Regular Meetings
We usually hold 10 meetings a year, including our Annual General Meeting which is always held in February. These meetings generally take place on the evening of the third Thursday of the month in February, March, April, May, June, July, September, October, November and December.
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All meetings take place in the Catholic Church Hall, Martin Street, SO32 1DN at 7.30pm and we look forward to seeing you there. If any changes to these arrangements are necessary, we will make this clear on the Home page and we will inform our members by email.
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The meetings usually take the form of a talk that lasts around 40-45 minutes. The talks themselves cover a range of subjects that are likely both to interest and inform our members (see current programme below).
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We are happy to welcome guests to our meetings, particularly anyone who may be interested in joining the Society. The subscription is just £10.00 a year for single members and £16.00 for joint membership. If you would like to join the Society please join via this page or contact either our Treasurer, at info@bishopswalthamsociety.org.uk - we will be delighted to welcome you!
15 February The Society’s Annual General Meeting. Our usual Annual General Meeting will be followed by cheese and wine and a short talk by Nick Whitehead from The Bishop’s Waltham Museum Trust on “How we belong: Society and Community”.
14 March “Sutton Hoo and its Saxon Mysteries” An illustrated talk by Lyndon Palmer, one of our regular contributors.
18 April “Victorian Humour” Alan Brindle from the Magic Lantern Society will be showing slides from the early Victorian period; including rotating slides, slip slides and comic series, which represented cutting-edge technology of that period. This show includes the most famous moving slide ever produced, ‘The Rat Swallower’.
16 May “Bishops, Buildings and Bones Part II” An illustrated talk by Historian, Blue Badge Guide and a regular contributor to our talks, Andrew Negus.
20 June Frances Liardet, Frances is an acclaimed author and a translator of Arabic literature. Her two most recent books (both WWII related) are We Must Be Brave (2019) and Think of Me (2022).
18 July “British Prisoners of War in France 1803 – 1814". Paul Chamberlain, a regular contributor to our meetings, and a writer and lecturer on the Napoleonic period, will talk about what life was like for British prisoners of war in the early 19th century.
August 2024 - No meeting
19 September “Philip Beale of Phoenicia Expeditions”. Philip is an adventurer, explorer, author and speaker. He has led 3 Kon Tiki type expeditions and is passionate about the history of the Phoenicians, a subject he has spoken about at many events, both across the UK and internationally.
17 October
George Garnett of Bishop’s Waltham
Exactly a hundred years ago a Bishop’s Waltham resident, George Garnett, purchased a small field and gave it to the Parish to extend St Peter’s churchyard. This was just one of his charitable acts. From a humble background George had worked his way up to became manager of Claylands – the 43 acre brickworks that was the town’s biggest employer. His life story brings Victorian Bishop’s Waltham alive and provides a picture that is, at one level, very familiar and, on another, really very different.
A talk by Tony Kippenberger, need we say more? (President and lately Chairman of BWS)
21 November “Chalk Streams”. Dr Dave Rumble, the CEO of Wessex Rivers Trust, will deliver
a talk on chalk streams (chalk springs form the source of the River Hamble).
19 December 2024 - The Society’s Christmas Party
Our own Christmas Party – members and guests only. More detail to follow nearer the time...