CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2025-2026
Presented to the Annual General Meeting held on
17 March 2026
The year started with a calamitous technological failure when David Rudling, our first speaker, was unable to show any of his slides of Pompei and Herculaneum but bravely delivered his talk to a patient audience. David returned immediately after our AGM, with a showing of the slides missed first time around. Since that eventful opening night, I am delighted to say that subsequent talks have proceeded without any negative reminders of our dependency on capricious technology.
Our speaker programme reflected an ambition to deliver an eclectic mix of entertaining and informative subjects and speakers from any aspect of human history from the local to the international. Whist the subject is often relatively easy to assess in terms of likely interest, the quality of the speaker remains the biggest challenge, which is why we often use people who have proven their worth in the past. However, we are a club and therefore heavily dependent on our members to recommend speakers they have seen or heard elsewhere, and my thanks to those who have done just that. As Chairman, one privilege is to influence some of the speaker topics and I was keen to understand more of the Spanish Civil War, hear some of Barry Glancy’s ‘war stories’, enjoy the tragic nostalgia of Netherne and hear of one prominent character, which also nicely linked to our Summer outing. These and other topics ranging as far apart as Piracy and the Great Reform Act and WW2 civilian heroism were the result of good discussions at Committee level and sound planning. Peter Shipley led the work to organise the speakers this year with support from other committee members, including Fiona Shipley, who makes sure they turn up as planned, and Stuart Dennison has led the preparations for our next season.
With Covid a part of our own history, membership has pleasingly leapt above 120 which has enabled us to hold our membership fee for a remarkable fifth consecutive year. Attendances at meetings, often affected by unpleasant weather, range anywhere up to well over 100. People seem keen to socialise at Christmas and the AGM “parties”, and special thanks must go to Anna Burrage, Fiona Shipley and others for their hard work on these evenings, as well of course, to the members who bring food. We are always indebted to Russell Guthrie for his support with the URC’s audio-visual system and to John Fogg-Elliott for arranging the church for our comfort and returning it to good order after we have left.
The weather was splendid last Summer for our outing to Arundel which made the enjoyment of the castle and town a delight. In June, we travel to Blenheim and hope for equally fine weather to explore palace and grounds. The trip is fully subscribed as I write with a waiting list in operation.
The membership is the core of the club and I strongly appeal to all of you to help widen the membership and contribute in the finding of good speakers and, if you feel anything can be improved, then do get involved. All members of the committee contribute greatly to the functioning of the club and deserve our thanks. I have just one more year as Chairman and we are all working hard to ensure that this coming year maintains the successes delivered to date and to ever improve our speaker programme.
Roger Cornish
Chairman