Monthly Meetings

On the 2nd Tuesday of every month we hold our monthly meeting at which we have a guest speaker, except for our Christmas meeting in December.

The meetings are held at
Burton Joyce and Bulcote Village Hall
Burton Joyce
Nottingham
NG14 5EY

The meetings are followed by refreshments, tea/coffee and biscuits. It’s an ideal opportunity to socialise, sign up for Groups and chat to friends . Many of the Group coordinators are also present and members thinking about joining a group can take the opportunity to find more about the Group from its coordinator in person.

Members are also able to speak to any member of the Committee in person as our Committee members attend the meetings whenever possible

The meetings start at 1.45 p.m. and members are asked to be seated in good time as late arrivals make it difficult for those sitting near the entrance to hear the announcements.

TUESDAY 14th JANUARY – TOM ANDREWS – CAPTAIN ATHELSTAN POPKESS, “THE GREATEST POLICEMAN”

Tom Andrews is a Lecturer in Policing at the University of Derby. He specialises in the history of policing, especially relating Nottinghamshire. He started life as a working Nottinghamshire Police Officer and completed almost 13 years before moving into academia. His first book was “The Greatest Policeman?”, a biography of Captain Athelstan Popkess, Chief Constable of Nottingham City Police 1930 – 1959. In this, he argues that Popkess was almost single-handedly responsible for transforming the police service nationally from the Victorian era to the modern, mobile responsive model. In 2022 Tom published his autobiography of his thirteen years as a front-line police officer in Nottingham – “The Sharp End: Murder, Violence and Knife Crime on Nottingham’s Thin Blue Line”. As of 2021, he is the editor of the ‘Journal of the Police History Society’, an annual publication from that organisation that looks into different aspects from the entire history of policing in the UK and beyond.

 

TUESDAY 11th FEBRUARY – BHARAT PATEL – “INDIAN TAKEAWAY”

Bharat Patel was one of the first Asian reporters on British radio and TV. His family left India for Zambia and then migrated to England. By the age of eight he had lived on three continents and arrived in Leicester armed with just a few words of English. He has worked for BBC Radio Leicester, Radio 4, ITV and BBC TV, and covered major events which have made headlines around the world, but there’s one story he has never covered and that is his own. His family left a comfortable lifestyle in both India and Zambia after a soothsayer told his parents his future lay in England. They exchanged a comfortable lifestyle in a warm climate for a tiny terraced house with an outside toilet and a leaking roof in a rundown suburb. Their arrival was followed by a series of bizarre and comic incidents, which were often odder than anything Bharat encountered as a reporter.

These are the subject of a highly entertaining book, “Indian Takeaway.” All proceeds from the book go to the Hope Against Cancer charity, which has already found several cures for cancers through the research it funds.

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Social Events

*** “REVIVAL”60s NIGHT – FRIDAY 4TH OCTOBER ***

Based in Nottingham, Revival have been performing now for over 34 years, entertaining audiences across the country. The group specialise in recreating the sounds of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80s. They are not a tribute band although their aim is to recreate the sound and excitement of the original artistes from that era. Much more info on the band’s website at – http://www.revival-web.com/default.htm

This very successful event was attended by almost 80 members. The comments in our Facebook group the day after included these:-

“What a fabulous, fun evening yesterday, bopping to the music of Revival. A wonderful pick-me-up. Thank you everyone.”

“I had the best time ever, thank you to all those who arranged it.”

“Fantastic evening. We had a great time. Thank you to Rob and all the Committee.”

“It was a great evening. Thank you to all the organisers.”

“Great evening was had by all, really good night – Thanks to Rob Johnson for organising.”

**** FUN QUIZ NIGHT ****

It was a close call at our Quiz Night on Friday 24th May. Attended by 77 members, 13 teams competed, answering 100 questions over 2.5 hours. and when the final results were in, EIGHT teams were separated by just SIX points! An evening thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. The only question every team got wrong was, “What is the tallest structure in Nottingham?”. And the answer, apparently, is the incinerator on London Road.

The winners were presented with a bottle of wine each with the runners-up each receiving a bottle of beer. And – naturally – the team with the lowest score got wooden spoons. At least they are useful, though!

We should have given a prize for the most imaginative team name as well. My favourite was, “We thought it was Speed Dating??”

Our 2023 events get a mention below:-

Friday October 6th 2023 – Ceilidh Night – We held a Ceilidh Night at Burton Joyce Village Hall in October 2023, a great fun evening dancing along to the Ceilidh band, “The Midnight Specials”, with a fish & chip supper at half time.

Friday 26th May 2023 – We held a Fun Quiz Evening with questions posed by our very own Quizmaster Rupert Williams. 72 members attended and enjoyed an evening with 8 15-minute rounds of 10 questions on various subjects, plus one 20-question round on James Bond films, completed whilst having the pre-ordered fish and chips that arrived at the  break.