March 1st, 2021
Dear Members,
This is the last letter I shall send to you on our website, as my term of office as your Chairman comes to an end at the Annual General Meeting on March 15th, 2021.
It has been a great pleasure to contact you at the beginning of each month.
Today, with the recent lovely weather and the good news about the vaccination situation, it really seems as if normality is definitely on the way back at last. Who knows, meeting at Heswall Hall for live lectures just might be possible by September?!
This last month was dominated by the screening of our second virtual lecture “The Genius of Beethoven” by Peter Medhurst.
After the great success of our first on-line lecture in January, we were buoyed up with excitement and eager to tune in on Monday, February 15th. Our marvellous team consisting of our web manager, Anita Stokes, our Treasurer Martin Amlot and our Membership secretary, Julia Leary, who mastered MailChimp, were all set to go; the lecturer and I were in place awaiting our cue to begin when it was discovered that something was blocking the transference of the presentation from Zoom (where we were) to YouTube (where you were all waiting to see it)
Nothing could be done at the time. It could not be rectified. We were forced to cancel the lecture.
A disaster. The only good thing was that, thanks to Peter Medhurst, we were able to offer his talk again three days later, as he was free on Thursday February 18th at 11.0 am. So we didn’t have long to wait.
Between Monday and Thursday, Anita and Martin worked furiously to discover what had gone wrong. Eventually they solved the mystery. It was due to something that the team had never encountered before, or even heard of. A glitch in the software of YouTube which was not recorded.
They identified it, sorted it and are confident it will never happen again.
Julia Leary, with her mastery of MailChimp, was able to notify the membership very speedily of the change of date and time, and on Thursday February 15th, at 11 am we all tuned in again to watch our second lecture on-line.
“The Genius of Beethoven” proved to be an outstanding experience; many felt it was the best lecture ever and was well worth the wait.
So, with two successes firmly under our belt, we can look forward to the lectures scheduled for March, April, May and June, under the leadership of my successor, Yvonne Woodhead.
I send Yvonne and her team every good wish for the future: the ups, the downs, the challenges, the people and the fun – all make it a job that I have loved and am sad to leave. I am sure she will enjoy it as much as I have done.
Thank you for having me. It has been an honour.
Fenella Billington
The Arts Society Wirral members meet monthly to hear, from a varied programme of inspiring lectures given by top experts in their fields. Regular tours, outings and visits throughout the year complement the lectures.
In addition, the Volunteer programme, open to all members of our society, includes Church Recording, involvement with local young people by way of the Young Arts Group, Archiving for a number of organisations together with the development of Church Trails for children