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Talks Booking Secretary Required

The Whimple History Society organises a programme of, typically, five talks per year on subjects of local and more general historical interest. Hitherto this task has fallen to the Heritage Centre curator, but as the size of our collection of artefacts and documents has grown, so the curator's job has become busier, so we feel that it is time for us to appoint a dedicated Talks Booking Secretary. Could this be the job for you?

Our curator will take full responsibility for talks up to the end of February 2026, so we are looking for someone who can organise talks for September 2026 onwards. The talks need to be planned in advance, so we would hope to have someone in place by September 2025 to do this.

The role entails:
 

• Identifying and booking speakers

• Reporting to the History Society committee on the talks booked and arrangements for the event - this can be done in person, either as a committee member or a guest of the committee, or in writing if you prefer

• Arranging the booking of the venue (usually the village hall)

• Designing and printing posters, and putting them up around the village and anywhere else considered appropriate for the particular talk

• Passing the posters to our website manager for advertising on our website

• Advertising on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages (we can assist with this if you are not confident with social media)

• Making sure that people are available on the night to deal with greeting the speaker, taking money on the door, refreshments, the raffle, and tech

• Being available to introduce and thank the speaker on the night
   

We will give you some pointers on how to find speakers, and can also provide training in how to design posters if that is needed.

If you are interested then please use the Contact Us form below to discuss this further.

We are very pleased to announce the publication of a short book by our curator, Tina Kelly, about the history of Whimple's Congregational Church, which was operational for nearly 100 years between 1862-1973. Read about its origins in the religious turmoil of the Reformation, its involvement with missionary work in the South Pacific, and the tragic life of its most popular Minister, Rev. Thomas Redler. Copies can be purchased from our shop during normal opening hours, or through our online shop hosted by the Devon Museums website HERE.

We are thrilled that the September 2024 issue of One Magazine contains an article featuring a Whimple Orchard Walk terminating at the Heritage Centre and taking in lots of Whimple's cider making history along the way. The magazine is delivered free to addresses around Exeter and East Devon, but if you did not get one then it can be viewed by following the link Advertise your business in Exeter - ONE Magazine (one-mag.co.uk) and scrolling down.

 In March 2024 we hosted a group from the Exeter and East Devon branch of CAMRA at the Heritage Centre. We are very pleased to say that they enjoyed their visit, and you can read more about it in a review by one of their members in the centenary 'Summer' edition of their quarterly magazine, ExeAle, available here Exe Ale Magazine - latest - Exeter & East Devon CAMRA.

One of our new displays for 2024 is about the making of traditional farmhouse clotted cream by farmers' wives in Whimple during the first half of the twentieth century. One of our trustees, Margaret Burrough, comes from a long line of clotted cream producers. In 2011 Margaret appeared in episode 9 of the BBC TV series, Edwardian Farm, demonstrating the art of making traditional farmhouse clotted cream. You can watch the episode in which she appears by following the link Watch Edwardian Farm - YouTube (Margaret features 23mins 50 secs into the episode)