go to the Courses and Enrolling page.
  • Click on WAITLIST beside the full course or event you wish to attend.  This will generate a waitlist email, which  contains the name of the course, your name and membership status.
  • IMPORTANT – click or tap your SEND icon, which sends the email to the Waitlisting system, with a copy to you.

If your system is not set up to handle email links, and clicking on the WAITLIST button doesn’t create an email automatically, you need to either create the Waitlist email yourself or fix the problem on your device.  Click on the button below for instructions.

If you are trying to enrol in a very popular course on enrolment day, and your system doesn’t handle email links, we suggest you follow the instructions in the button above to create a Waitlist email ready to send if you aren’t successful in getting a place. That way you will be higher on the Waitlist than if you have to create the email from scratch.

ENROLMENT FAQs for 2020

Do I have to be a U3APP member to enrol in 2020?

YES. You must have paid your 2020 membership prior to the start of enrolments on Monday 9 December 2019. If you’re not sure of your membership status, go to the U3A Port Phillip website, login, and your status will be displayed at the top of the screen.

When/how can I enrol in a course?

We prefer you to login and enrol on-line via our website, as it saves a lot of manual processing.  However we do accept paper enrolment forms.
On-line enrolments open Monday 9 December. The opening time for enrolment depends on the type of course:

  • 9:30am On-line booking opens for all Exercise courses, marked (E)
  • 10:00am On-line booking opens for all Language courses, marked (L)
  • 10:30am On-line booking opens for ALL other courses.

Enrolments stay open for every course until the course fills. Waitlists are on-going – you can add yourself at any time.
Paper forms are available from the Office from Monday 25 November, or can be downloaded from the website here. Completed forms can be submitted during the last week of Semester (2-6 December), but are not processed until Enrolment Day 9 December. Processing will be done on the same basis as for on-line bookings: first Exercise courses at 9:30, then Language courses at 10:00, then everything else at 10:30.

I can’t login to the U3APP website – what do I do?

If you have any problems logging in, please send an email to  [email protected] and someone will assist.

I’ve been attending a course in 2019 – do I have to enrol again?


YES.
All courses are filled on a first-come-first-served basis. No preference is given to people who have been attending the course in the past. You need to enrol in the course on or after 9 December.

I’m already on a Waitlist for a course I want to join. Do I have to do anything?

YES. All courses are filled on a first-come-first-served basis. Waitlists are cleared at the end of the year and no preference is given to people who have been on a Waitlist. You need to enrol in the course on or after 9 December.

Am I more likely to get into a course if I enrol on-line?

We try and make the enrolment process as fair as possible. Paper enrolments are numbered in order of receipt and keyed by volunteers at the same time as on-line enrolments are opened. If you have a low-numbered paper enrolment, you will probably get a place in the courses you want. If you have a higher numbered paper enrolment, you are more likely to miss out on a popular course.

I would rather put in a paper enrolment. When can I do so?

Paper forms are available from the Office from Monday 25 November, or can be downloaded from the website here. Completed forms can be left at the Office from 2-6 December. Forms will not be accepted before that date.

How do I maximise my chances of getting into a popular course?

Here are some hints:

  • Check that you can login to the website well before Enrolment Day Monday 9 December – send an email to [email protected] if you have a problem.
  • If you haven’t used the on-line enrolment system before or recently, practise booking into the Dummy classes on the Courses and Enrolling page that are set up for this purpose (first courses on Monday).
  • On Enrolment Day, login to the website well before enrolment bookings open at 9:30am, so you are all ready to go.
  • If you want to enrol in more than one course, book the one that you think is most likely to fill first, then the next most popular, and so on.
What if I miss out on the course I want to do?

Unfortunately, some of our courses are very popular and they may fill before you try to enrol. When this happens, the entry in the Courses and Enrolling page will change so that you can’t click on it to enrol. Instead the word WAITLIST will appear beside it. If you missed out, please click on the word WAITLIST. This will create an email message which you must SEND to put yourself on the Waitlist.  Waitlists are processed in order of receipt of these emails.

Is it worth bothering to put myself on the Waitlist for a class that is full?

YES and YES. For two reasons:

  • Over time, most people on a Waitlist get into the course. Often people who start a course find they can’t or don’t want to continue within the first week or so of the course, so you may not have to wait long.
  • If the Course Coordinators know that there is a big demand for a course, they may be able to find another tutor to run a similar course, or persuade a tutor to run a second session, or to repeat the course. If that happens, people on the Waitlist for the course will be given preference for places on the additional course.
I enrolled in the 1T98 Dummy course – should my name appear in the list of attendees?

