The monthly Coffee Morning of Sarum U3A was held in our usual venue of St Francis Church Hall on Wednesday 19 September.  Members not on email were reminded to collect their monthly Newsletter which contained information about the Joint Outings to the Welsh National Opera, a visit to the Millennium Centre at Cardiff Bay and a visit to the Tutankhamun Exhibition at Greenwich.  Information was given out on the activities of groups including:- the Country Inns, Walking, Travel Abroad and Exploring Bus Routes groups and the Sunday Lunch Club. 

The speaker this month was Ian Raynsforth-Smith from one of our sister U3A’s who was drawing on his experience gained when working in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia to talk to us about “The Middle East Today”

Mr Raynsforth-Smith gave an introduction to the present situation both in Iraq and also the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians.  He started his historical review from WW1, through the removal of the Turks from the area and the establishment of the present national boundaries to the rise of the fundamentalist and inter sect rivalries of the present day.  He gave the opinion that the present conflicts originate from a battle of ideas waged with the wrong weapons and which we can never win.   We were lucky to have this talk from someone with such an enormous amount of background knowledge and who could help us to be better informed.

Bryan Griffiths gave the vote of thanks and stressed the relevance and importance of trying to understand what was happening in the Middle East and why.

The next meeting is on Wednesday 17 October at our usual venue when Nigel Lewis will be talking on “Barn Owl Conservation”

Information on the activities of Sarum U3A can be found in the reference section of the Public Library