Committee Meeting - 19th January 2024
Our first Committee meeting of the year looks ahead to an exciting year. First on the horizon is planned participation in a revived history weekend in Worcester on Saturday 17 February, when we hope to have a stall in St Helen’s Church in Fish Street. Having enjoyed the Three Battles festivals held in Worcester’s Guildhall some years ago, we are looking forward to renewing our partnership with our colleagues there.
We’ve also reached an exciting stage in the planning for our Conference on Saturday 4 May, which we’re running in partnership with the Battlefields Trust and linking to our annual anniversary walk on Sunday 5 May. Full details of the programme, together with a booking tool, appear on a dedicated page on this website. The theme of the Conference will be ‘Presenting, Preserving and Researching Battlefields – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’, with the aim of looking beyond the history of the Battle itself to explore how battlefields, including our own, can be brought to life to ensure their relevance to historians and non-historians alike. Having had to postpone from our original 2021 date – the 550th anniversary of the Battle – our new date will coincide nicely with the publication of Graham Turner’s new book full of his Wars of the Roses paintings, and Graham will be just one of the speakers to be joining us. Book your place early!
The winter also sees us firmly into banner painting season, repairing, retouching and replacing our stock to ensure that our display throughout the summer will be as colourful and vibrant as ever. There’s always a welcome for anyone wanting to join our Monday afternoon painting sessions at Elizabeth Wyatt House, with jobs for every level of artistic skill.
At the same time, our project to erect a new sculpture in the Abbey grounds continues, commemorating the role of Queen Margaret of Anjou in the Battle of Tewkesbury and more widely reflecting the key but often overlooked role of women in our national history. We’re reaching the critical stage of applying for planning permission but are confident we have all the building blocks in place to move ahead. Hopefully, work on the new sculpture will be complemented by a permanent display in the foyer of the Abbey offices and Touching Souls Café as the Abbey staff have kindly offered us a space there.