Meetings

Branch Meetings

u3a Waiheke holds two types of meetings that are open to the full membership:

  • general (or special) meetings for its internal administration, and
  • general presentations as part of its collegial activity.

General and Special Meetings

After some years of informal action and discussion with other branches, Waiheke held a Special General Meeting (SGM) in February 2025 to adopt its Constitution.

At its first formal Annual General Meeting (AGM) in June 2025, it made minor amendments to its Constitution, received the Annual Accounts and Performance Report, and re-elected colleagues to the Steering Committee. A second set of ammendments were made at an AGM in June 2026.

General Presentations

We have, to date, held general presentations on the following subjects – see below.

2021

  1. 27 January   Dr Terry Hume   Beaches and sand in Aotearoa New Zealand
  2. 31 March   Dr Garnet Tregonning   Cartilages and artificial joints
  3. 26 May   Rod Oram   Cryptocurrency: Madness, method, mutation
  4. 28 July   Graham Reid   The Beatles before they became famous
  5. 28 July   Mike Lee   The Proposed Waiheke Marine Reserve

2022

  1. 16 June   Rev. Douglas Pratt   Christianity and Islam: Religion & extremism
  2. 17 August   Karen Blake   Fred Hollows: His work on cataracts
  3. 27 October   Prof. Ian Reid   Osteoporosis – Causes and treatment
  4. 15 December   John Hudson   Story telling: The first million years

2023

  1. 16 February   Tim Moon   Waiheke’s Stony Batter Tunnels: A History
  2. 20 April   Colin James   Dissent to Settlement – The Baby boomers
  3. 15 June   Dame Claudia Orange   Te Tiriti o Waitangi: Towards a partnership
  4. 17 August   Sir Graham Henry   Experiences of Life in Teaching and Coaching
  5. 16 November   Lindsay Jeffs   Waiheke Climate Action Plan: Making it real

2024

  1. 29 Feb.   Peter Hamilton   New Zealand as a Republic: What, when, how
  2. 24 April   Chris Finlayson   Legal Personhood of Natural Systems: NZ Policy
  3. 27 June   Sir Richard Faull   Marvels of the Human Brain: NZ Research
  4. 29 August   Julia Waite   Women Artists between the Wars
  5. 31 October   David Parker   NZ Foreign policy: How independent are we?
  6. 5 December   Bernard Hickey   The Housing Crisis in Aotearoa/NZ

2025

  1. 27 February   Stuart McNaughton   Education: Purpose & pedagogy in a changing world
  2. 24 April   Liz Waters   The History of Waiheke through Gulf News
  3. 26 June   Damian Sycamore   Waiheke Community Housing Trust
  4. 28 August   Sue Wood   Political values, parties & choice: Do things change?
  5. 25 October   Boris Bogdanovic   The Oldest House in the Newest Country
  6. 27 November   Simon Power   US Presidencies: Historical review

2026

  1. 28 February   Sue Watson   The Stolen Children of Aotearoa
  2. 26 March   Paul Monin   Challenges for the colonial historian: National, local
  3. 30 April   Dr Gavin Ellis   Democracy and Societal Trust
  4. 28 May   Professor Mark Dickson   Cliffs and Coastlines: NZ and Climate Change
  5. 25 June Mike Allen Deep Geothermal Electricity Generation