Dear Members and Friends of RCS Bath,
Firstly, let me wish you all a happy forthcoming Commonwealth Day (March 8th). As life is very different this year there won’t be a service either at Bath Abbey or Westminster but a Service of Celebration for the Commonwealth is being broadcast by BBC1 on Sunday 7th March at 5pm and will also be available on BBC iPlayer. You will find below Commonwealth Day messages from HM The Queen, our branch president the Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset and our patron the Mayor of Bath.
Branch news
The branch has been very active during Covid-19 and we are about to launch our 2022 Art Competition, details of which will be found on our website www.rcsbath.org from tomorrow. The competition theme this year will be Hope and Humanity in the Commonwealth. We are once again looking forward to receiving entries from all over the ‘BA’ postal area from all age groups, with a prize giving currently arranged for Commonwealth Day 2022.
During February we ran an extremely successful Student Forum on Zoom and are organising another around the theme of food. Please keep your eye on our website ‘events’ and ‘news’ sections for further details. The membership of the branch has continually grown over the past few months and we are very pleased to welcome all our new members, including Edward Bayntun-Coward, Deputy Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset, who is based in Bath.
Sadly we are saying farewell to our Vice President Alison Furber who is standing down. She has been a great supporter of the branch since 2003 and together with her husband Malcolm, our previous chair, worked tirelessly for the good of the society. Alison will remain a member. We wish her well as we look for a replacement on our board of trustees.
We are pleased to report that our sponsored students are doing well at the two universities considering the current situation and we have been lucky enough to have had them come along to several of our ‘zoom’ trustee meetings. If you feel that you might be able to offer them assistance in any way please do get in touch.
We are hoping that once Covid restrictions are lifted we will be able to organise a social event so that we can all meet up once again, hopefully not in the too distant future.
Can I finally thank you all and also both universities for continuing to support the branch in these difficult times.
Best wishes and keep safe.
Sent on behalf of
Godfrey Hall
Chair, RCS Bath and District Branch
email: chair@rcsbath.org
(please see attached Commonwealth Day messages)
The Royal Commonwealth Society, Bath and District Branch is a registered charity (no. 1184365).
The Queen’s Commonwealth Day Message
Lord Lieutenant Somerset Message
Mayor’s Message