Happy new year to all Beacon U3As from the Beacon Team and the Third Age Trust. On 18 November, we held a successful and well-attended Beacon Team Training Day in Birmingham and a further such session is being planned for March. These sessions allow the volunteer Beacon Team, who are based across the UK, […]
In the second month of her Advice and Volunteer Manager role, Jane Bailey went on a learning journey when she was invited to meet the Beacon Team in Birmingham. Jane said, “I had the great pleasure of spending the day with thirty-three of the Beacon volunteers on a rare team day together and learnt so […]
Member lists are at the heart of the Beacon system, and there are several features and tools available to users to make it easy to select some, all or none of the members on a given list – so you don’t need to tick them off one by one On all lists, you can click […]
Beacon site administrator Andy from Canterbury and District U3A explains what led his U3A to implement Beacon and how they have benefited. Canterbury & District have been Beacon users since December 2017. In common with many long-established U3As, in the early days we did admin with spreadsheets. Later, we progressed to a Microsoft Access […]
The Third Age Trust is delighted to announce its partnership with APT Solutions Ltd to deliver the Beacon Upgrade project. Following a recommendation by the Beacon Upgrade Working Group the Trust Board of Directors approved the appointment of APT and the beginning of work in the coming weeks. APT are a specialist provider of software […]
A key aim of the Beacon Upgrade project is to ensure the needs of all U3As are addressed. To achieve this aim, the project will draw on the skills, knowledge and experience of people from across the movement. U3As and U3A members will be involved throughout the project in a range of ways. The first […]
Following my last notes in the Beacon Newsletter on using the Beacon Finance Package, where I presented a case for using a membership ledger in order to keep the current account uncluttered. Another area of the Finance Package which gets a bad press is its lack of ability to deal with accruals. In my discussions […]
Membership Secretary of Chalfonts U3A, Val, tells Beacon News how the system has helped her in her role. Three words to describe Beacon: Efficient, Reliable and Fast. As the Membership Secretary of a new, and rapidly growing, U3A I was so pleased to find Beacon. Our data was moved into it very quickly by the […]
At the 2019 U3A national conference, Sam Mauger gave a presentation about the Beacon Upgrade project. In the presentation, Sam focused on three important questions: Why upgrade the Beacon system? What work has taken place so far? What’s happening next? For those who were unable to attend, or those who want to watch again, the […]
We thought that an idea of a “typical” example of a Beacon Supporter’s activity might both be of interest and assistance to anyone considering joining our small friendly team. So, here is a general example of John’s schedule. As members of the Beacon team we have a specific personalised email address. This ensures that […]