Coffee Morning 16th February 2024

The guest speaker was Penny Wheat who gave a talk entitled Behind Bars, she gave an account of a journey she went on communicating with inmates in various prisons both in the UK and the U.S.A. She also displayed a table full of gifts sent to her from inmates, the art work of which was astounding.

Penny Wheat giving a talk on Behind Prison Bars

Newsletter & AGM January 2024

First coffee morning of 2024, a happy New Year to all our members, future members and our committee.

This mornings speaker was Mr Ned Williams who gave a talk about prefabs, people of a certain age will remember the ones we had on the village before the new estates were built. He gave a comprehensive account about prefabs dating from 1910 up until the time they began to disappear in the 50’s & 60’s, the talk lasted for 1 hour and was very informative.

The ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING was also held, Welcome to all, this was our 14th AGM, thank you all for coming, Unfortunately Pam Ball is not very well; she has spent 18 days in hospital. I’ll start with Trevor’s part of the meeting, he is unable to attend the meeting. due to a doctors appointment, and he has left me with a brief resume. The year has been good beneficially even though things have increased in price, but saying that the membership subscription is staying as it is. We have made a donation to Landywood Voluntary Help Centre of £100, we had decided this before they unfortunately had their mini-bus stolen.

The printing cost for the magazine as increased in price, as with the room hire of the centre. The diaries that we gave out at Christmas had gone up, but we think they were worth it. We are managing well with our funds and are awaiting printing and binding prices for Paul Ford’s book, which we have put on one side.

Diane Tolley gave an insight of the last year’s activities; we are in the final throws of the publication of Paul Ford’s book on the Great War and how it affected not only the fallen, but the areas of Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley. This we will talk of in the coming months.

I feel 2023 was a good year for the society, with lots of things going on and luckily, no sign of Covid to stop us. We will be having another day out this year, which we are in talks now about on what to do; we shall aim for May again.

I want to thank all of the committee for their help, not forgetting Soeli Thomas, our local Graphic Designer for the society, for designing the society’s magazine, also for her managing the website over past year and especially to our members for making our Society what it is. 

To finish off, We are always asking for anybody to come and help out in anyway they can, either coming a committee member, helping on our Open Days, or helping at our Coffee Mornings when we need extra hands. We are a growing history society and appreciate any help we can get.

After Diane’s talk, the members were asked to vote for committee members, all were content with the existing committee members and a block vote with a show of hands carried it forward.