Abbots Langley woman chosen to head up national U3A (From Watford Observer)

Barbara Lewis, from Abbots Langley, chosen to head up national University of the Third Age organisation

9:00am Monday 17th September 2012 in News By Mike Wright, Chief Reporter

A woman from Abbots Langley has been chosen to become the national chairman of the University of the Third Age.

Barbara Lewis beat two other candidates to the job to head up the organisation, which provides educational and leisure activities to the older people.

The 68-year-old, of Dairy Way, takes over immediately from the group’s retiring chairman Ian Searle.

Mrs Lewis joined the south west Hertfordshire U3A in 2002 after retiring from her career at Kodak, in which she worked in sales, marketing and public relations.

After joining the local group she became its chairman in 2004 and was then elected to the organisation’s national executive committee in 2005.

After being appointed as the national chair she said: “At a time when organisations across the country are struggling to arrest decline and trying desperately to make their offering attractive, U3A continues to grow precisely because of what we are. 

“People have heard that the U3A experience is stimulating, instructive, life-enhancing, and fun.  We are developing in ways that enrich our members’ experience.”