| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Leader: | |
| When: | Fortnightly on Tuesday mornings 11:00 am-12:30 pm |
| Venue: | St Michaels Church |
The History Group is a large and very friendly group of people from all backgrounds. No previous knowledge of history is required or assumed. What unites us is an interest in the topics, which we agree each year, and a strong belief that history should be fun. We particularly enjoy discussion and debate. I email round all my notes before each session. Whether you look at them or not is purely optional; each session is free-standing and everything is explained. If you like history, or like the idea of trying it as a new interest, we promise you a warm welcome. The only qualification required is your interest and enthusiasm and a wish to learn and have fun in good company.
Dave Cheshire History Group Leader, currently our largest group talking about History on Forest FM (December 2024)
Topics for September 2026 -2027
ANCESTRAL CHALLENGES: HISTORY AND THE SEARCH FOR MEANING
In these sessions we’ll explore the history of our human search for meaning. We’ll begin with the evolution of our human minds during prehistoric times to ask why we searched for meaning. Then we’ll go on to examine how we did so.
In Part One (autumn term), we’ll explore how we developed language, the arts, religion, philosophy (including natural philosophy or science) and technology. These are all very familiar to us. Indeed they are the pillars of human culture. Yet there is no satisfactory collective name for them. Perhaps because what they do is so very extraordinary: namely, to organise and process our experiences as we explore the world, and enable us to generate different types of meaning. We’ll explore how these meanings changed throughout history. For example, how could cave paintings, the Mona Lisa nd Waarhol’s Fifty Campbell’s Soup Cans all be interpreted at different times as “art”? How and why did we move from religious to secular thinking, and how did this affect our search for meaning?
As we’ll discuss in Part Two (spring term), we humans didn’t just explore the world to discover meaning. We also remodelled the world, by constructing collective frameworks in which to live, societies, states and civilizations. These created a “human world” which provided us with structure, purpose and
meaning. Understanding what held these frameworks together, how they worked, and how they were able to change and adapt through time, are key questions in history. To answer them we’ll explore how we harnessed storytelling and narrative as powerful carriers of meaning. This will be a less usual way of studying history, but the focus throughout will be on the story, not the theory. As always, no prior knowledge is needed or expected, just an interest in history.
In the summer term, we'll discuss a variety of “freestanding" topics, all suggested and chosen (and maybe even presented) by Group members.
No previous knowledge is required, just an interest; all will be explained. We’re a large Group, but Verwood u3a were kind enough to give us a nice, airy venue with plenty of space and chairs so numbers shouldn’t be a problem. Please contact me as soon as possible if you have any questions and/or are interested in booking a place for September 2024.
The Leader
I joined Verwood U3A when I moved here back in 2009 as a way of meeting people and keeping my brain active. I‘ve been a member of various U3A Groups, Family History, Current Affairs and the Reading Group and was a Committee member for a time. I used to be a history teacher and in 2010 I volunteered to re-start the History Group. The enthusiasm here for history is tremendous. We enjoy learning together and I have can safely say that I have never enjoyed history more.
2024 - 2025 Notes
ANCESTRAL POWERS:
Empire and Science in World History