History and Archeology Workshop

Angie Grain discusses a History and Archology workshop hosted by the Yorkshire and Humber U3A.

This workshop, delivered to 16 U3As across the region, aimed to support Group Leaders, share ideas that have worked well and explore methods of learning about History and Archaeology.

Participants were asked to bring along and display History-related leaflets from museums and exhibitions in the Yorkshire area. We were all astounded at the huge variety of cultural experiences available to us.

We had three lively contributions from Group Leaders from York, Bradford and Ilkley & District, explaining some of their innovative approaches. Our guest speaker was Alan Boddy, a retired Head of History at a local secondary school. His talk, ‘Learning Styles in History’ inspired us all and gave us lots to think about.

The very lively (i.e. noisy!) discussion sessions focussed on sharing different ideas that had worked well, especially those that encouraged group members to be interactive and contribute to the running of groups.

Finally, we discussed where we wanted to go from here, such as how YAHR could help and support group leaders in the future. All were encouraged to sign-up for YAHR and national U3A newsletters.

We had very positive feedback from the workshop. Some of the main points noted were:
· That the session was useful and gave them lots of ideas for their own groups;
· It was especially valuable for some leaders of new groups, giving them useful contacts;
· Many requests for a regular or annual get-together (we subsequently have an offer from a U3A to host the next one); and
· Requests for an on-line forum, shared resources etc may hopefully lead to the establishment of a new Subject –Network. We have three volunteers to help YAHR take this forward.

See more at https://yahru3a.co.uk/