ON a cold, raw February day a very pleasant, warm afternoon meeting was held.

Chairman Alexandra Waters said the annual luncheon, held the day before at Stratford-upon-Avon College had been fully subscribed and very successful.

A sad note, though, was the death of one of our members, Eileen Andrew.

The groups are very active, the Church Visits Group starts again in March, the newly formed Yoga Group meets again this month, as does the Ambling Group, which will be walking around Weethley. Other groups will be meeting as normal.

Then it was back to school with a vengeance as Alcester U3A member Derek Spencer, wearing cap and gown and flourishing a cane, burst into the hall and put us all in our places!

He was a former teacher and maths advisor in the county of Hereford and Worcester. He explained maths was a study of pattern and structure and aimed to show how much of the school mathematics we learned had patterns few of us had realised.

He explained how the actual names of the numbers above 10 had been developed and encouraged us to think about how little we have developed our use of multiplication tables for large numbers such as 39x41 and 38x42.

Visual representation of number patterns and audience participation with questions and answers made for a very relaxed and very enjoyable afternoon.

Harry Hayton gave a deservedly heartfelt vote of thanks and after tea we were sent back out into the cold reality of a raw winter's afternoon.