What to expect at the Friends of Molesey Library AGM on 22 Jan, 7pm

The Friends of Molesey Library Annual General Meeting will be taking place at the library on Tuesday 22 January at 7pm. Admission is free, and we've lined up a distinguished speaker in Sir Terence Clark, a former diplomat and expert on the Middle East.

He will be entertaining us with a talk entitled 'In The Cradle of Civilisation'. Sir Terence will introduce you to Iraq, where he spent nearly 5 years as the British Ambassador, during much of Saddam Hussein’s war with Iran. But, as he will show, it was not all bombs and bullets and in the many quieter interludes he was able to explore this ancient land in depth, often with the aid of a native four-legged ally, his Kurdish Saluki.

Sir Terence was a career diplomat and Arabist and had previously served in many other countries of the Middle East as well as in Europe. He and his wife went to war-torn Iraq with some trepidation in 1985 but found the situation less fraught than media coverage suggested. By showing an interest in the history of Mesopotamia (the Land between the Two Rivers - Tigris and Euphrates), with which Britain has often been closely involved, he had licence to travel far and wide, getting to know Iraqi professionals, academics, artists, tribal sheikhs and people at every level of society and visiting the many historic sites from the Garden of Eden on-wards. In this talk, Sir Terence will highlight some of the fascinating people and places that he came across in the hope that it might encourage a more positive view of Iraq.

Sir Terence was also Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman. In retirement he has written extensively on the history and politics of the Middle East. His latest book – The Salukis in my Life, here, there and everywhere, from the Arab world to China – describes his many adventures in unusual places with these “Companions of Kings” across the vast region of their natural habitat.

In addition to hearing from Sir Terence you'll also hear briefly from our Chair Pauline and Treasurer Liz and assist in appointing the Committee for the coming year. We will aim to get the formalities out of the way quickly and on to our guest speaker. We hope to see you there.

Talk cancelled

Unfortunately the talk this evening with Dr Peter Clark has had to be cancelled due to ill health. We will try to arrange this for another date. If you have already purchased tickets we will contact you to arrange a refund. - The Friends

From the Middle East to Molesey

What connects Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens and the Middle East? They are all specialist subjects of Dr Peter Clark who will at Molesey Library on Tuesday 20 November to give a talk.

The Middle East is never far from the news and Peter has known the region for over 50 years, 30 of them working locally for the British Council. In 1988 he was posted to Abu Dhabi to run the Council’s office there. As a self-confessed romantic, he took up his new job rather reluctantly, initially viewing the United Arab Emirates as a brash, consumerist society and lacking in history.

Over time he fell in love with the country and its people. He got to know Abu Dhabi sheikhs and Dubai merchants and people at every level of society. He introduced a riotous Shakespeare company, organised the return of explorer Wilfred Thesinger and greeted royalty, politicians and celebrities.

With fluent Arabic, Peter has had access and insights denied to most visitors. The country was on the cusp of enormous economic expansion and his Emirates Diaries paints an affectionate picture of the country when it still resembled a chain of large informal villages.

Our events organiser John Coope will be 'in conservation' with Peter on the night and assisting the audience to find out more about Peter's life and works. He says: "Peter is a recognised authority on the Middle East and has translated and edited books written in Arabic and published other books in English about the area. He has led cultural tours to many countries in the region. We are lucky to have the opportunity to hear an expert view of an area which features so largely in the news headlines today."

Now back in the UK, Peter has also published two books on places associated with the life and works of Charles Dickens and has a new book looking at locations linked to Winston Churchill.

It promises to be a lively and wide-ranging discussion so we hope you will be able to join us - tickets cost £5 and are available from Molesey Library.

Jessica Hepburn returns to Molesey Library

Regular supporters of our Author Events will remember the inspiring talk given by Jessica Hepburn - then Executive Director of the Lyric Hammersmith - on her first visit to Molesey Library. On that occasion she spoke to us movingly about her book The Pursuit of Motherhood which charted her experience of eleven rounds of unsuccessful IVF, multiple miscarriages and a pregnancy which almost proved fatal.

Following the success of that book, Jessica has become a leading spokesperson and campaigner on infertility and founded Fertility Fest, the world’s first arts festival dedicated to fertility, infertility, modern families and the science of making babies.

In her early forties, after her last unsuccessful round of fertility treatment, Jessica decided that it was time to move on and, in her new role of ‘adventure activist’, she has taken on some of the world’s most iconic endurance challenges to raise awareness and money for adults and children without the families they long for.

Her successes so far have included swimming the English Channel, running the London Marathon and climbing both Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and the highest peak in South America.

