Leonard Stanley Wine Circle with Stephen Rowley on the Life of Sir Charles Wheatstone

IT WAS great to see nearly a full house of members, even though a few apologies were received.

It was great to welcome a new resident to Leonard Stanley, Margaret Adams, who we hope will join us.

Eric confirmed that Christmas Dinner had been booked at The George, Frocester on December 19, as everyone had enjoyed last years.

He brought up the fact that there is new Data Protection Legislation coming into force at the end of May and gave every member a consent form for the use of personal data subject to the listed regulations to be kept by the club for them to sign.

A lot of time had been spent on deciding where to go on our annual outing in July, which depends on availability and cost.

Eric said that it was hard to find something in the evening which appealed to all and was within our budget.

He had narrowed it down to two – a repeat trip on the Bristol Packet at a cost of £33 per head, plus drinks with a guarantee of 40 people or a visit to Chavenage House at Tetbury, which included a tour of the house and gardens, plus a sit down two course meal for £31.50 per head, taking our own drinks.

Chavenage House as most people know was used in the Poldark series on TV and in other productions and is an Elzabethan House built in 1576 and only owned by two families.

It was agreed without exception to visit Chavenage House.

Unfortunately, our speaker, David Fletcher who was due to talk on his trip to Antarctica was unable to be with us due to imminent surgery which he couldn’t put off, but we were more than well entertained by Stephen Rowley who gave a very informative talk on the Life of Sir Charles Wheatstone, Inventor who most had heard of, particularly in relation to the Wheatstone bridge but were not aware of everything he had achieved in his life.

Amongst lots of things, he invented the Two NeedleTelegraph, the Wheatstone Morse Transmitter, the paper telex machine and laid the foundations to what is now known as superfast broadband.

He also had an excellent knowledge of foreign languages and was involved in imparting scientific knowledge all around the world.

Stephen was an excellent speaker and had brought various items of interest with him.

He also does varied other talks, so am sure we will be hearing from him again in the future.

Our next meeting is on April 25, when Chris Evans will talk about The Butterfly Garden.