The u3a is an international organisation which aims to encourage like-minded people no longer in full-time employment, to join together in educational, creative, cultural and leisure activities in a friendly social atmosphere. Although there is no age limit, in Sutton Coldfield u3a most of our members are aged 50 and over.

The administrative and interest group activities in each u3a are carried out on a purely voluntary and unpaid basis. This includes the organisers and other helpers of individual groups.

Committee members who are responsible for the management of their u3a are also volunteers who offer themselves for annual election by their fellow members.

For further details about the u3a, please see our About page.

Each of the 60 or so different interest groups in Sutton Coldfield u3a has its own meeting schedule. Some are held weekly, some are held every two weeks, others are only held on a monthly basis, but with around 1,300 members and 60 or so interest groups there are several meetings taking place every single morning and afternoon of the week, Monday to Friday inclusive. Most meetings start at either 10.00am or 2.00pm and last for 2 hours, usually with a short break in the middle.

A summary of all meetings in the current month can be found in our Calendar. The day, time, and frequency of each group's meetings are also shown at the top of each individual group page, to be found from the Groups List.

The only exceptions to this are on public holidays when no meetings are held, in the peak holiday month of August, and over the Christmas and New Year holidays when some of our groups take a short break.

Sutton Coldfield u3a has a number of different venues where our meetings are held. We are very fortunate to have use of the conference centre attached to the United Reformed Church* almost in the town centre for the majority of our meetings, however we do make use of other halls and rooms around the town. As we grow, there will be more and more use made of smaller venues such as Sutton Methodist Hall*, the Trinity Centre*, and St. Peter's Church Hall*.

A small number of meetings, mainly language conversation groups, are held at the homes of some of our members.

See the location of our main venues here - Location Maps. The venue for each group, as well at the meeting day, time, and its frequency are at the top of each individual group page, to be found from the Groups List.

* U3As have no political or religious influences or allegiances, and as such we have no connection with the owners or managers of any of the venues we use.

We welcome new members who would like to join existing groups or organise new ones.

You're welcome to attend a few group meetings to see if they're of interest before joining as a member. You can download a Members Application Form, or preferably use our Online Membership Application. If you join online you can pay your fee by credit or debit card using PayPal - you do not need to have a PayPal account to do this.

If you currently belong to another u3a but regularly attend meetings held by Sutton Coldfield u3a , you need to complete an Associate Membership Form. This is to comply with National u3a regulations to enable us to have details of non-local members attending each of our meetings.

Please do come along to a meeting. To find out more about individual groups or to say you'd like to attend as a guest, send a message to the Group Organiser from the link on each page of the group(s) you are interested in, accessed from our Groups List.

Very little!

Here at Sutton Coldfield u3a we're able to keep our annual membership down to just £10 per year. Part of this fee goes towards our membership of the Third Age Trust, part of it is your subscription to the bi-monthly magazine "Third Age Matters" and our own magazine "SAGE", and part of it is used to offset our general operating overheads, such as the purchase of audio-visual and other specialised equipment for our groups to use.

Each individual interest group also makes a small per-meeting charge, which might be as little as just £1 or £2 for up to 2 hours, or for groups where an external tutor is hired this charge might rise to £5, or slightly more in a few cases where specialist tutors are involved. But this is still very cheap when the cost of commercial courses are considered.

External visits periodically organised by some groups may also incur additional costs for things such as coach hire, venue admission, and any individual out of pocket expenses such as for lunch or drinks.

Please follow the link to the Beacon Members' Portal and log in using your registered details. Once you're logged in, then you can change things like your address, phone number, or email address.