Jessica will be returning to Molesey Library on Tuesday September 18, 2018 to talk to us about her latest book 21 Miles which draws its title from the distance she swam across the Channel.

As her punishing training for this challenge commenced, Jessica learned that she needed to put on weight to stave off the cold. And this led to another idea: what if she were to write to a collection of inspiring women and ask if they would meet and eat with her, and answer the question: does motherhood make you happy or can you have a fulfilling life without children?

21 Miles tells how Jessica ate 21 meals with 21 women, from baronesses and professors to award winners and record breakers, amazing women from different walks of life - and swam 21 miles to try and find an answer to this question.

Join us at Molesey Library on Tuesday September 18, 2018 at 7.30 pm to hear Jessica speak about her new book. Tickets cost £5 and are available from Molesey Library.

Your support is important for the future of the library

We are delighted to welcome back Jessica Hepburn on 18th September 2018 at 7.30pm to open our season of Author Events.

Tickets are now available at the library. We would ask you to purchase tickets prior to the event, if at all possible, as this helps us to know how much space needs to be created by moving the book stacks and then setting up an appropriate number of chairs.

Please remember that YOUR SUPPORT is very important to the future of the library. We are living through a period of time when very sadly libraries in many parts of the country are being closed as Council budgets are being squeezed and the service often under-used for the size of the local population. As Friends of the Library, we don’t want this to happen in Molesey and we try to boost the numbers of people using the library by arranging Author Events and a weekly Coffee Morning.

You can help by coming along or if you are unable to attend, please spread the word to friends and neighbours.

We cannot afford to be complacent and always remember that if we don’t use the Library we could risk losing this wonderful resource.

Molesey author Holly Vanstone to reveal African adventure

Holly (right) and a friend, in Uganda

Local resident and respected teacher Holly Vanstone will be joining us at Molesey Library on the evening of Tuesday 24th April 2018, from 7pm to talk about challenges, joys, risks and achievements of the eight years which she spent as head of a primary school in Uganda.
Holly has lived in Molesey for 32 years and was well known as a teacher at St. Lawrence Junior School from 1990 to 2000. Having then become a Head Teacher in the area, she succumbed to stress and severe depression. After continuing for a while with supply and music teaching, she then set off to pursue an adventurous dream.
A passion for Africa led Holly to move to Uganda in 2005 to head a primary school near Kampala. Here she found pupils who ran with joy into their classrooms but also a somewhat rigid, exam-based curriculum. While striving to maintain exam performance, she also worked hard to ensure that creative subjects had their place in school life.
Although this was a voluntary post for two years, Holly stayed for eight. And, since returning to the UK, she has continued to visit Uganda annually to provide both teacher and leadership training.
There will be an opportunity to buy Holly’s book Africa: Birthright and Calling on the night, cost £8.
Do come along and join us for what promises to be a fascinating talk. Tickets cost £5 and can be purchased from Molesey Library or on the night.

Author David Lindsley to give talk on 'Engineering a literary success'

At February’s Author Event at Molesey Library - on Tuesday 20th February -  local author David Lindsley will speak about his own writing career and draw on this experience to tell us something about how the writing process works in our current digital age. How for instance does employing a ‘real-life’ publishing agent compare with self-publishing using the likes of lulu.com and Amazon’s Create Space?

 

David, now resident in Hampton Wick, took up writing himself after three decades of travelling the world in his job as a professional engineer working in the power sector. Perhaps no surprise then that  David featured an engineer, Dan Foster, as the hero of his first novel “Far Point’, which centres on how a corrupt politician’s actions endanger the safety of a Chines nuclear power station.

 

Encouraged when ‘Far Point’ won first prize in a literary contest, David wrote two more Dan Foster novels, ‘The Darkfall Switch’ about a disaster which hits Central London and ‘Blind Danger’ which sees Foster teaming up with a crusading American lawyer to take on an international energy conglomerate. Continuing the engineering theme, David has also published ‘Ribbons of Steel’ about a Victorian locomotive engineer working on the railways in India (the land of David’s birth).

Key points from Friends of Molesey Library AGM

Guest speaker Lizzie Parker and daughter Fiona Fraser

The Friends 7th Annual General Meeting was held at Molesey Library on 23rd January 2018 with nearly 50 members of the local community present.

Vice- Chair Steve Bax opened the meeting, apologised for the absence of the Chair Pauline Morozgalska, who was recovering from an operation. Steve listed some of the highlights of 2017. These included the Friday Coffee Morning, which is now embedded in the weekly timetable. We are grateful to the new volunteers who have joined this year and to those who continue to bake and donate cakes and we could not continue without them. More volunteers are welcome.

