Category: Events

To celebrate the start of the new decade we are going to be posting both the upcoming Jersey and Guernsey Society events.

The Jersey Society’s first meeting of the new decade is taking place on the 12th March, this will be both the Annual General Meeting (AGM), and a lecture given by former BBC journalist and climate change expert Jonathan Renouf.

Renouf will be talking about Jersey’s climate emergency: opportunity or irrelevance?

The States of Jersey has declared a climate emergency, and plans are in place to make Jersey carbon neutral by 2030 – twenty years earlier than the UK. It will mean huge changes, involve a lot of money, and touch on almost every aspect of island life. But are we just wasting our time? What difference can Jersey make to a global problem? Is tackling the climate emergency a once in a generation opportunity, or a complete irrelevance? Jonathan Renouf is a Jerseyman who spent almost 30 years working for the BBC, initially on Newsnight, and then in a variety of roles in the BBC Science Unit. He’s been nominated for three BAFTAs (one of which was for a climate change documentary) and won numerous other awards. He was Executive Producer of the Brian Cox series “Wonders of the Universe”, was deputy editor of “Horizon”, and Executive Producer of the Sky at Night.

Over the last 20 years he’s been involved in almost all the major BBC TV documentaries about climate change, including the most recent David Attenborough film “Climate Change: The Facts”. He’s filmed in the hottest and coldest places on earth, climbed a mountain in the Andes to find the wreckage of a plane that vanished 60 years ago, stood on the edge of two active lava lakes, and thrown up over the side of a boat filming at Easter Island. In August, after 7 months of travelling around the world with his wife and two young children, Jonathan and his family moved back to Jersey. He was a member of the Jersey Electoral Commission, and writes a column in the JEP.

As usual, there will be a three course meal preceding the talk, and bar facilities open throughout.

More details are available on the booking form here.

 

Following this (two days later!) the Guernsey Society are holding their event on Saturday 14th March entitled ‘We will teach!’ led by Anne Johns and Jenny Head. We will teach! tells the story of some of the many Channel Island women who trained to teach in Salisbury – the first being Eliza Smith from Guernsey who trained in 1843. Anne and Jenny will cover the changing system of education and the impact of this on these strong women.

Meet at Fountains Abbey, 109 Praed Street, London W1 1RL (nearest station Paddington) at 12.15 for a pub lunch.

Our last meeting of the year will take place on the 17th October, this will be a lecture given by Georgina Malet de Carteret, president of the National Trust.

The National Trust for Jersey is an independent charity dedicated to permanently protect Jersey’s natural beauty, rich wildlife and historic places for all to enjoy and experience. Georgina will be speaking about some of the National Trust’s recent projects, and its plans for the future.

Georgina’s background makes her the ideal person to be speaking about this: from her experience working at the Prince’s Charities Office overseeing abroad range of areas including the Built Environment, the Arts, Responsible Business and Enterprise, Young People, Global Sustainability and Rural Affairs, to her personal mission to restore the gardens and woodlands around St Ouen’s Manor to conserve its natural beauty and encourage wildlife, she will bring the enthusiasm and passion to bring this fascinating topic to life.

As usual, there will be a three course meal preceding the talk, and bar facilities open throughout.

More details are available on the booking form here, and the menu can be viewed here.

We are looking forward to our annual boules match against the Guernsey Society on Saturday the 22 June , however we are always looking for more players and supporters to join us on the day!

The friendly match take place at Cleaver Square, London, SW11 4EA.  Please do meet us at the Prince of Wales pub from 1pm onwards where drinks and food are available to be purchased. The match will take place in the square outside the pub.

It’s always a great day!

We look forward to welcoming you to our second talk of the 2019 lecture programme. On Thursday 23rd May at the Vincent Rooms, London, Ian Ronayne, historian and author of ‘Ours: The Jersey Pals’ and ‘Jersey War Walks’ will speak on the topic of The Great War: An island story at a time of conflict.

Over the last four years, the world has commemorated the First World War. We have marked centenaries of epic battles, recalled heroics, horrors and sacrifice, elevated ground-breaking wartime achievements. In short, we have dutifully remembered a period in world history that should never be forgotten.

Jersey too has been remembering a period of its history that was largely forgotten until comparatively recently. Overshadowed by occupation in the Second World War, Jersey’s own Great War experience slipped out of mind. Today, rightfully, that situation is changing.

Ian Ronayne is a Jersey historian with a passion for history. Some years back, that passion turned to the story of the island between 1914 and 1918. In 2009, Ian published his first book on this subject, the acclaimed ‘Ours: The Jersey Pals in the First World War’. It dealt with a small group of men from Jersey who left in 1915 to serve gallantly with the Royal Irish Rifles. A follow-up book, ‘Jersey’s Great War’, was published in 2014 to record the whole story of islanders between 1914 and 1918.

