Please see below for a list of our upcoming events, and some recent events.
Click on any event to see more details about it.
To see all events of a given type (e.g. Monthly Meetings), you can select these from the Events menu at the top of the page.
Forthcoming events
Tue 10 Dec 2024
12:30pm
Are you interested in our new-look festive lunch? This year it has not been possible to organise our traditional festive lunch with catering and service done by members, but we […]
Booking Required
Further Away Day visit to Canterbury
Sat 14 Dec 2024
10:10am
There are still places on the Further Away Day trip to Canterbury on Saturday 14 December. This should be a very enjoyable day. The programme is: Please find further information […]
Cost: £15.50 cathedral entrance plus train fare to Canterbury
Booking Required
Mon 13 Jan 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
On 20 January 2025, Donald J Trump will be inaugurated as President of the United States for the second time. Dire predictions have been coming fast and furious since his […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 10 Feb 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
Speaker: from London Air Ambulance Topic: London's Air Ambulance (Further information to follow.)
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 10 Mar 2025
10:00am - 12:00pm
Speaker: Angela Cox Topic: Hard times: social realism in British art (Further information to follow.)
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Previous events
Credit: Simon Inglis/Historic England
Mon 11 Nov 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Sports and games have always been played in London. For the Tudors, it was tennis at Hampton Court and jousting at Whitehall. The Victorians established a network of sports clubs across the […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Credit: Forest51690CWikimedia Commons
George Gershwin: Music in the heart of noise
Mon 14 Oct 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
February 2024 marked the centenary of Rhapsody in Blue, the work that earned George Gershwin (1898–1937) the title of ‘the man who made an honest woman out of jazz’. In […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 14 Oct 2024
10:30am - 1:00pm
Our Annual General Meeting was held in person at St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, Victoria Avenue, London N3 1BD. Details and papers were circulated in advance to NLU3A members. AGM […]
Further Away Day to Waltham Abbey and river cruise
Sat 21 Sep 2024
On Saturday 21 September, Further Away Days are offering a River Lea cruise plus a visit to Waltham Abbey and its busy Saturday market. The coach will be leaving East […]
Cost: £54
Booking Required
Mon 16 Sep 2024
10:00am - 11:30am
We will be holding our annual Open Morning on Monday 16 September at St Margaret's United Reformed Church in Victoria Avenue, Finchley N3 1BD from 10.00-11.30am . Many of our Group Coordinators […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
© Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University
From flocks to florals: An illustrated history of wallpaper
Mon 9 Sep 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Often dismissed as ephemera, wallpaper is in fact a crucial contributor to the history of design. The growth of the wallpaper industry encompasses fashion, taste, society, technology – and the […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Bayeux Tapestry Museum/Wikimedia Commons
The life and times of Edward the Confessor
Mon 8 Jul 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Born in around 1001, Edward the Confessor – England’s penultimate Anglo-Saxon king – also had French heritage: William the Conqueror was a cousin. In this talk, historian Eleanor Levy will […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Summer Tea Party to celebrate North London U3A’s 30th birthday
Mon 1 Jul 2024
2:30pm - 4:30pm
Members are invited to book their place at the NLU3A Summer Tea Party to be held from 2.30pm to 4.30pm at Muswell Hill Methodist Church, 28 Pages Lane, N10 1PP.The […]
Venue: Muswell Hill Methodist Church, N10 1PP
Wikimedia Commons
Mon 10 Jun 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Anyone who has seen Fiddler on the Roof will have a vivid idea of the shtetl, where the story takes place. On the one hand, the shtetl is remembered sentimentally and with a nostalgic […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Credit: Len Williams/Wikimedia Commons
Mon 3 Jun 2024
9:30am
This Further Away Day outing is on Monday 3 June, when we will visit the Cliveden estate and Cookham village in Berkshire. We will travel by coach, leaving East Finchley […]
Cost: The cost for NLU3A members will be £26 for those who are also members of the National Trust, or £44.50 for those who are not NT members.
Booking Required
Polesden Lacey House and Gardens
Fri 24 May 2024
9:30am
Our planned Further Away Day trip to Polesden Lacey on 8 March unfortunately had to be cancelled at the last minute due to snow. We have now managed to re-book […]
Cost: £42.00 (U3A members)/£45.00 (non-U3A members) National Trust members pay less: £28.00 (U3A members)/£31.00 (non-U3A members)
Booking Required
Where do novelists get their ideas from?
Mon 13 May 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Have you ever wondered where fiction writers get their ideas from? In this entertaining and informative talk, Bobbie Darbyshire will explain how the complex world of character, location, plot and […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 22 Apr 2024
On Monday 22 April we will be visiting the Wimpole Hall Estate in Cambridgeshire, a magnificent neo-classical mansion built in the 1640s. The house was remodelled several times in the […]
Photo Diana Clements
Beneath our feet: the geology of London
Mon 15 Apr 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
We rarely stop to think about the rocks beneath the places where we live and walk, but the science of geology can tell fascinating stories about them – from the […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons
The life and times of Samuel Pepys
Mon 11 Mar 2024
10:00am - 12:00pm
Samuel Pepys lived in turbulent times – witnessing the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. The lively and honest way in which he […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Alien life – what are the chances?
Mon 12 Feb 2024
10:00am
The concept of alien life, for many years relegated to the realms of Science Fiction, is now mainstream. Rovers on Mars are actively looking for biological signatures, over 5000 planets […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Public domain image (CC0)
Would you like to write your own life story?
Mon 8 Jan 2024
10:00am
Have you ever thought of writing about your life – whether for your children and grandchildren, your own interest, or for posterity – but don’t know where to start? The […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 11 Dec 2023
12:00pm - 2:15pm
Bookings are now open for the popular Festive Lunch, which we are holding again this year for the first time since 2019. Please note change of venue from previous announcement. The menu […]
Venue: St Paul's Church, N3 2PU
Safe travels: passport technology and border security
Mon 13 Nov 2023
10:00am
We all want to get through the airport quickly and easily when we travel to another country, but we also expect the authorities to keep the country’s borders secure. So […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
‘Fish got to swim and birds got to fly’: the story of Show Boat
Mon 9 Oct 2023
10:00am
The 1927 musical ‘Show Boat’, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, was based on Edna Ferber’s best-selling novel and covered social issues that were ground-breaking […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 9 Oct 2023
10:00am
Our Annual General Meeting will be held in person at St Margaret’s United Reform Church, Victoria Avenue, London N3 1BD. Details and papers have been circulated in advance to NLU3A […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
How did computers get so powerful? (Repeat)
Mon 18 Sep 2023
10:00am
Today, IT is hugely useful – and perhaps even too powerful. However, most of the inventions critical to the success of the computer came about for quite different purposes and […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD
Mon 11 Sep 2023
10:00am - 11:30am
We will be holding our annual Open Morning on Monday 11 September from 10.00am to 11.30am at St Margaret’s Church, Victoria Avenue, Finchley N3 1BD. Many of the Interest Group Coordinators will […]
Venue: St Margaret’s United Reformed Church, N3 1BD