Meetings, Events and Conferences
The highlights of each year are without doubt our annual residential conferences, held each spring, though we also hold a smaller informal one day meeting in Newbury each September. Our residential conferences continue to be remarkably successful events.
The 2010 Conference 9 - 11 April 2010
This year we held our annual Conference at the University of Exeter in the lovely county of Devon. The sun shone, the venue was very comfortable, the food excellent and very positive comments have been received from delegates about the whole conference. The Saturday afternon dial tour managed to get to see no fewer than seven church dials over a 50 mile coach trip.
For those who might be interested to see a
clip about the dial tour, responses from delegates and see other
piictures as they become available, a separate web page is being
maintained here
.
Our conferences bring together members and guests from all over the world to listen to lectures, look at objects that members bring along and enjoy good food at the same time as making new and renewing old, friendships. The lecture programme is very broad with at least one lecture from an academic or national expert, while other talks range through many aspects of dialling.
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 event, the one day events, held in September near Newbury, Berkshire, also attract members from far and wide. The Newbury meetings are low cost informal meetings where ideas are exchanged, exhibits brought along and added-to by 10 minute talks by members.
Another successful form of social function for the Society has been that of organised tours. We have already enjoyed visits to Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, France Italy, Austria and Germany and this year we organised a very successful one to East Anglia. All tours are organised by one or more of our members or by the host country's own sundial society. We often manage to get to see dials in locations that 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.