You need to refresh the page before your name will appear. To ‘refresh’ your screen:

  • on your Apple Mac machine – press the Command and the R key at the same time
  • on your Windows machine – press the Ctrl and the R key at the same time
  • in most browsers, tap or click on a little circle with an arrow at the top of the screen
I enrolled in the 1T98 Dummy course – should I receive a confirmation email?

Yes, you should. If you can’t find it, please check your spam or junk mail folder carefully. Many of our members have found that U3APP emails go into these folders, especially if they have a Gmail account. To find out how to stop this from happening for a Gmail account, click here.

I tried to put myself on the Waitlist for the 1T99 Dummy full course and it did not create an email as it is supposed to. What do I do?

This can happen if there is a setting on your computer that isn’t correct. If you use Outlook, click here to find out how to fix it. If you use Gmail, click here.

Is there a limit to the number of courses I can enrol in?

Because of high demand there are restrictions for some courses.
(E) Exercise courses, (L) Language courses and (A) Art courses are limited to 2 of each type of course per member.

Apart from these limits, you can enrol in as many courses as you have time and energy for.

How to make an Apology for a Course

On-line:

The NEW way to make an apology online is to use the “APOLOGIES” button, which contains all the instructions on how to make an apology.  Firstly, logon to the U3APP website.

You can find the “APOLOGIES” button in several places:

  • In “Member Welcome” which you see when you first logon
  • In “Your Courses and Events” in the Membership menu
  • In “Courses by Category” in the Courses & Enrolling menu
  • In “Courses by Day of Week” in the Courses & Enrolling menu

You can also select “Apologies” in the Courses & Enrolling menu

 

Via the Office: notify the office in person, or by email or phone.

During a class: advise the tutor AT THE END OF THE CLASS who will mark your apologies on the course roll.

ENROLMENT FAQs for 2019

Below are a list of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). To see the answer to any question, click on the arrow on the left of the question.

Do I have to be a U3APP member to enrol in 2019?
YES. You must have paid your 2019 membership prior to the start of enrolments on Monday 10 December 2018. If you’re not sure of your membership status, go to the U3A Port Phillip website, login, and your status will be displayed at the top of the screen.

When/how can I enrol in a course?
We prefer you to login and enrol on-line via our website, as it saves a lot of manual processing.  However we do accept paper enrolment forms.

On-line enrolments open Monday 10 December. The opening time for enrolment depends on the type of course:

  • 9:30am On-line booking opens for all Exercise courses, marked (E)
  • 10:00am On-line booking opens for all Language courses, marked (L)
  • 10:30am On-line booking opens for ALL other courses.

Enrolments stay open for every course until the course fills. Waitlists are on-going – you can add yourself at any time.

Paper forms are available from the Office from Monday 26 November, or can be downloaded from the website here. Completed forms can be submitted during the last week of Semester (3-7 December), but are not processed until Enrolment Day 10 December. Processing will be done on the same basis as for on-line bookings: first Exercise courses at 9:30, then Language courses at 10:00, then everything else at 10:30.

I can’t login to the U3APP website – what do I do?
If you have any problems logging in, please send an email to  [email protected] and someone will assist.

I’ve been attending a course in 2018 – do I have to enrol again?
YES. All courses are filled on a first-come-first-served basis. No preference is given to people who have been attending the course in the past. You need to enrol in the course on or after 10 December.

I’m already on a Waitlist for a course I want to join. Do I have to do anything?
YES. All courses are filled on a first-come-first-served basis. Waitlists are cleared at the end of the year and no preference is given to people who have been on a Waitlist. You need to enrol in the course on or after 10 December.

Am I more likely to get into a course if I enrol on-line?
We try and make the enrolment process as fair as possible. Paper enrolments are numbered in order of receipt and keyed by volunteers at the same time as on-line enrolments are opened. If you have a low-numbered paper enrolment, you will probably get a place in the courses you want. If you have a higher numbered paper enrolment, you are more likely to miss out on a popular course.

I would rather put in a paper enrolment. When can I do so?
Paper forms are available from the Office from Monday 26 November, or can be downloaded from the website here. Completed forms can be left at the Office from 3-7 December. Forms will not be accepted before that date.

