2024 Friends' Talks

I'm pleased to have all the talks for 2024 in place and am already planning talks for 2025, so thought I'd advertise them on the blog. They are all on the website, but you can't have too much advertising when it comes to what's going on.

I aim to write up all talks on this blog, there's a record going back 13 years of what all our talks were about, and some of them have been recorded when they were on Zoom and appear under 'videos' on the website. We've already had three talks this year which have appeared on the blog, In January Michael Gray talked about repairing an Oxford College; in February Barbara Swann talked about archaeological sites in Sweden and Denmark and last month's talk was by Swindon Museum's Manager, Frances Yeo talked about the museums in Swindon, particularly Museum and Art Swindon.

This month's talk is next Thursday, 25 April at 7.30pm in the Council Chamber when we will welcome tattoo artist Gavin Jones who will talk about The Art of the Tattoo. Gavin works at a tattoo studio called 'Sinking the Ink' with a neat logo:

Friends are invited via email to come along to the Civic Offices from 7.05pm for a 7.30pm start. Tickets will be £6 on the door for Friends and those who aren't yet Friends are welcome to come and join us for an entry fee of £8. Payment by cash or card reader and there will be refreshments.

The talks for the rest of the year are as follows:

30 May Melanie Vandenbrouck, Chief Curator Pallant House Gallery

13 June Dee Ferris in conversation with Katie Ackrill

25 July Wilfrid Wright on the Elisabeth Frink exhibition

29 August Harriet Still on Hardy’s Wessex exhibition

26 September Philip Dearden researching Harold’s life and work

31 October Ann-Rachael Harwood on Edward Adrian Wilson Antarctic explorer

28 November Dr Gill Clarke curator of Purbeck artists exhibition at Russell Cotes

5 December AGM

30 January 2025 Flis Tattersall talking about her Shouting Softly project based in Swindon

Information about where each talk will be held will be sent to Friends and appear on social media.