18th
June 2026
Next club meeting Monday 1st July 2026.
A presentation on English Half-groats
1321-1662 by Paul Woods
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church,
Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
August 2026
There is no meeting
at the Abbey Baptist church in August. A social event is being considered
instead, and which it is hoped will be announced in due course.
Notices:
The club committee also needs members. Please consider joining, as it
is not fair to leave the running of the club to the same small number of
members every year. If you are willing to
become a member of the committee, please notify one of the current committee.
June Meeting
As usual the June Meeting is in two parts
– first the club AGM followed by the annual display competition.
Numbers at the AGM were disappointing. As
the committee stands down pending election John as Vice-president opened the
meeting. Apologies for absence were
noted. The minutes of the previous meeting had been circulated to members, and were accepted as they stood by a vote of hands.
The only matter arising was a query regarding payments to the church.
With regard to committee reports, Henry commented that
we had managed well in the last year with guest speakers, but it was getting
harder to recruit new speakers. He suggested the club might consider other
formats for our regular meetings. The Treasurer commented that membership was
down on last year by 3 members. It also spoke about raising the coming years
subscription to £30, and hoped that this should stem accumulating
further deficits. The Secretary said he hoped that there would be some
returning members, and also wondered whether anyone from
the recently closed Wiltshire club would be interested.
The existing committee was re-elected –
Chair Henry, Treasurer Jawaid and Secretary Tony. Maria said she would help the
committee as and when she could. Peter and John were reappointed as President
and Vice-President respectively.
Several suggestions were made regarding
current field archaeology topics and finds. Was there a current dig at
Silchester? Has Oxford Archaeology any workings at present? and will there be
any finds when Thames Water commences the White Horse Reservoir works?
Three members entered items in the annual
display competition Jawaid, Maria and Henry.
Jawaid’s display was of a single item – a
December 1814 £5 note of the Reading Bank.
Maria’s display comprised two Libyan notes
and a photograph of the Leptis Magna arch that appears on both notes. One was a
1951 ¼ Pound note of King Idris that used both Latin and Arabic script. The
second item was a 2002 10 Dinar note of the Gaddafi regime which only carried
Arabic script.
Henry displayed a large
number of exhibits from his postcard collection, mainly of sites in
north-west Surrey. Original photographs came from mainly glass plate negatives
made by Francis Frith, O Collins and Robinson. Henry also displayed a strip of
miniature postcards. Collins was a Reading based photographer, and many of his
glass plate negatives have been lodged with Reading Museum.