In recent years, Ian has led or supported many initiatives linked to Jersey’s remembering and commemorating of its First World War experience. These include visits to the former battlefields of Jersey soldiers, school and public talks, weekly blogs, ceremonies and monument erection. All of which safeguard the legacy of Jersey’s Great War and the islanders who lived through it.

As usual, there will be a three course meal preceding the talk, and bar facilities open throughout.

More details are available on the booking form here.

Our first meeting of 2019 is sure to be a good one, on the 7th March we will be joined by Simon Boas the Director of Jersey Oversea Aid.

For over 50 years, Jersey has operated a taxpayer-funded overseas aid and development programme. A little rock off the coast of Normandy has funded boreholes, schools and clinics in six continents, and sent almost 1,000 volunteers on work trips to developing countries. We even have a Minister for International Development. Why do we bother? Shouldn’t charity begin at home? Can our aid really change anything? For that matter, can anyone’s?

Simon Boas has been Director of Jersey Overseas Aid (JOA) since October 2016. Brought in with a mission to reform and professionalise Jersey’s overseas grant-making, he will lift the lid on Jersey’s humanitarian and development donor ship and provide a candid assessment of what’s worked and what hasn’t. He will explain how funding decisions are made, the changes underway at JOA, and set out how the Island can maximise the impact of its international aid programme over the next five years.

Before arriving in Jersey, Simon spent most of his career designing, implementing and evaluating aid projects in developing countries. He managed UN and NGO offices in the Middle East and South Asia His experiences range from long-term development policy-making to immediate post-disaster relief. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford before, more latterly, receiving a Master’s degree in International Policy Analysis from Bath University.

As usual, there will be a three course meal preceding the talk, and bar facilities open throughout.

More details are available on the booking form here.

Our meetings in 2019 will be held at our usual venue the Vincent Rooms, Vincent Square, London SW1P 4PD on 7 March (AGM), 23 May and 17 October (annual dinner).

Our annual boules match with the Guernsey Society will take place as usual in Cleaver Square, London SE11, on 22 June.

Our speaker in March will be Simon Boas, Director of Jersey Overseas Aid, who will talk about some of the extraordinary things which Jersey accomplishes abroad, transforming the lives of more people each year than live in the Island itself.

Following the recent centenary of the First World War, the historian and author Ian Ronayne will address our May meeting, exploring the impact of the Great War on the Island and how islanders responded to the profound challenges it presented – on the both the home front and battlefield. Among the subjects Ian will cover is the contribution made by the Jersey Society in London during the period.

Following our annual dinner in October we shall hear about the work of the National Trust for Jersey from its president, Georgina Malet de Carteret.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

Since the late eighteenth century, Jersey’s Bailiff has exercised control over entertainment in the Island’s theatres and other public places, mostly without attracting undue attention. But Rod McLoughlin will talk about a notable exception in 1986 when the front pages and letters columns of the Jersey Evening Post were dominated for weeks by a production of William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Why did a Roman history play cause such a furore and how did it change forever attitudes to public entertainment in Jersey?

The guest speaker was the journalist and arts correspondent who covered the story for the JEP; he subsequently became Director of the Jersey Arts Centre where the production had been staged; and later, by a further irony, as Chief Officer in the Bailiff’s Chambers his responsibilities included advising the Bailiff on public entertainment.

Rod McLoughlin was born in London but, having visited the Island regularly on holiday since the age of 18 months, became a permanent resident aged six. He was educated at Victoria College and Edinburgh University where he read English Literature and Language. His most recent post was as Jersey’s Cultural Development Officer from which he retired earlier this year.

As usual, there will be a three course meal preceding the talk, and bar facilities open throughout.

More details available here.

Come and join us on the 10th May 2018 from 6.30pm in The Vincent Rooms, Westminster Kingsway College, Vincent Square, London, SW1P 2PD to hear Jenny Lecoat, scriptwriter of the feature film “Another mother’s son” and great niece of Louisa Gould, the real-life inspiration for the protagonist of the film.

The film, lauded as being a “moving tribute to human goodness and compassion” by the Reader’s Digest, follows the life of Louisa Gould, a Jersey woman who sheltered a Russian slave worker during the Occupation. With the loss of her own son earlier in the war this personal tragedy encourages Louisa to take in Feodor Burriy and care for him for almost two years.

After a slip in security she is betrayed, arrested, and deported only days before the D-day landings closed sea traffic to the islands, but her actions saved the life of the young man she had come to see as her own.

The speaker, Jenny Lecoat, will speak not only on her writing process of turning historical facts into a cinema feature film, but also on why she wants to bring this story so personal to her family to public attention.

As usual, there will be a three course meal preceding the talk, and bar facilities open throughout.

More details available here.

Another mother’s son is available to be viewed on Netflix.