u3a

Odiham District

Members' info

Discounts for Odiham and District u3a members

  • Red Lion, Odiham : You can get a 10% discount off your food and drinks bill on weekdays at the Red Lion in Odiham High Street if you present your u3a membership card.

  • Odiham & Greywell Cricket Club : All Odiham District U3A Members are automatically Associate Members of the Odiham & Greywell Cricket Club, and as such they are entitled to a 5% discount on drinks at the Bar upon production of their u3a membership card. See the Odiham & Greywell Cricket Club website for opening times.   

  • Riviera Travel : If you book a holiday with Riviera Travel, and if you mention when booking that you are the member of our u3a, 9% commission will be passed back to the Odiham District u3a. This benefit is made possible through something called the “u3a Affinity scheme”. Under the rules of this scheme, we are not, unfortunately, allowed to pass the refund back to the member who made the booking. However, monies raised will be used for the benefit of all our members or to help our wider community. Clearly, the choice of holidays and which travel agent members choose to use is entirely personal and in no way are we recommending or suggesting that you use Riviera Travel.

Your membership card is emailed with your new member or renewal email . If you do not have one then please contact our membership secretary, Anne Murray.

Group leaders' website authoring guide

If you are a group leader you can now, should you choose to do so, look after your Group's webpage yourself.

Here is a handy guide that explains how do this.

Members' portal (Beacon)

All information about u3a members is held on the u3a Members' Portal. Go to this portal by clicking here (you may have to enter the name of our u3a branch. Note that we are "Odiham u3a" and not "Oldham u3a"). This portal is also called Beacon.

Why non-Group-leader members need to log onto Beacon via the members Portal

For members who are not Group leaders, or Group leaders acting in an individual capacity, the only time you would want to go to the Beacon system is:

  • When renewing your annual membership
  • If you want to update the personal details that the u3a holds about you (your address, contact number, etc)

Logging onto Beacon for Members Portal

The Beacon system is accessed through internet browsers on PCs, MacBooks, tablets or smartphones.

At present, there are two ways for members of logging onto Beacon. Beacon uses a user and password login system, but if you haven't yet signed up for this, you need to enter a number of pieces of information to get into the system. This is known as the "old" method because it's how we used to have to do it. The "new" method is the user and password-based login method.

Learn more about signing into Beacon, using both the "old" and the "new" methods, here.

Group leaders Access ( Beacon)

If you are a group leader, then you may want to use Beacon to:

  • Add people to your group. Beacon allows you to manage membership to your group
  • Send an email to everyone in your group. Emails sent from Beacon comply with GDPR requirements - information about other members of the group is hidden
  • Manage your group's finances

In order to log into Beacon as a group leader you will have been sent a link with your own user id ( usually initial and surname ) and password.

Odiham and District u3a policies and AGM documents

Staying safe the internet

AGE UK is an excellent source of information on computers and the internet for "people of advancing age". Two of their guides you might find useful are ...

Technial enquiries

For general technical queries regarding Odiham and District u3a, email  Technical.

Zoom help

A number of groups are now using the video conferencing facility, Zoom, to hold meetings.

If you want to host your own Zoom meetings

If you want to host a Zoom meeting, you will need a Zoom account. A free Zoom account allows you to have a video meeting for up to 40 minutes, with up to 100 participants. If you want more time or attendees than that, you will have to buy a Zoom account (which is not cheap).

If you simply want to attend a Zoom meeting

If, however, you are just attending someone else's Zoom meeting, you will be send a link which you should click on to attend the meeting.

If it is the first time you have used Zoom, then you will need to download the Zoom application. Don't worry, when you click on the link you will be asked to do the download. The Zoom application runs on PCs, MacBooks, iPads and even phones (if you have the eyesight for it).

So, if you are attending your first Zoom call, you should click on the link for the meeting 10 minutes before the start time so that you can download the application before the meeting starts. In fact, it's good practice to click on the meeting link 10 minutes before all Zoom calls because the application often needs updating before you can attend the call.

Guides to help you

Here are some guides that will help you: