How to run a Their Finest Hour collection in your u3a activity group
https://www.youtube.com/embed/IBFsh_Aj4pk
In May 2023, as part of the u3a's national learning programme, Dr Matthew Kidd of the University of Oxford and u3a volunteers met on Zoom to find out how u3a groups can preserve the everyday stories and objects of the Second World War for Their Finest Hour. Volunteers were informed that they could do this by:
Supporting each other to go online and upload your stories
Volunteering at a local Digital Collection Day or attending one to share your stories there
Support each other to go online and upload your stories
As the personal stories of the Second World War are fast fading from living memory, preserving them is vital. As well as wartime objects from the front, do you know about the experiences of those at home, including women and children?
The amount of work involved in creating and running a Digital Collection Day is considerable. However, consider a collection as part of a u3a interest group's activity throughout a term. Every u3a is different, so you should look at Their Finest Hour as a focus for your activity. For example:
There are evident skills to learn and share with other members when discussing this war in genealogy, local history, or military history groups.
Storytelling and creative writing are skills involved in working up disjointed and visceral family memories into an interesting but still factual narrative. Additionally, family memories are a rich vein of material for fiction or drama or poetry.
At every turn, there are opportunities for members to become more confident in using technology, including their cameras and their phones. Many of our members struggle with what - to some - looks like a simple upload process (gathering files from a camera, saving the photos in a suitable folder, finding the folder again and using the mouse with keyboard shortcuts to attach them to the form, entering information in an online form).
For a photography group the opportunities for imagination are endless. There are the camera settings and lighting to photograph unusual objects. What about portrait photography of the members for an exhibition alongside their stories from the war? Or photography projects of memorials and local sites of interest?
Volunteer at a local Digital Collection Day or attend to share your stories there
Please find below details of Digital Collection Days that are being held in the coming months.
