Chairman's Report 2016

We have come to the end of a very interesting and successful year which would not have been possible without the full support of our membership and visitors throughout the year. So, before I reflect on 2016, I would like to thank you all for that support and also take this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year.

In our January meeting, we had a talk and slide presentation by George Petry MBA on the life of Philip Jones Griffiths a Rhuddlan-born lad who went on to become a renowned journalist and photographer recognised the world over for his photographs, in particular the ones he took while covering the Vietnam war. February saw a talk by David Waller on The Royal Mail in North Wales, it made you think how lucky we are today. In March we had a talk by Jane Brunning retired archivist from the records office entitled Crime and Punishment which included the story about the only man to be hanged in Ruthin jail.

April saw a presentation by our own Chris Grier who gave an interesting talk on Bodelwyddan Castle and some of its previous owners. May is the month we have our AGM, this was followed by a talk about Tool Makers entitled “The Early Beginnings” by Howard Green explaining that before you went to chop some wood you first had to make the axe. Although we did not have a meeting in June we did in fact organise a coach trip to the Ironbridge Museums at Telford including Blists Hill Victorian Town, this turned out to be a very enjoyable trip so much so we are thinking of running another one later in the year to a different venue, look out for it.

July is the holiday month when everyone takes a well-deserved rest but no sooner it started it’s over we have August upon us and we had our fundraising Saturday afternoon in Rhuddlan Community Centre where the society puts on a film show containing photos of Rhuddlan how it was 50 to 100 years ago and also stories were told of happenings during that time.

A very enjoyable afternoon which was followed by light refreshments served by some of our members and staff of the centre.

September saw a talk by Fred Hobbs of Prestatyn formerly of Rhuddlan on the local industries in and around Prestatyn. At over ninety years of age, Fred told the story all from memory, with no props whatsoever a very entertaining evening. Hope I can archive that at that age.

In October we had Rufus Adams giving us a talk about Lloyd George entitled “His Early Years” Lloyd George was considered by university historians to be the greatest prime minister this country ever had, and after hearing the talk they may have a case. November saw Jerry Bone give a PowerPoint presentation on WWI entitled “Trench Warfare”. To finish the year off we had Fiona Gale, Denbighshire’s senior archaeologist who gave us a talk supported
by a slide show about Archaeology in our local area. This was followed by our Christmas Quiz hosted by Reg Davies which consisted of items of yesteryear along with a few old photographs of Rhuddlan. A team of ladies, Molly Blake, Dorothy Sutcliffe, Deirdre Roberts, and Jean Draycott won the quiz with a total points of 22.

To end the year on a high we again published a calendar which was well received, so a big thank you to all who bought one. Our events for 2017 start at Wednesday 11th January at 7pm in Ysgol y Castell where our guest speaker is Marshall Morris and the topic will be “The Story of the Titanic”

So come along you might enjoy it’s £2.50 to non-members

The chairman, Dai Thomas.