How do I maximise my chances of getting into a popular course?
Here are some hints:

  • Check that you can login to the website well before Enrolment Day Monday 10 December – send an email to [email protected] if you have a problem.
  • If you haven’t used the on-line enrolment system before or recently, practise booking into the Dummy classes on the Courses and Enrolling page that are set up for this purpose.
  • On Enrolment Day, login to the website well before enrolment bookings open at 9:30am, so you are all ready to go.
  • If you want to enrol in more than one course, book the one that you think is most likely to fill first, then the next most popular, and so on.

What if I miss out on the course I want to do?
Unfortunately, some of our courses are very popular and they may fill before you try to enrol. When this happens, the entry in the Courses and Enrolling page will change so that you can’t click on it to enrol. Instead the word WAITLIST will appear beside it. If you missed out, please click on the word WAITLIST. This will create an email message which you must SEND to put yourself on the Waitlist.  Waitlists are processed in order of receipt of these emails.

Is it worth bothering to put myself on the Waitlist for a class that is full?
YES and YES. For two reasons:

  • Over time, most people on a Waitlist get into the course. Often people who start a course find they can’t or don’t want to continue within the first week or so of the Semester, so you may not have to wait long.
  • If the Course Coordinators know that there is a big demand for a course, they may be able to find another tutor to run a similar course, or persuade a tutor to run a second session, or to repeat the course. If that happens, people on the Waitlist for the course will be given preference for places on the additional course.

I enrolled in the 1T99 Dummy course – should my name appear in the list of attendees?
You need to refresh the page before your name will appear. To ‘refresh’ your screen:

  • on your Apple Mac machine – press the Command and the R key at the same time
  • on your Windows machine – press the Ctrl and the R key at the same time
  • in most browsers, tap or click on a little circle with an arrow at the top of the screen

I enrolled in the 1T99 Dummy course – should I receive a confirmation email?
Yes, you should. If you can’t find it, please check your spam or junk mail folder carefully. Many of our members have found that U3APP emails go into these folders, especially if they have a Gmail account. To find out how to stop this from happening for a Gmail account, click here.

I tried to put myself on the Waitlist for the 1T98 Dummy full course and it did not create an email as it is supposed to. What do I do?
This can happen if there is a setting on your computer that isn’t correct. If you use Outlook, click here to find out how to fix it. If you use Gmail, click here.

Is there a limit to the number of courses I can enrol in?
Because of high demand there are restrictions for some classes.
(E) Exercise classes and (L) Language classes are limited to 2 of each type of course per member.

 

 

How to Enrol

 

On-line: after bookings have opened

On-line enrolments are preferred as this significantly reduces the amount of back-office work for our volunteers.

  • Login to the U3APP.org.au website.
  • Go to the Courses & Enrolling page.
  • Scroll down to find the course that you are interested in.
  • Does the course have spaces available?
    • Click on the course name to go to the booking page.
    • Click on “Book for this course or event”.
    • You will receive a confirmation email.  Please check your Junk/Spam folders as these automatically-generated emails often finish up there.
  • OR is the course shown as FULL?
    • Click on WAITLIST.

 

Paper Enrolment Form: before bookings open for First Semester

  • Obtain a paper Enrolment Form either from the Office or by printing an online copy available here.
  • Complete the paper Enrolment Form and submit it to the Office.

The start date for acceptance of paper Enrolment Forms for first semester is published on the U3APP website and in the e-Bulletin. Enrolment Forms received before this date are treated as though they had been received on the start date (ie there is no advantage to be gained by submitting early). On the start date and thereafter, paper Enrolment Forms are numbered in order of receipt.  Paper Enrolment forms are processed on the same day that on-line bookings open.

If your enrolment is successful, you will receive a confirmation email.  Please check your Junk/Spam folders as these automatically-generated emails often finish up there.

If your enrolment is unsuccessful,  you will receive an email telling you that you have been waitlisted.

Via the Office: after bookings have opened

  • Contact the office in person, or by email or phone.
How to remove yourself from the Waitlist

If you are on the waitlist for a course, and you no longer want a place in that course:

  • Send an email to the Enrolment team asking to be removed from the waitlist.
  • Make sure you include the course code and course name in your email.
Who is U3A?

 

The University of the Third Age is an international movement whose aims are the education and stimulation of mainly retired members of the community—those in their third ‘age’ of life. It is commonly referred to as U3A.

