ROMSLEY AND HUNNINGTON HISTORY SOCIETY

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 28th MAY 2013

SECRETARY'S REPORT

Another successful year has gone by. Good speakers, good audience participation, and we now have another fine programme of speakers for next autumn and winter whom we hope you will enjoy. Hopefully next winter we shall not suffer from the same inclement weather that we have had this winter. Never before have we had to cancel two good speakers because of snow.

However, we have been able to rearrange things and so following our Annual General Meeting John Billingham is going to give us the talk that he was unable to in January - Images of Worcestershire, Part II.

'Trusting the Ground with the Treasure of Warriors' . This is the talk which Stephen Dean will give on Tuesday evening 23rd July. Stephen is the Principal Archaeologist at Staffordshire County Council and the Treasure of course is the Staffordshire Hoard. This will be an excellent talk and we hope there will be a good audience present to hear him.

Moving on now to the next season, the programme is currently as follows:

• I was contacted in January of this year by Mark Clifford, Project Officer at Avoncroft Museum, who told me that they had recently acquired a nailer's cottage. He asked if we would be interested in a talk by him 'The Development of a Nailor's Cottage from the 1840s to 2013'. He will be coming to us on 24th September, when he will be looking at the changing building, the family history and how the building will be interpreted and displayed by the museum.
• Matt Tompkins, who has been translating some of the Court Rolls has now reached the end of his project following which a small research group has been meeting once a month in the church hall with a view to analysing the names of individuals and places that have been mentioned in the Rolls. Michael Hall has kindly agreed to talk about this on Tuesday evening 22nd October. 'What the Court Rolls tell us - A Progress Report'.
• On November 26, Julian is going to give us the Romsley story - 'The Newcomers - Moving to Romsley 1920-1975'.
• Nothing has been planned yet for January 2014. In view of the three bad winters that we have experienced, the committee has been thinking of dropping the January meeting and going on until the end of June instead.
• On 25th February Chris Upton is going to tell us about 'The Priestley Riots'. These were also known as the Birmingham Riots of 1791 and they took place from 14th to 17th July of that year. The riots started with an attack on Birmingham's Royal Hotel. Apparently in the 18th century Birmingham became notorious for rioting.
• Paul Harding and Helen Lee are coming back to see us on 25th March. You may remember they have been very popular with our members in the past, when they have spoken about and demonstrated how life was in the trenches in the 1914/1918 war, and again when they told us what the Romans got up to in this area. This time we have moved on and we are going to find out what a Georgian Lifestyle was like. Helen tells me the talk will cover how they lived, lighting, cooking, new discoveries, newspapers and hot chocolate.
• Our last speaker is Emma Hancox, Archivist and Archaeologist from Worcester, who will be giving us a talk on The Archaeology of Redditch New Town on 22nd April. Emma is the Historic Environment Policy and Advisory Manager for Worcestershire County Council and her main interest lies in the archaeology and history of north west Worcestershire. She was at one time a field archaeologist with Birmingham Archaeology.
• Our AGM will be on the 27th May next year followed by Photographs of Halesowen in the 1960s by John and Brian Tromans.

Those of you who need to do a certain amount of printing will be only too aware of the cost of printer ink, in fact recently there was a television item on this very subject. Several of the agencies who correspond with our Society are extremely aware of the cost of sending out hard copies by post and are now sending their information, newsletters and progress reports on line instead, suggesting we download them for our members (when we will bear the cost of the printing!). They are also suggesting we advise our members to keep up with the latest news and developments by going to the Archive and Archaeology Service website which is www.worcestershire.gov.uk.waas The Worcestershire Local History Forum would also like us to encourage our members to use their online site www.online.wlhf.org.uk.

We have a certain number of e-mail addresses which members have given to Ruth, our Treasurer, but if you have recently changed your e-mail address or have a new one, please let Ruth have it and then we can add you to our circulation list.

June Humphreys