Annual Conferences
The highlights of each year are our
annual residential conferences, held every spring, with a smaller
meeting in Newbury in September. The residential conferences
continue to be remarkably successful events with an average of 100
attending over recent years.
For 2008 the venue was
a commercial conference centre with a high standard of
accommodation.
A wet Saturday
afternoon was a change from our usual luck with the weather.
However, the lecture
programme was certainly up to the usual professional levels.
A report on the
conference may be seen at this link (PDF 350k).
The 2009 conference
will be in Cumbria, and more details are below.
The conferences bring together members and guests from all
over the world to listen to lectures, look at objects that members
bring along, and enjoy first class food while renewing old
friendships. The lecture programme is very broad with at least one
lecture from an academic or national expert, while other talks range
to quite informal discussions of dial design or to their settings in
English country gardens.
Sundial enthusiasts are very good at
exchanging information, and a major parallel activity at the
conferences are the many displays of dials, models, photographs,
equipment to determine the orientation of walls, etc, all brought
along by members. If you want hands-on experience of designing
dials, this is where to come.
Whilst the annual residential conferences are our main
social and business event (they include the Society's AGM), one day
events, held in September near Newbury, Berkshire, also attract
members from far and wide. This is a low cost informal function
where ideas are exchanged, exhibits brought along, and added-to by
10 minute talks by members.
Another successful form of social
function has been organised tours. We have enjoyed week-long visits
to Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Italy, Austria and, most recently,
Germany for a second time. All tours are organised by our local
members or by the host country's own sundial society. We always see
dials in locations the general public could not normally see. The
tours are nicely balanced so that members don't suffer from dial
indigestion, but have plenty of fine food and wine as well!
The North American Sundial Society
(NASS) also organises annual conferences and tours which several of
our members have attended and highly recommend. If you're
interested, please follow this
link.
Conference and AGM, 15 - 17 May 2009,
The Cumbria Grand Hotel, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, LA11 6EN
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This conference will be in hotel accommodation
with all the en-suite and double room facilities that one may
expect.
The area is very well endowed with
sundials, in addition to being near to Lake Windermere and the other
attractions of the Lake District.
Travel is convenient by either motorway
or rail.
Note that the date is later than our usual weekend after Easter.