Residential Conference 2019

Thursday, 20 June 2019

This year, the Conference is to be held at Double Tree by Hilton, York.

The hotel is within easy walking distance (15 mins) of the train station and York is a beautiful historic and compact city.

Arrival, coffee and Registration will be at 11.30am with lunch at 12.30pm and the Conference starting at 1.45pm.

This year we are hoping to have talks on Japanese Knotweed, Churchyard Closures, the process for Ordinands in training and Exhumations. Full details will be confirmed in due course along with the full agenda. As you may know, the Conference always tries to fit in a visit to a local church, cathedral or other building of note.  

We are very pleased to announce that this year’s visit will be to York Minster which is one of the world’s most magnificent cathedrals and the largest in Britain. There has been a church on this site since the 7th century and one of its most talked about features is the beautiful Rose window. We propose to visit the Minster after lunch on Friday 4th October, as part of the Minster will be “out of bounds” on Saturday owing to a wedding taking place.

As those of you who have attended previous residential conferences will know, after dinner on Friday evening there is an Open Forum hosted by our President Charles George. For the benefit of those who have not been before this is generally either a question and answer session or Charles will talk to us about a current topic of interest.

Sadly, this year’s Conference will be Charles George’s last as our President as he is stepping down. He has been a staunch supporter of the Association and so we are very pleased to be able to thank him in person at this year’s Conference.   It will also be Mary’s last year as Chair as she is taking well deserved retirement and Jess will be stepping down as Communications Officer as her career moves in a different direction. Please give some thought as to whether you could step into one of the vacant roles on the Committee, none of which are very time consuming or arduous. The main things are attending the committee meeting in January to start that year’s conference organisation, some administration and a short speech at the conference.

I should be grateful to hear from you whether (or not) you will be attending the Conference and AGM. You should let me know as soon as possible please, and no later than 1st August 2019.