Repton Village Website

REPTON VILLAGE HISTORY GROUP

NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 19 – JULY 2006

OUR MAY MEETING

We held our Annual General Meeting along with our May event and are pleased to welcome several new people to our Committee. See below for a full list of members. When the AGM was finished, Robin Trotter gave us an illustrated talk about Burton Abbey. Robin is very interested in the history of the Abbey and has spent many years of research in an attempt to find out what it looked like. He included slides of many other abbeys to build up a picture of the one at Burton. He also brought a model showing how it must have looked. It was an excellent presentation. 

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE MEMBERS ELECTED AT THE AGM ON 16TH MAY 2006

OFFICERS                                                                           

Chairman                   Alan Kimber                                                  

Vice Chairman          Ivor Sandars             

Secretary                   Barbara McArdle                 

Treasurer                   Robert Blackshaw

COMMITTEE

Val Colley                  

David Guest                          

Glenys Shakespeare                       

Alan Thompson                    

John Ward

Alan Kimber and David Guest also act as Archivists and Glenys Shakespeare will be our Membership Secretary.

OUR JUNE MEETING

Without a doubt our June visit to Burton Town Hall was an excellent event. Our party was met by the very formally attired Mace Bearer with his frock coat and top hat and we were then shown into the Council Chamber where we were met by the Mayor of East Staffordshire Borough Council, Councillor Trevor Hathaway. He gave us a very informative and humorous talk about the buildings, the history and development of the Borough and details of the backgrounds of previous Mayors. This talk also contained a lot of social history. 

We were privileged to see all the valuable chains of office and the Mace as well as the various robes. Two of our members volunteered to be dressed up with the formal robes, hats and chains of office of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor. This caused a lot of amusement. We were also invited into the Mayor’s Parlour and other rooms to see the other valuable items of silverware and pottery on show. It was an excellent meeting, enjoyed by all. 

FUTURE PROGRAMME

Our next meeting at the Village Hall will be on Tuesday 18^th July at 7.30pm when our speaker will be Barbara Fibiger. She will talk about “Living Above the Shop”. This is a talk about life in pre-war Derby. We understand that Barbara is an excellent speaker so this should be a date worth being in your diaries. 

VISIT TO REPTON SCHOOL CHAPEL

There is no meeting in the Village Hall in August but we have been fortunate to be invited to take a small party round the Repton School Chapel on Tuesday 22^nd August at 7.30pm. This was announced at our May meeting and was an almost immediate sell-out. There are very few vacancies left so if you wish to be on the list please phone Alan Kimber on 01283 704042. When the list is full we will start a waiting list. 

OUR AUTUMN PROGRAMME

As the darker evenings come around we have three excellent meetings planned for the Autumn. 

On Tuesday 19^th September, Keith Blood will be talking about the ‘Victorian Schoolroom’. Keith is an excellent speaker who knows his subject well as he is very much involved with the school room at Sudbury Hall (National Trust). 

On Tuesday17th October we are having a Display Evening with a difference. Richard Farman will be coming along to talk about the “Origins of the Picture Postcard” and he will be bringing part of his large collections of cards of all sorts, including silk cards, comic cards, scenic cards etc. 

On Tuesday 21^st November we have Richard Papworth coming to give us a talk called “Excuse me Madam, but!” This talk is made up of humorous anecdotes from his time as a store detective. 

We have also been invited to have a small display at the Repton Village Society Coffee Morning on Saturday 2^nd December. 

A NEWS ITEM

Since the A.G.M., the new Committee have been checking out the insurance policy covering our meetings. The result was that the members considered that we should be considering a higher level of cover. As you are aware, insurance is expensive but we have made the decision to improve our cover. To fund this extra cost we have decided to increase the admittance fee to our meetings by 50p per person. This will not totally cover the extra cost but we are convinced that we will still be offering our members and visitors good value for money. This will come into effect at the September meeting. 

STOP PRESS

We had a display of our photographs on show at St Wystan’s Church during Repton Open Gardens weekend. It created a lot of interest with the visitors.

A.B.K. 26.6.2006