What is CALS?

This is a showcase that is completely open to the public and will take place on:

Wednesday 7th October Palace Hotel Ballroom 11am to 4pm

For Current Members: This is a fantastic opportunity to explore the diverse activities, projects, and talents thriving within our different groups.

For the Community: It will be an open forum to show the public who we are, what we do, and the vibrant social and educational community we offer.

Workshops: There will be several workshops (not bookable yet)

Get involved: Help us to design our poster and help us to promote the event

On Thursday 25th June, the Buxton & District u3a celebrated a massive milestone—our 30th Anniversary—with a fantastic Barn Dance at Chapel-en-le-Frith Town Hall.

It certainly was a scorching summer day, but the heat didn't stop us! We were treated to wonderful entertainment provided by the brilliant duo, Graeme and Gill. Graeme kept the energy high with a perfect mix of traditional and modern tunes, while Gill expertly called the dance instructions, ensuring everyone could join in the fun.

Because of the glorious sunshine, we made sure to take frequent, well-deserved breaks to cool down with juice, tea, and plenty of biscuits.

A Journey Through the Dances

Our dancers tackled a wonderful variety of styles throughout the event, including:

• Traditional Barn Dances: Classic favourites like the St. Bernard’s Waltz, the Gay Gordons, and (of course!) a lively Barn Dance.
• Country & Ceilidh: Beautiful traditional routines that had the whole room moving.
• Line Dancing: A crowd-pleasing performance of the Cowboy Charleston.

A True Community Celebration

The afternoon was made even more special by the crowd. Alongside our wonderful u3a members, we were absolutely delighted to welcome family members, old friends, and new faces alike.

Thank you to everyone who came along, raised a glass (or a teacup!), and danced the afternoon away to help us mark 30 fantastic years of the Buxton & District u3a.

What a fun Thursday afternoon we had, as we transported ourselves back to being young teenagers again playing Beetle. Malcolm, our Mad Beetle Man, his antennae trained to listen into all our questions, told us how to play, how to score and blew his referee whistle for us to start and then long and sharp blast from his whistle telling us to stop as a team had a completed beetle.

Would we ever get a six on the dice to start drawing our beetle’s body, then quickly we added the head, 2 eyes and 2 antennae and shaking the dice rapidly to get a tail and those 6 legs before shouting Beetle loudly for everyone to stop.

No time to scrabble on the floor for a pen while shaking the dice! Just shake the dice!  It’s all fast and furious with the noise levels rising of shouts of joy and despair at not getting that 6 for the body!

Jane and Mary were the winners narrowly betting Mary and Andrew by 1 point.

At half time we had a fabulous finger buffet organised by the Anniversary Committee.

A huge thank you to the 30th Anniversary Committee and all the helpers for giving everyone such a fun retro afternoon, and especially Malcolm our Mad Beetle Man tuning in with his antennae.