Brompton, London, 24 October 2015

Bi-Annual General Meeting, Brompton Cemetery

Members of the George Borrow Society met at 1:45 p.m. on 24 October 2015 at South Lodge, Brompton Cemetery, London, for the Bi-Annual General Meeting—it was a bit of a squeeze but Arthur Tait of the Friends of Brompton Cemetery welcomed us with tea and biscuits and everyone was soon chatting away.

Just before the formal meeting Arthur gave a short talk about the Friends’ appeal and plans with the outcome hopefully being known shortly.

The agenda for the meeting is given below and a formal write-up will appear in our Spring 2016 Bulletin.  As a Society we are doing well, despite our small size, and there was an especial thanks to Mike’s son for helping with the accounts.  Forthcoming events such as the 2015 Christmas meal, Anglesey 2016, a possible joint meeting with the John Clare Society at Epping and far Cornwall in 2017 were discussed.

After the meeting David passed around a number of paintings of the Old Brompton Road when Borrow lived there.  Many of these are available on The Time Machine, Kensington and Chelsea’s excellent local studies blog.

Members then walked from South Lodge to Borrow’s grave and laid flowers.  After this David did a Brompton Walk, via the Old Brompton Road to the Hereford Arms, taking in St. Mary the Boltons.

Agenda

1. Apologies for absence

2. Minutes of previous meeting held Saturday 2nd November 2013 at the Assembly House, Norwich (c.f. Bulletin series 2, no. 8 spring 2014) pp 7)

3. Matters arising

4. Chairman's report

5. Hon. Secretary's report

6. Membership secretary's report

7. Hon. Treasurer's report

8. Election of committee members

9. George Borrow Trust (charity 1114630)

10. Forthcoming events

11 Any other business.

Getting there

As with all London travel:

a. If you’re a Londoner then use your Oyster card on the tube/overground railway/buses.

b. English old age pensioner bus passes (with red rose) work in London

c. If you’re coming to London by train then you can buy a one-day London travelcard ticket (usually about £4 more than a normal return) which covers you for all tube, buses etc. in the London area.

d. You can use contactless debit cards on the underground and buses.  Note that London buses no longer accept cash.

The South Lodge is at the extreme south of Brompton Cemetery so if coming by the underground you can either get the District or Overground line to West Brompton (when you come out of the station turn right, go into the cemetery and walk the whole length to the south entrance) or the District line to Fulham Broadway (when you come out of that station turn left and the lodge and cemetery is about 400 metres on the left).

If you don’t like walking, get the District to Fulham Broadway and when you come out of the station/shopping centre the bus stop is on your right, with buses every few minutes, and the 14, 211 and 414 all go past the cemetery, just get off at Hortensia Road (next stop after Chelsea Football Club) and the cemetery is a few yards down the road opposite the petrol station.