John Coope has organised five author events during 2017. We were delighted to welcome Rear
Admiral Kit Layman, Journalist, Barbara Fisher, Mary Lawson, Jenny Wood, Chair of Molesey Local History Society and Terri Fleming. Sadly, SSC have stopped us giving a glass of wine to Friends at the end of the talk without purchasing a license for each event. This is an unsustainable demand. Proceeds from our fund raising events have been used as usual to purchase items that the Library Service is no longer able to fund. (see Treasurer’s Report).

Unfortunately, the Knit & Natter Sessions have ended as Mary Gill; the key volunteer moved away from Molesey. A new volunteer would be very welcome to take this over. The Library Book Club, supported by the library staff and led by Clare Newman, is no longer able to meet at the library because of the early closure on a Tuesday.

Concern raised following report that Somerset CC are closing 15 of their 36 libraries. More than
ever the community needs to demonstrate that our Library is a valued resource by using the
facilities as much as possible or closure could be proposed again by the Council.

Election of Officers: Committee member Nigel Cooper presided over the election of the committee for 2018 as follows: Chair: Pauline Morozgalska (proposed Michael Watson Seconded Pam Pinkett; Vice Chair: Steve Bax ( proposed Feliks Morozgalski. Seconded Michael Watson); Treasurer: Elizabeth Cooper (Proposed Clare Newman. Seconded: Feliks Morozgalski); Secretary: Post rotated at meetings between committee members. The Committee will also include John Coope, Nigel Cooper, Cllr. Victor Eldridge, Feliks Morozgalski, Carol Parker (Proposed: John Meech Seconded: Clare Newman)

Presentation of the Accounts: Treasurer Elizabeth Cooper distributed a prepared account funds
raised during the year from Author Events and Coffee Mornings - £1757.45. Expenditure this year Coffee Machine, carpet cleaning and re-varnishing of outside benches and tables total £1066.39. Balance at 31st December 2017 £ 4,577.69. We have agreed to a request from the staff to fund some cushions for the children to use at Rhyme-time and 3 new sofas.

Revised FOML Constitution: Steve Bax asked Friends if they had any comments or queries to the
Constitution, revised by the Committee in November 2017 ready for the discussion and approval by the Friends. Copies were distributed to Friends on arrival at the AGM. The Constitution was accepted.

Any Other Business (AOB): Steve invited the Library Area Manager Andrea Hurren to address
the Friends. She was unable to deny or confirm if there would be any reduction to library services in 2018 although Surrey does value it’s libraries and want to keep the status quo as long as possible. She re-iterated that the main issues are footfall i.e. number of people visiting the library and issues i.e. the number of books borrowed each month. At the moment we are second in the sub-cluster so work to be done! Andrea and Helen answered various questions from the floor.

Guest Talk by Lizzie Parker: Introduced by Author Event Convener – John Coope. A fascinating
and entertaining question and answer session about her book “A Life Lived”. Books sold well at the end of the evening.

Finally, John Coope thanked Lizzie Parker interesting interview and everyone for attending the AGM
and their continued interest in supporting the Library. He invited everyone to stay for a drink and the
opportunity to speak to our guest speaker and the committee members.

AGM ended at 8.55 and 40 – 50 people attended.

Come to the Friends AGM and hear from guest author Lizzie Parker

A Happy New Year to all users and supporters of Molesey Library, if you are making changes for 2018 why not make it your resolution to read more - there's a great selection at Molesey and every item borrowed helps keep the library viable.
On 23 January the Friends will hold our annual general meeting where our chair, Pauline, will give an update on the past year's activity and we will appoint the committee for the coming year. The meeting is open to the whole community and you will be warmly welcomed.
The formal business won't take long and afterwards there will be a chance to enjoy a talk from an author and former Molesey called resident Lizzie Parker. She will speak about her new memoir A Life Lived.
Now in her eighties, Lizzie has lived a busy and eventful life and will have plenty to tell us about. Having arrived at school in England from India, she subsequently studied at RADA and toured the country as a juvenile lead. She married well-known actor Ronal Fraser, with Sean Connery in attendance as an usher.
Divorced seven years later, Lizzie married an academic and took to study herself, becoming a social worker and psycho-dramatist. She eventually moved to Greece and bought a run-down taverna and sailing club on a tiny island with no electricity or telephone which she ran with her daughter Alison. Sadly Alison was to die at the age of only 45 and, in her book, Lizzie talks about this tragic loss and how she coped.
Nowadays, although still a regular visitor to Molesey, Lizzie continues to live the island of Lefkada in the Ionian Sea. Come along and join us as she looks back on a fascinating life of triumphs and tragedy.