Committee News

Summary of Committee Meeting held on Thursday 26^th September 2024

 Ten members of the Committee were able to attend the meeting. Following approval of previous minutes including a short Zoom meeting in June, attention moved to the very successful Anniversary Cream Tea held at the Bromley Court Hotel. Facilities were good and the refreshment well received as were the speech by the Chairman on the Society’s 50 years and Tudor Davies’s talk about the earlier occupants of the building.

The Committee wished to record its thanks to the magazine editor, Christine Hellicar, for the particularly interesting and appropriate issue of Bromleag and for all her hard work on the journal. She confirmed that she has plenty of material for the next issue and Peter Robson was now assisting with meeting reports and editing.

Discussion then turned to the possibility of day-time meetings in addition to the usual monthly evening ones. It was concluded that these would be most suitable for special interest groups or research. However, no decision was made on how best to proceed. It was agreed that evening meetings with 50-60 members and visitors attending were working well and an additional Zoom meeting in August would be arranged. The possibility of switching to Zoom at short notice if winter weather conditions were bad would be kept in mind.

The year had seen a number of successful visits and possible locations for 2025 were discussed, including some we have visited a decade or more ago.

Membership continues to hold up with around 200 members and funds were satisfactory. A new auditor would be required for 2025. Queries via the website continued on a regular basis and more people were offering material – photo, books – to the Society for preservation, in particular lot of items relating to the former Dunn’s shop in Bromley. Enquiries via the Library about Sundridge Park Farm had, so far, been less successful. It was agreed that old, unsold copies of the Bromley History booklets should be offered free to members at the next couple of meetings before the remainder are disposed of.

Simon reported on the plans to move the Central Library to the former Top Shop site near the Market Square. Local Studies and the museum displays were planned to move in spring 2026 but the location of the Archives remained undecided.

The date of the next meeting to be advised (provisionally 18^th March) and the possibility of using a room at St. George’s would be looked into.