skip to content

Other Activities

Event organisers external to U3A occasionally provide us with details of activities which might be of interest to our members. Since these activities are not run by U3A, they are generally available to non-U3A members as well, although this may not always be the case - check with the activity organiser.

For further details of an event please follow the link(s) below to the Host website.

NFSA-U3A Friday 12 April 10am-12:30pm Carrying their Voices Home

Hosted by: Dr Jeff Brownrigg

Friday 12 April 2024

Bookings: Online at www.nfsa.gov.au

Australia produced many international stars who developed highly significant overseas careers in vaudeville and variety. The usual pattern was to start out on the amateur stage in Bendigo or Toowoomba (or elsewhere) before finding their way into professional entertainment, especially in Melbourne or Sydney. Sometimes they were discovered by visiting performers who suggested that going to London or San Francisco might provide opportunities to be heard by much larger audiences. From English and North American stages, many launched recording careers, making records in, for example, England, the USA and Germany; recordings that carried their voices home. This presentation will examine the careers of some of the most successful Australian vaudevillians, at home and abroad. It will be lavishly illustrated with their records. Many of the great pioneering names of Australian recorded performances have left substantial numbers of discs and cylinders. People such as Leonard Nelson ('Goodbye Melbourne Town'), Hamilton Hill ('Goodbye, Dolly Gray' which became 'Good Old Collingwood, Forever'), Florrie Forde (too many 'great' hits to mention), Billy William's ('When Father Papered the Parlour' and much else... the best recorded voice of the acoustic period'...?) and many more. Where would Canberra Reps' Old Time Music Hall and other evocative evocations of the late 19th and early 20th century have been without them.

NFSA-U3A Friday 19 April 10am-12:30pm Tuning in the Wireless

Hosted by: Marilyn Dooley.

Friday 19 April 2024

Bookings: Online at www.nfsa.gov.au

Australian Radio was a Century old on 23 November 2023. The radio was a significant and much-loved community and household feature for the generations of the 30s 40s 50s. As well as its news and entrainment values, radio from these decades give us a Social History of Australia. From Wartime declarations to Nuclear Tests, from Quiz Kids to Quiz Shows, from the long running Soapies to the now iconic programs such as Blue Hills and Dad and Dave from Snake Gully. They were joined by Argonauts and a Muddle-Headed Wombat, Australia's Amateur Hour and a cavalcade of Radio Dramas.
The value of radio in the context of archiving, curating, preserving and presenting historic radio programs as an adjunct to education and community groups presents a few challenges. One is generational. A community group such as U3A however, have a timeline that often links them immediately to a radio program of the 30s, 40s, and 50s, because their generations have that lived experience.
By Way of 'Tuning in, I put it to you that historic radio programs are not out of date, nor should they be just relegated to dusty shelves. They continue to be an integral part of Australia's media and one of the 4 cornerstones of a Heritage collection of Australian media in sound, film, radio and television.
This session will be accompanied by the playing of selected historic radio broadcasts.

NFSA-U3A Friday 19 April 10am-12:30pm What a Goal! Australian Women in Sport and Physical Activities 1896-1956

Hosted by: Marilyn Dooley.

Friday 23 August 2024

Bookings: Online at www.nfsa.gov.au/

With a deserved focus on women in sport and national identity wrought by the Matildas, it is appropriate to consider an historical perspective. 2024 is an Olympic year, and what better time to consider the track taken by Australian girls and women in the six decades from our earliest film of sporting events in 1896 to the extraordinary achievements of our women's team at the Melbourne Olympics of 1956.
There is much to consider: Costume as an inhibiter to women's physical activities, Custom that saw laws against mixed bathing; and for too long, a distinct lack of acknowledgment of women's real sporting prowess.
There is surviving film footage of pioneer advocate for physical fitness, Annette Kellerman. There are galloping girls of the bush. There are newsreel items of women rowers and footballers and athletes, hampered by sexist and joking commentary. However, there are also images that reveal the ongoing endeavours and achievements of our women in sport and physical activities giving them a deserved place in Australia's Social History.
This session will be accompanied by screening of selected images that illustrate and celebrate the topic.

NFSA-U3A Friday 30 August 10am-12:30pm Australia's Tarzan Musical

Hosted by: Dr Jeff Brownrigg

Friday 30 August 2024

Bookings: Online at www.nfsa.gov.au/

In 1935, or thereabouts, filmmakers Charles and Elsa Chauvel invited English vaudeville star Denis Hoey to come to Australia to play the lead in new movie, Uncivilized (1936). The plot is complex, but includes the notion that the child of missionaries lost in the desert, survives and, in the film, we see him as the headman of a strangely tropical village. His Australian co-star, Margot Rhys, plays a journalist sent to the desert to find the now grown-up missing child, instructed by her editor to brave the desert and to use her 'woman's charms' to collect his story. The journalist travels on her quest by camel, is drugged with pituri and there is much more. The main structure of the story line was greatly influenced by then current developments in American cinema, especially the huge popularity of Tarzan talkies made in the earlier 1930s, especially those starring Johnny Weissmuller. The Australia 'Tarzan', strode into Australian cinema history wearing sensible moleskin trousers rather than the skimpy loincloth of the vine-swinging, elephant-wrangling ape-man of the American Tarzan movies. Margot, as Beatrice Lynn, in addition to her camel-riding gear and pith helmet, is stuck with slinky, silk pyjamas. Conscious of the sources of his own popularity, Denis Hoey insisted that his contract should include a couple of good songs. This session will be in two parts. The first, is an introduction to the Chauvel's contribution to Australian cinema. The second a screening of their early film, Uncivilized.

We welcome your comments and feedback via the U3A ACT Facebook site.