There is no universally accepted model for the U3A. Its original conception in France as an extramural university activity was significantly modified in the United Kingdom where it was recognized that most people of retirement age have something to contribute and the emphasis has been on sharing, without formal links to traditional universities.

Many English-speaking countries have followed this geragogic model, whereas continental European countries have mostly followed the French model.

A British U3A website says about “The Third Age” membership eligibility: “U3A membership is not related to a specific age but to a period in one’s life (the third age) after the second age of full-time employment and parental responsibility.

Anybody in their third age can join U3A and this includes people who are working part-time. There is no lower age for membership.”

(from Wikipedia)

When are we open?

 

Office hours:

9:30 am to 3:30 pm Monday – Friday
(Excluding public and school holidays)

Class times:

Classes start as early as 9:15am and as late as 5:00pm.
Classes range in length from 1 – 3 hours – the average is about 1.5 hours.
Times are set according to the availability of rooms and the preferences of the volunteer tutor.

Why you should join U3A Port Phillip

 

If you’re retired or semi-retired and live in or around the City of Port Phillip, you can join the University of the Third Age, Port Phillip (U3APP). Our regular classes provide all kinds of opportunities to learn new skills, keep fit, and broaden your knowledge. Our very low annual membership fee gives you access to all our classes, and to a range of one-off events.

U3A Port Phillip is also a very friendly and supportive community, providing opportunities for you to make new friends, and to give back to the community by becoming a volunteer.

What courses does U3APP offer?

 

All our courses are taught or presented by volunteers. This means the range of courses is partly dictated by the availability of people to teach, as well as by the demands of our membership.

Our courses include

  • Languages: courses in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Chinese Mandarin.
  • Exercise: courses include Yoga, Feldenkrais, Strength and Interval Training
  • Health: Meditation and other courses about staying well mentally and physically
  • Art: Life Drawing, Colouring, Watercolours
  • Books and Writing: Book Groups and Writers Groups
  • Music: Choir and several ensemble groups
  • Films: several film groups
  • Computer skills
  • Lectures and Talks: Science, Philosophy, History, Literature, etc

Once you become a financial member of U3APP, you can enrol in as many courses as you wish for no extra charge (except for occasional charges for course notes, special venue hire, the cost of excursions etc). There are some limits set from time to time on the number of courses of the same type for popular courses such as languages and exercise courses – details are in our Enrolment Policies. There are no academic entry requirements nor any assessments or examinations.

We are always looking for new tutors and new ideas for courses. So if you have an interest or passion you’d like to share with others, please get in touch with our Course Coordination team.

Where will you find U3APP?

 

The heart of U3APP is at the Mary Kehoe Community Centre, 224 Danks Street Albert Park. In this spacious Edwardian house, we have our Office, three classrooms and a Hall which are in more or less constant use by our members during the day.

From time to time we also use other community spaces within the City of Port Phillip:

  • South Melbourne Community Centre
  • Sol Green
  • Cora Graves
  • Middle Park Library

Our “Out and About” excursions can take you to a range of places in and around Melbourne, from the Royal Botanical Gardens to Bendigo Art Gallery.

Our Course Program and Calendar of Events provide the information you need about where courses are held, with Google maps to help you find venues that may not be familiar to you.

How does U3APP function?

 

U3APP is a not for profit organisation, entirely staffed by volunteers.

It’s your U3A, and we are always ready to welcome volunteers to help U3APP manage, expand and improve its courses and events (see Volunteers and Tutors). Indeed we expect that every member will contribute as a volunteer at some time.

In any one year, about a quarter of our membership is involved in some volunteer capacity. This shows how rewarding our volunteers find the task of keeping U3APP running and making it as efficient, successful and friendly as possible.

See the Governance page for details of who manages U3APP, and how.

U3APP is strongly supported by the City of Port Phillip, who own, manage and maintain the venues we use for our courses and events.

We receive some grant funding from local, state and federal governments, administered via U3A Network Victoria.

U3APP also benefits from the use of discounts on computer hardware and software that are available to not-for-profit organisations. This includes a range of discounts obtained via Connecting Up, and discounted use of AppSheet which we use for electronic class rolls.

How to see who is attending your course
  • Logon to the U3APP website.
  • Go to Your Courses & Events in the Membership menu.
  • Click on the name of the course you are interested in.

The list of attendees appears at the bottom of the screen.

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