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U3A PREMISES TO REOPEN ON MONDAY 18 OCTOBER

10 October 2021

Message from the President

In line with the ACT Government's announcement on the end of lockdown, U3A will reopen its premises for face-to-face activities on Monday 18 October. Our premises at Cook, Flynn and Hughes will open that morning. Non-U3A course venues will set their own timetables.

Face to face courses will be smaller than before lockdown and only some rooms in our premises will be available from Monday 18 October (including our larger rooms) and others will open from Friday 29 October. This is because on 18 October we can only open up with a maximum of 25 persons per venue or one person per 4 sq m whichever is the smaller number.

The maximum occupancy figures for rooms on U3A premises under this requirement and the dates when rooms will open are at the end of this notice.

It will be up to each course leader to decide whether and how a course will continue or start within these restrictions and to communicate this information to those enrolled or seeking to be enrolled for the course. We know it will be difficult where numbers have to be reduced.

Course leaders who currently have courses scheduled in U3A rooms, please contact the Room Bookings Team at if you wish to change the dates of your course (space permitting). Please also let us know if you do not need the room because you are running your course online or wish to cancel altogether.

Courses which pose a higher risk, such as choirs, orchestras, bands, and physical movement classes, will need to follow any additional ACT Health restrictions that apply to them. Dance classes, choirs and bands cannot commence until 29 October, when they can do so with a maximum of 20 people and under the one person per 4 sq m rule
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All the restrictions in our current COVID-19 Safety Plan for U3A premises will continue to apply. In addition, face masks will be required indoors.

Our premises at Cook, Flynn and Hughes will be cleaned before we reopen. We will be asking members to open windows and doors to increase ventilation wherever possible. COTA has advised that they are working on opening the locked windows in Room 3 at Hughes. All our other teaching rooms have some outside ventilation.

We will issue further information in the next two weeks as well as an updated COVID-19 Safety Plan for U3A premises.

The other very good news for U3A is that the ACT Government has announced some details of the pathway forward beyond October. These make it very likely that when we re-open in 2022, we will be able to have 1 person per 2 sq m in our courses.

My thanks to our course leaders and members for their patience. Please keep safe.

Bob Nield
President

Room Occupancy: 1 per 4 sq/m without course leader

Cook

Flynn

Hughes

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