The AGM took place in the Poynting building of the Physics Department of the University of Birmingham on Saturday, October 30th 2004. Seven committee members were present as well as a further eight ordinary members. Professor Ian Butterworth from Imperial College, London formally announced his resignation as Chairman of the group to be replaced by Professor Denis Weaire of Trinity College, Dublin. Following the earlier resignations from the committee of Dr Chris Ray and Professor Bob Chivers, we welcomed at the AGM the appointments of Dr Peter Borcherds, formerly of the University of Birmingham and Mr Malcolm Cooper (now retired from the broadcasting industry). Malcolm Cooper kindly agreed to take on the role of Newsletter editor and during the year has produced the 17th edition in the Winter of 2004 and the 18th edition in the Summer of 2005.
The lecture programme, which followed had the enigmatic title "Was there life before Einstein?" but was mainly devoted to Sir Oliver Lodge and John Henry Poynting, which was highly appropriate given the venue for the meeting. Some forty people attended including many present and former staff members from the Physics Department of the University of Birmingham. Peter Rowlands spoke on 'Sir Oliver Lodge and Relativity', Graham Alfrey on 'John Henry Poynting - A sketch for the future Research', Denis Weaire on the obsession of Lodge with the spirit world and communicating with the dead and Ben Benedikz on "Lodge and Poynting - Two brief character sketches". Reports of these lectures have appeared in the 18th edition of the Newsletter. In addition Peter Ford showed a short video film of Lodge lecturing around 1934 originally made by the Institution of Electrical Engineers.
In May of 2005, a few committee members went to Trinity College, Dublin for a committee meeting and also to have an opportunity to find out more about scientists associated with the University, in particular, of course, Hamilton. In addition, they were treated to a performance of Carl Djerassi's play "Calculus"- the dialogue between Newton and Leibnitz over priority for the discovery of calculus. It was given in the same lecture theatre as Schrödinger gave his famous lectures on 'What is Life' in 1944.
At the committee meeting it was resolved that 1500 Euros from the group funds should help fund the book 'The Hamilton Tait Correspondence", which has been produced to mark the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Rowan Hamilton. A further thousand pounds was set aside to help finance the celebrations at the University of Liverpool to mark the centenary of the birth of Herbert Fröhlich, who was a Professor at Liverpool for many years.
Over the year discussions have taken place between Malcolm Cooper and Professor Jim Morgan and Dr John Lydon, both of the University of Leeds over the production of a reprint of two booklets written by Professor William Stroud in the mid 1930's - "Apologia pro Vita Mea", and 'Early Reminiscences of Barr & Stroud Rangefinders'. This was ready for distribution to the membership at the AGM held at the University of Leeds on 29th October 2005.
As you know the group's activities centre on the half-day meeting held to coincide with the AGM and the Chairman's Report was normally given to the group 12 months later. Our newsletter editor is hopeful that two issues a year can continue to be produced and as the first of these is published shortly after the AGM it seemed a good idea to include a report of the AGM at that time. The formal Chairman's Report would continue to be given at the AGM as usual.
Peter Ford
Secretary