Talks

Our monthly Talks begin at 10.30am at the Central Methodist Church Hall in St Saviourgate, doors open at 9.30am. Parking is available nearby.

There will be an admission charge for members and guests of £2 plus £1 for tea/coffee, which will be served from 9.45am. The talks MAY be available on Zoom (and possibly recorded), see the details of each talk. A link and reminder will be sent out during the previous week.

THERE IS NO NEED TO BOOK FOR SATURDAY TALKS – just turn up and enjoy! (Note – booking is needed for Saturday Socials).

The technical team would welcome volunteers to help with the Zoom portion of the Saturday talks starting in September. Zoom experience an asset. Contact Quinn.

Saturday 10th June : Bees and Bee-keeping – Anthony Day

This talk will not be on Zoom, as no volunteers are available on this date.

Anthony Day is hard to categorise. A wide-ranging career includes sales missions to Iraq and to Iran in the time of the Shah. More recently he was General Secretary of the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and subsequently established a training consultancy which prepared some 300,000 hotel staff to be ready for the euro in 18 countries and 14 languages.

Contract work in Selby, Chester-le-Street, Scunthorpe and Grimsby also included a period as Deputy Director of Finance for the NHS (in the Outer Hebrides). He and his wife Mary settled in York 23 years ago and he has been publishing a weekly podcast on sustainability since 2007. They now have an allotment, and Anthony has had bees since 2010 – although it was Mary’s idea.

In today’s talk Anthony will talk about bees and pollination, but not just about honey bees. Bumble bees and many other insects are important to the survival of a wide range of plants and flowers – and a constant supply of flowers and plants is equally important to bees. We’ll look at how bees make honey, what they use pollen for and why they stick everything together with propolis.

The presentation will close with a 20-minute video tracking Antony through the beekeeping year, before a Q&A session.

Saturday 8th July : From Barrow to Bagdad and back again – Philip Caine

This talk will not be on Zoom, as no volunteers are available on this date.

Born in Cumbria in the North West of England, Philip Caine’s working life began in the hotel business. His career developed in the oil industry and 30 years were spent in places such as the North Sea, Algeria, Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Russia. He retired in 2015 and began Writing and Public Speaking. Since then he has spoken at hundreds of venues across the UK and written nine thrillers.

Philip Caine says: “My talk begins with me leaving school. I talk about how my career began as a chef and hotel manager, my years working the oil rigs in the North Sea followed by operating projects in Algeria and Nigeria. My time in Kazakhstan and Russia was particularly exciting, not to mention the most dangerous place of all – Baghdad. My career culminated in Dubai where I ran an oil services company. I conclude the talk with the writing of my latest novel.”