A group offering fun and education as well as a lifechanging social side is going from strength to strength as it celebrates its seventh birthday.

With almost 400 members and counting, Ivybridge University of the 3rd Age can lay claim to being one of the town’s biggest organisations.

Its size and scope was on display this week as it took over the first floor of The Watermark, with an open meeting for existing and potential members.

Ivybridge U3A boasts 34 separate groups, focused on subjects from canasta to country dancing, local history to playing the ukelele. Each group has a leader and is self-organising, but the U3A is fundamentally democratic, with the emphasis on learning from each other’s experience. Chairman Ray Waudby explained groups are run “by members, for members”.

He continued: “The idea is to further education, but also provide mental, or in the case of some groups physical stimulation. It’s a way to keep this generation active and away from the doctors.

“Most people are in at least two or three groups, with many in half a dozen.”

Meetings take place in people’s homes, public rooms for hire, and pubs, restaurants, cafes and the great outdoors. The frequency is down to members to decide, but there is generally at least one meeting a month for each group.

Ivybridge U3A has interests and knowledge on a wide range of subjects. There is a French Improvers group with a tutor who is fluent, Geology, Tai Chi and Science and Technology, as well as no fewer than four TPP groups – Theology, Philosophy and Psychology.

SWIGS, the Serious Wine Interest Group for Seniors, is particularly popular.

Open to over 55s who are no longer in full-time employment, the U3A’s demographic naturally means some members lose or have lost husbands, wives and long-term partners and may be living alone, or be in danger of social isolation. To some, the organisation ostensibly for education is a vital lifeline offering friendship, company and a sense of purpose.

Jean Sherrell, a member of the organising committee responsible for welcome and promotions, said: "We are learning all the time, and laughing all the time. You meet so many people, and they are people with similar interests.

"It makes such a difference to so many."

Jean is also a key member of the choir, which puts on at least one perfromance a year in the Methodist hall. In the five or six years since it started, the group has raised more than £10,000 for local charities.

Cliff Bennett founded the Ivybridge U3A seven years ago, and recalls being amazed at the level of interest from the beginning. He said: “The U3A has proved to be absolutely amazing for Ivybridge. With nearly 400 members we’ve got to be one of the biggest groups in the town.

“I’d never have believed, when we held those first few meetings seven years ago, that we’d be where we are now. Everyone thoroughly enjoys just being together.

“I always remember one lady, who told me she’d moved to Ivybridge two years before, and in that time she’d just met the people next door, and one lady across the road. Since joining the U3A, she now had a circle of friends.

“That, to me is what it’s all about.”