Tameside: Ann and Catherine share their methods
'But what are we meant to do?'
That's a familiar response to any project that starts U3As in the direction of shared, active learning.
Members can understand easily 'it's not just about listening to a lecture'...but then engaging those members in devising new learning experiences can put them off.
In Tameside, Ann Davies and Catherine Freeman have devised a symbiotic method of working that draws out members own experiences and weaves them into valuable learning experiences.
That's a familiar response to any project that starts U3As in the direction of shared, active learning.
Members can understand easily 'it's not just about listening to a lecture'...but then engaging those members in devising new learning experiences can put them off.
In Tameside, Ann Davies and Catherine Freeman have devised a symbiotic method of working that draws out members own experiences and weaves them into valuable learning experiences.
Ann Davies: History-based groups
Tameside are fortunate in having Britain's only working cotton mill on its doorstep. English Fine Cottons at tower Mill has experienced a revival of business, and exports luxury textiles across the globe, woven and printed in Greater manchester with dyestuffs devised in Blackburn. So naturally, a group visit was an excllent starting point.
From there, Ann had no hesitation about setting her group some tasks. We believe her moel of visit, group taks and follow up can be tailored to any group and locality.
Ann's model:
"We would like as many members as possible to take part - our collective memories must be awesome!
Over the summer, would you please write a short anecdote from your- or your family’s - memory about our area.
This can be directly about the textile industry, about businesses that grew up to support the textile industry, buildings you remember, or about life in a textile town.
If you can provide a photo of the subject or teller of the anecdote, or of the place you write about, please do!
We hope to have enough to display our collective work in the Autumn and (with your permission) use some of them in our work on the project.
To get you started, I attach a list of the work members of the Cottonopolis group in Tameside U3A are working on or considering. If you are interested in joining us please join the group at enrolment in September.
We look forward to your contribution.
Some of the work to be pursued -
1.Looking at the occupants of a street built for mill workers and following their stories through censuses 1841 -1911 and the 1939 Register
(Family History Group)
2. Taking oral histories about memories of the area
(would you like to be interviewed?)
3. Tracing the journey by canal from the south coast of a family taken off the Poor List with their 11 children to work in the mills ( amember’s ancestors)
4. The growth and role of non- conformism in Hyde in the 19th century, including PSA and the Socialist church
Tameside are fortunate in having Britain's only working cotton mill on its doorstep. English Fine Cottons at tower Mill has experienced a revival of business, and exports luxury textiles across the globe, woven and printed in Greater manchester with dyestuffs devised in Blackburn. So naturally, a group visit was an excllent starting point.
From there, Ann had no hesitation about setting her group some tasks. We believe her moel of visit, group taks and follow up can be tailored to any group and locality.
Ann's model:
"We would like as many members as possible to take part - our collective memories must be awesome!
Over the summer, would you please write a short anecdote from your- or your family’s - memory about our area.
This can be directly about the textile industry, about businesses that grew up to support the textile industry, buildings you remember, or about life in a textile town.
If you can provide a photo of the subject or teller of the anecdote, or of the place you write about, please do!
We hope to have enough to display our collective work in the Autumn and (with your permission) use some of them in our work on the project.
To get you started, I attach a list of the work members of the Cottonopolis group in Tameside U3A are working on or considering. If you are interested in joining us please join the group at enrolment in September.
We look forward to your contribution.
Some of the work to be pursued -
1.Looking at the occupants of a street built for mill workers and following their stories through censuses 1841 -1911 and the 1939 Register
(Family History Group)
2. Taking oral histories about memories of the area
(would you like to be interviewed?)
3. Tracing the journey by canal from the south coast of a family taken off the Poor List with their 11 children to work in the mills ( amember’s ancestors)
4. The growth and role of non- conformism in Hyde in the 19th century, including PSA and the Socialist church
Catherine's approach: urban sketching
Catherine is passionate about local history and especially the place of buildings, and began sketching as a means of recording townscapes under threat.
By being out and about in Tameside and further afield, Catherine encourages group members to record what they see, using cameras, pencil and paper. There is inevitably a link to the past to be found, and sketching has often i troduced members to investigate sites' pasts further.
www.tamesideu3a.org.uk/copy-of-appreciation-of-the-arts-1
Catherine is passionate about local history and especially the place of buildings, and began sketching as a means of recording townscapes under threat.
By being out and about in Tameside and further afield, Catherine encourages group members to record what they see, using cameras, pencil and paper. There is inevitably a link to the past to be found, and sketching has often i troduced members to investigate sites' pasts further.
www.tamesideu3a.org.uk/copy-of-appreciation-of-the-arts-1