Congratulations to our Zoom Co-ordinator Ken Briscoe on being selected as a 2020 Deakin Community Award recipient!
Announcing the award, Federal Member for Deakin Michael Sukkar MP said, “It is my great pleasure to recognise your outstanding work and commitment to our local community through your involvement with U3A Nunawading. Without your contribution and sacrifice, our community would not be the wonderful place it is today.”
Unfortunately due to the restrictions surrounding COVID-19, the annual Deakin Community Award ceremony was cancelled and Ken received his award from Michael at his Mitcham electorate office.
Pictured at the presentation are, left to right: Liz Hooper, Elsie Mutton, Michael Sukkar, Linda Briscoe, Ken, Valerie Donlon and Andrew Briscoe.
Ken has been a valuable member of U3A Nunawading for some time and over the past couple of years has worked very closely with Course Administrator Elsie Mutton.
In March, when we ceased face-to-face classes Ken became an Administrator of our private Facebook group, which now has over 300 members and taught himself the basics of Zoom, taking on the role of Zoom Co-ordinator.
We now have five Zoom licences, which catered for over 80 classes each week. Ken also trained a team of Zoom Support People to help Class Leaders with any technical issues.
Ken also acted as Zoom host of our Annual General Meeting in September, enabling U3A Nunawading to hold a seamless AGM online for over 80 participants.
As we plan the commencement of 2021 classes at the new Nunawading Community Hub Ken is currently working with our Course Administrator to finalise a program of classes that will meet the anticipated COVID-19 restrictions.
In addition to his outstanding contribution to U3A Nunawading, Ken also volunteers as an Archivist at Ringwood and District Historical Society, where he recently initiated fundraising for and completed implementation of a new computer network. He also ran a project to migrate their archives database and image collection online to Victorian Collections to give the public access.
