Member’s Lunches are held at Banstead Downs Golf Club from 12 noon.
Website – http://www.bansteaddowns.co.uk
The Two Ladies Lunches are held at the Kingswood Golf Club, Kingswood on the first Wednesday in May and December.
Web site – https://www.kingswood-golf.co.uk
Details of forthcoming speakers are listed below. Information on previous speakers can be found under Member’s lunches on the Recent Activities page.
2019
6th February 2019. Peter Durrant – The History and Humour of Fleet Street
PLEASE NOTE THIS SPEAKER HAS CANCELLED DUE TO HEALTH REASONS.
A REPLACEMENT SPEAKER IS Barry Buttenshaw – Prince Charles, Bombs and Barry.
Barry’s talk is about “Prince Charles, Bombs and Barry” and is about his misspent youth as a bomb disposal officer in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and attached to the SAS in Hereford on Prince Charles Personal Protection squad in 1969. Barry does this talk to raise money for the Rotary End Polio Now campaign and so far over our years he has raised enough money to have 370,000 children inoculated against polio. When Rotary started this campaign in 1985 there were 360,000 new cases of polio every year world-wide. Last year (2017) there were just 39 and in the first part of this year (2018) in single figures. However, the World Health Organisation has said that for any country to be declared “Polio Free”, there must be three consecutive years of no new cases. It is currently in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
6th March 2019 Annual General Meeting – No Speaker
3rd April 2019 Jonathan Fryer – The humorous side of being an actor -An Entertainment.
Although now working exclusively as a humorous raconteur, Jonathan started his solo entertaining over 30 years ago, while continuing to act in theatre and TV. Amongst others he worked with June Whitfield, Patricia Routledge, Ken Dodd, Donald Sinden and Jimmy Edwards.
He tells of the times things go wrong on stage and recalls some very funny comments from audiences. He reminds us of the joy of listening to The Glums, Rob Wilton, Old Mother Riley and Round the Horne. He also touches on the use of humour in advertising.
There is some delightful light verse and recollection of great comedic moments in cinema; also wit from Judi Dench, Noel Coward, Mikhail Gorbachev(!) and a hungover thespian.
There are a few stories about politicians, tourists and Royalty, and magical examples of the humour of children.
AND – “No laughs, no fee.”
Wednesday 1st May 2019 – Ladies Lunch at Kingswood Golf Club. Bar opens at 11.45am for 12.30pm lunch.
5th June 2019 – Stephen Robson – The Battle of Britain
After completing an engineering apprenticeship Stephen Robson joined the RAF in 1969 and left in 1988. Since then he has worked for British Aerospace at Kingston, followed by over five years in a construction consultancy. A return to aviation was in the monitoring of jet engines for the BAe146 / Avro RJ regional jets and business jets. He is active in aviation related organisations and Chairman of the Registered Charity, Charles Rolls Memorial Trust, which promotes the role of Charles Rolls, Britain’s first International Aviation Meeting and the proposed heritage patio.
The talk covers the aviation scene from 1909 until 1939; the emergence of the Royal Air Force when politics and economies had reduced our military to dangerously low levels and how a wealthy lady financed the Rolls-Royce engine that led to the Merlin used in the Spitfire and Hurricane. While Britain slumbered, the rise of the Luftwaffe and Nazi Germany reached a critical stage in 1935. The talk explains how Britain was able to prevent Nazi Germany from gaining the air supremacy required for the success of Operation Sea Lion – the proposed invasion of Britain.
