Committee Meeting - 1st September 2023
Our most recent committee meeting fell in the relatively quiet period, with the banners flying proudly in the town’s streets and the Medieval Festival a pleasant memory. The Festival was a great success for the Society, with our frequent short battlefield tours well attended and a steady stream of visitors to our expanded exhibition tent which is one of our key means of achieving our objective of raising awareness of the importance of the battlefield. Sales from the Society stall were strong, too, going a long way to covering the cost of the tent itself and the exposure gained us a number of new members who were attracted by our membership model.
Our routine monthly walks remain popular, with many taking advantage of some dry Thursday evening for a leisurely but informative stroll around the battlefield. September sees a reversion to our winter timetable of Sunday walks, but with a revised start time of 10.00 to allow visitors to take lunch in the time before heading home and removing the threat of darkness descending on us on the shortest days of the year.
A number of graphics projects have reached fruition, thanks to Society member Rick Talbot, and we now have two new roll-up banners to draw attention to the Society’s stall at events, and we are just finalizing a refresh of our leaflet to accompany the Arrivall sculpture on the Stonehill roundabout. These projects have benefited from the generosity of Graham Turner and Jack Boskett respectively in allowing us to use images from their library of work – thank you to all involved.
Planning for our conference on Saturday 4 May 24 is proceeding well, and we are now mounting this event in partnership with the Battlefields Trust to broaden our reach. Details will be published later in the year, but put the date in your diaries now.
We’re also working towards our AGM on Friday 3 November. This will be held in the town (most likely at the Berkeley Arms) and is, of course, an essential step in ensuring that we meet the requirements of the Charity Commission, but is also an opportunity for members to get together in person. The ‘business’ of the evening is usually conducted swiftly, allowing time to socialize.
Before that, though, comes taking down the banners. We want to make sure these are still in place for the cycle race on 9 September as they will help show off the town, so we are planning to set about the removal on Sunday 1 October. The more volunteers we have that day, the quicker the job is done – and it’s a job that needs no historical knowledge, just the ability to shin up a ladder, or even hold the bottom of one. We’ll be going out on Facebook looking for a coordinator for this activity which, along with its spring equivalent for hanging the banners, just needs someone willing to corral a bunch of ladder-friendly types on two weekends each year, so if you think that’s something you might be able to help us with, please get in touch. You’d be making a big contribution to one of our most visible outputs.