April 4, 2015

Finest Hour 133, Winter 2006-07

Page 12

ICS (UK) is planning a comprehensive study pack for British schools addressing a wide variety of Churchill subjects; ICS Canada has a new website: www.winstonchurchillcanada.com.

ICS (United Kingdom)

Sir Winston Churchill’s birthday reception will have passed by the time this issue of Finest Hour is published; in the next issue we shall be able to report on Sir Martin Gilbert’s talk on “Churchill’s Birthdays” and Professor M.R.D. Foot’s remarks on the Special Operations Executive.

2024 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 41st International Churchill Conference. London | October 2024

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Annual General Meeting in 2007 will take place on Saturday 21st April; the venue is the Imperial War Museum at Duxford (near Cambridge). This spectacular outstation of the main London museum contains the American Air Museum, among many other attractions.

STUDY PACK FOR SCHOOLS

Finest Hour Deputy Editor Robert Courts is devoting much time and effort to devising a learning package for schools. This ambitious project aims to assemble a large number of writings by and about Winston Churchill, which will be collated in a pack and made available to schools; teachers will be able to draw on the document for sources.

The subjects include Why Churchill?, Churchill’s Oratory, Churchill the Man, Churchill and War, Churchill at Home, Churchill Alone (1930s) and Churchill Today. Each of these headings denotes up to a dozen extracts from books, articles, speeches, etc., so that, taken together, a comprehensive coverage of many facets of WSC’s life will be conveniently available to teachers and students.

26TH INTERNATIONAL CHURCHILL CONFERENCE

Preliminary work has begun on the 2009 International Churchill Conference, which is scheduled for the UK, Ireland having been considered but found unsuitable as a venue. There are less than three years to go—no time at all if past experience is a reliable guide. Firm dates and venue have not yet been decided. If you have thoughts to contribute, please contact our chairman, Nigel Knocker or Paul Courtenay (contacts on page 2).

ICS, Canada

“Thirty-five members and guests of the International Churchill Society of Canada attended “An Evening With Sir Winston” at the historic Albany Club, Toronto on October 30th. President Randy Barber opened the event with a report on the recent Churchill Centre Conference in Chicago, with positive comments on the programme and the speakers; and he gave a “plug” for next year’s conference in Vancouver.

Randy also formally advised that the ICS Canada web site, www.winstonchurchillcanada.com, was now in place, although there was some “tweaking” to be done.

ICS Canada Director Peter Allen spoke on “Churchill as Peacemaker,” focusing on Churchill’s role in the granting of self government to the Transvaal; his efforts before 1914 to dissuade the Kaiser and the German government from aggressive armaments increases which would inevitably lead to war; his major role in the formation of the Irish Free State (and Michael Collins’ famous remark, “Tell Winston we could have done nothing without him”); his attempts in the 1930s to convince the British government that the only way to avert war was to stand up to Hitler; and his 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech warning of the threat of Soviet expansionism in Europe.

Director Barry Montague handed out a twenty five-question quiz which he had taken from past issues of Finest Hour, which proved highly challenging even to the experts in the audience. The final part of the event was the presentation of Part 3, “The Beginning of the End,” of Sir Martin Gilbert’s Churchill documentary as broadcast by the BBC.