| Date | Speaker | Title | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan-8 | Terry Callaghan | Sent to Siberia | |
| Professor Terry Callaghan is professor of Arctic Biology at Sheffield University and, amongst others, Director of the Swedish Academy of Sciences' Abisko Scientific Research Station. He prefaced his fascinating talk about Siberia, which he has visited and worked in for many years, by commenting on how many nice Russian people he had met whilst disassociating himself strongly from the president’s policies particularly concerning Ukraine. His informative talk included descriptions of the massive Taiga cold forest, of the vast tundra regions and the effects of melting permafrost, of the Steppes and of the semi-desert areas. We were reminded that Siberia with a very small population contains enormous quantities of all natural resources and rare earth metals (whilst China to the South contains few). An informative and thought-provoking talk. | |||
| Feb-12 | Neil Sheldon | Lies Damm Lies & Statistics | |
| Neil Sheldon, former VP of the Royal Statistical Society, started by pointing out the perils of “The Average” without specifying the variation and whether specifying whether ‘mean’, ‘median’ or ‘mode’, and without delving into the detail. His fascinating talk with visual examples caused us to “beware the average camel”, recognise that ‘correlation’ (a pattern) is different from a ‘causation’ (explanation), to take as much notice of ‘the words’ as ‘the figures’ - whose source should always be checked – and never to draw a conclusion from a ‘snapshot’. A potentially dry subject was really brought to life with humour and real life examples. | |||
| Mar-12 | Gary Conley | Dream Sculpture | |
| Gary Conley last year gave the club an insight into life as an apprentice and miner at St Helen’s Sutton Manor Colliery. When it closed largely as a result of the 1984/85 miners’ strike and the reduced demand for coal, Gary led a team bidding for “Big Art Project” funding in 1991. By persistence and the guarantee of funding support, the St Helen’s team won and commissioned a monument designed by Jaume Plensa. Its purpose was to epitomise the nature of coal “ex Terra Lucem” and the outcome was “Dream”, a 20m tall elongated head and shoulders of a young girl in concrete and Dolomite marble. It is now a distinctive emblem of St Helen’s which overlooks the M62, and on which similar sculptures in several other cities in the world have been created. | |||
| Apr-9 | Keith Garnett | John Paul Jones | |
| Member Keith Garnet gave an instructive talk on John Paul Jones, often called the ‘Father of the American Navy’ . He played a pivotal role in shaping the American Navy during the Revolution. A skilled and daring commander, he famously led a surprise raid to disrupt shipping and the Royal Navy in Whitehaven in 1778, about which Keith had several tales. Jonrs’ most celebrated victory came in 1779, capturing HMS Serapis after refusing to surrender. Following the war, with no U.S. command available, Jones served as a mercenary in the Imperial Russian Navy, reaching the rank of rear admiral. His audacity and naval innovations left a lasting legacy in maritime warfare. | |||
| May-14 | Christian Caroe | Galteri, my Part, in his Downfall | |
| Christian offered a vivid personal account of serving as a young Royal Marine commander with 45 Commando during the 1982 Falklands War. He outlined the developing conflict, the landing at San Carlos Bay and the gruelling 140-mile “yomp” across the island after the loss of helicopters when an Exocet missile sank their supply ship. He described the difficult final assault on an Argentinian machine-gun position during a snowstorm. Christian’s reflections on leadership, sacrifice and the human cost of war, including a later reconciliation with former enemy personnel, provided a powerful and thought-provoking perspective on the campaign and its lasting impact. | |||
| Jun-11 | David Beattie | Just a few Facts | |
| After the AGM, Probus member David gave us eight micro-lectures on topics we didn’t know about which varied widely. He included ‘surgical spirit’ (don’t use on broken skin), then ‘Caesar’s wives’ (several plus many mistresses), ‘President Trump’s own goal’ (the tariffs will cost Americans $166 billion and mostly go back to China) and ‘why we warm teapots’ (a history of porcelain and crystal structure). Delivered without a note, there was a multitude of facts – a tour de force! | |||
| Jul-9 | Geoff Scargill | The last laugh of the Railway King (Edward Watkin) | |
| Geoff Scargill’s theme was that Edward Watkin was one of the forgotten driving powers of the industrial revolution. Son a wealthy family in Northenden, he was a vigorous social reformer, philanthropist, businessman and entrepreneur. His main achievement was to grow railways in Britain, and in Canada where he led the construction of what became the Canadian Pacific Railway which united the nation. He did suffer some failures, including the first channel railway tunnel in the mid-19th century. His last laugh was the sale for £4m in New York of a painting he had purchased in late 19th century which had been ‘lost’ in his old house. | |||
| Aug-13 | David Hearn | Liverpool Shipping Lines | |
| David Hearn gave an interesting and detailed history of the Shipping Lines which historically had registered offices in Liverpool - 54 of them in 1920. The first was the family-owned J Bibby line founded in 1807 which remains the 3rd largest logistics company in UK today, often operating for other companies in all sorts of logistics, not only ships. John recalled other lines such as Cunard, White Star, Inman, Canadian Pacific and Harrison, together with stories about some of their ships – all of which made Liverpool the major economic port in Europe in its heyday. | |||
| Sep-10 | David Turner | Historical Marine Navigation | |
| Club member David Turner, a Master Mariner, started with the basics and finished with satellites. He explained about points of the compass, the Greenwich Meridian, the Earth’s axis of rotation, and the impact of the magnetic North Pole. He showed how the dominant stars in the Northern and Southern hemispheres are used to establish latitude. The John Harrison chronometer was the first way to measure longitude by knowing Greenwich Mean Time. Today this has been overtaken by time signals transmitted by radio, and by satellite positioning by GNSS, of which GPS (American) is one component. | |||
| Oct-8 | Alistair Sutcliffe | The Future of AI - Genesis or Nemesis | |
| Professor Sutcliffe gave us a comprehensive and riveting account of AI – its origin, rapid evolution, demands (for chips and energy), capability, successes and failures (technical eg 'hallucinations' and sociological eg addiction to internet, jobs) and ownership. He balanced the many huge advantages of AI against its societal consequences. Most worrying is the fact that self-learning systems are now so complex that their human creators lack the capacity to understand them – they are “out of control”. He echoes the opinion that AI is “the best thing or the worst thing or the last thing”! | |||
| Nov-12 | Nev Care | Blood Bikes | |
| Dec-10 | Peter Turner | Magic presentation + talk | |