Monthly Archives: March 2018

The Shetland and Orkney Islands

On the 28th of March the Forum welcomed its guest speaker Tony Burkitt who entertained the members with a talk titled Shetland and Orkney Islands.

He described two holidays he enjoyed in the said islands supported by his excellent photographs.  The islands are unique in that they have more in common with Norway than they have with either England or Scotland.

The first holiday was to Shetland where his first stop was at the town of Scallaway where a celebration was taking place commemorating the town’s role as the base for the Shetland ‘bus’, an arrangement during World War II for accepting escapees from occupied Norway.

The rest of his time was spent visiting the many prehistoric sites, bird-watching and finding unusual wild flowers.

The second holiday was to Orkney which is equally well-provided with prehistoric sites.  When on the island of Hoy he met a group of climbers attempting to climb the Old Man of Hoy.  As a result he obtained some remarkable pictures taken by the climbers during their ascent.

Orkney is the site of the World War I sea anchorage Scapa Flow where the ship HMS Hampshire sank with great loss of life including General Kitchener who was on his way to a meeting in Russia.

After an open discussion Mike Earle proposed a vote of thanks for a fascinating talk.

Thoughts on Leadership

The scheduled guest speaker for the Forum’s meeting on the 14th of March became unavailable at short notice so one of the Forum’s members Ivor Thomas stepped into the breech.

Ivor spent most of his career as an educator, firstly in the RAF and then in the civilian sector.  He entertained the members with a talk titled Some Thoughts on Leadership starting with World War One when the troops were famously described as lions led by donkeys.

It was realised by the powers that be that trained leadership was necessary but by the Second World War little had changed and in 1942 Winston Churchill sacked 2,000 commanders.

Training courses in the UK were started by the armed forces and Ivor discussed the different approaches to leadership, for instance is leadership by consensus or assertiveness preferable.  The Forum members joined in with the discussion mainly restricting their examples to the world of home and international politics.

After a long discussion Mike Earle brought the meeting to a close, thanking Ivor for providing such an interesting talk at short notice.

Great Moments in Sport

The Forum meeting arranged to take place on the 28th of February was cancelled due to the heavy snow; on the 7th of March arrangements returned to normal when the Forum welcomed an old friend John Clithero as guest speaker.

John’s talk was titled Great Moments in Sport and featured a trip down memory lane for Forum members as John described key moments in sport and reminded them of sporting heroes of the last forty years.

The first moment was the so-called Botham’s Test Match when, in 1981 at Headingley Cricket Ground, Ian Botham engineered a victory over Australia from a seemingly impossible position.  John had witnessed this special moment in his role as a commentator with Radio Leeds.

He was also present when Darren Gough achieved the only hat-trick in the 20th century by an English bowler against Australia.

Other moments were featured from football, rugby, golf and horse racing before members were reminded of sportsmen and women whose exploits have gained them fame and honours.

The last sportsperson featured was the one John regarded as the greatest of all, the boxer Muhammed Ali.

Chairman Mike Earle proposed a vote of thanks to John for an excellent presentation.