The King's Society Programme Lent Term 2016

The King’s Society

LENT TERM 2016

The King’s Society The King’s Society aims to provide opportunities for the enhancement and enrichment of the King’s community. We hope to enable members of the Society to enjoy social events together and appreciate all the educational and cultural facilities that the School, the Cathedral and the Precincts have to offer.

We organise a variety of events here in Canterbury, London and further afield. We liaise closely with the Visitors’ Department of Canterbury Cathedral and have arranged many tours in the Precincts. There are frequent theatre trips, visits to art galleries and guided walking tours in London. We enjoy our garden visits in the summer term, which have included Highgrove, Kew Gardens, Sissinghurst and Great Dixter.

We have regular lectures, craft and culinary workshops and wine tastings, and our Reading Group meets on a termly basis in the Library. We have had guided weekends away in Seville, Florence, Paris and Berlin, and more recently spent a weekend in Ghent visiting the site of the Battle of Waterloo together with Mons which saw the first and last Commonwealth actions of the First World War. The Society has over 330 members. We are a non-profit making organisation and the Society exists solely for the benefit of its members. There is also a newly formed branch of The King’s Society in Hong Kong and events are held in Hong Kong on a regular basis.

The Society is run by Mrs Ali Huntrods, an ex-parent of two daughters at King’s, together with a committee made up of current parents, OKS and members of staff. We try to cater for a wide range of tastes and interests on the social, cultural and educational fronts and can assure you of a very warm welcome.

Cover images Main: Image courtesy of Madame Oiseau. Right (from top to bottom) Truegrip Off Road: Image courtesy of Truegrip Operations; Delacroix portrait: © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Jean-Gilles Berizzi ; The Bees by Laline Paull ; Bloomsbury Group sign : Photo by Nick Harrison. Licence CC-BY-SA 2.0 - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/.

King’s School Chorus

Thursdays from 7th January 7pm

Peter Stone Room, Edred Wright Music School The forthcoming Choral Concert on Saturday 5th March sees an all English programme and the widest range of styles. An instrumental first half will feature Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, Finzi’s Cello Concerto and, one hundred years after George Butterworth fell in the Great War, the Shropshire Lad Rhapsody. The central choral work for the concert is the recent Mass in Blue, by contemporary English composer Will Todd. Scored for jazz vocal soloist, chorus and big band, we welcome David Rees-Williams and a professional rhythm section to support the King’s Big Band and look forward to the widest possible inclusion of singers from across the school community in the King’s Chorus.

The Chorus meets every Thursday throughout the Lent term under Chorus Master Nicholas Todd (Assistant Director of Music). More information is available from the Music Department Administrator on 01227 595556 or by email: music@kings-school.co.uk

A Guided Walk around Canterbury Wednesday 13th January 10.30am

Lattergate Boardroom Join Lis Hamlin, Blue Badge guide, for a guided walking tour of Canterbury. We all spend many hours of our time in and around the School but this walk will give us a welcome opportunity to be guided around the City of Canterbury. As a taster of what we will learn, the Cantii were here first and gave it its name, the Romans then made it a thriving administrative centre. Two Archbishops of Canterbury have been murdered here and apart from the Benedictines in the Cathedral there were Dominican and Franciscan monasteries in Canterbury. On the literary heritage side, Christopher Marlowe, Charles Dickens, Richard Harris Barham and Izaak Walton all have connections with the City and during our tour with Lis she will illustrate all of the above and more.

We will meet for coffee in the Lattergate Boardroom prior to setting off and after our walk which will take about two hours, soup and sandwiches will be served back in the Boardoom to warm us up.

Number of places 20. Price per person to include coffee, soup and sandwiches £8.00.

Website booking available.

King’s Society talk Goldstruck: A Life Shaped by Jewellery by Stephen Webster Friday 15th January 7.30pm

Gateway Chamber, St Augustine’s The King’s Society is delighted to welcome world renowned jeweller Stephen Webster to the School to talk about his career in the jewellery world. Stephen is one of the prominent jewellery designers of his generation. His eponymous brand has won industry-wide recognition based upon thirty-nine years of impeccable craftsmanship, innovative design and fearless creativity. Coveted by icons and idols, Stephen is celebrated for creating modern classics with an eternally chic and glamorous aesthetic. Stephen will chart his career from the first steps of enrolment upon a jewellery making course at his local college

in Kent to his rise to international recognition. Stephen will be very happy to sign copies of his new book Goldstruck : A Life Shaped by Jewellery which was published in November 2015.

Number of places 40. There is no charge for this event. Drinks and nibbles will be served.

Website booking available.

First Aid Course

Tuesday 19th January 10.30am

Birley’s Pavilion A First Aid for Adults course run by the British Red Cross has been organised for King’s Society members. This course will deal with the following emergency situations: unconsciousness, choking, bleeding, burns, heart attack, stroke, sprains, strains and broken bones, head injuries, diabetic emergencies and hypothermia. The course is designed for adults and all attendees will receive a Certificate of Attendance which is valid for two years – although the qualification is not recognised within the workplace. We will serve coffee and biscuits prior to the course and sandwiches for lunch which will be included in the price.

Number of places 15. Cost per person £28. Website booking available.

Chocolate Demonstration by Madame Oiseau Wednesday 27th January 7pm

The Undercroft, St Augustine’s Madame Oiseau Fine Chocolates was founded in 2003 by the owner and French chocolatière Sandrine May. Sandrine started making truffles and caramels in her early teens and her passion continued into her adult life. Her first commercial venture was in 2003 when she opened her shop in Romney Marsh. Due to this success she soon secured Liberty plc as a customer when they opened their chocolate shop just off Regent Street. She won the Best Specialist Food Shop for two consecutive years. She relocated her shop to Canterbury where Sandrine is known as ‘the chocolate lady’.

Sandrine will demonstrate and explain the secret of shiny chocolate, chocolate tempering, chocolate solid and hollow moulding. She will include some of her recipes including Orangettes and Ganache. We will able to experiment with some of the skilled tricks of chocolate making throughout the evening and, best of all, we will be able to taste the chocolates featured as all the chocolate made during the demonstration will be eaten by those participating this evening! Finally, we will all leave with a chocolate gift box of five chocolate to enjoy at home.

Number of places 35. Price per person £14. Website booking available.

The Master Builder by Henrik Ibsen Tuesday 2nd February 7.30pm

The Old Vic, The Cut, London SE1 8NB “A searing and mesmeric exploration of power, control, death and life” is how the Old Vic is advertising this new production of Henrik Ibsen’s late masterpiece in a ‘lively‘ new adaptation by David Hare. Halvard Solness, a master architect of a small town in Norway has spent his lifetime building the tallest spires in the land. But when Hilde, a radiant

country girl, descends unexpectedly into his world, age is confronted by youth, and a series of revelations builds to a vertiginous climax. This production will star Ralph Fiennes and also, a “star in the making” Sarah Snook in the opinion of Daily Mail theatre critic Baz Bamigboye. The play is directed by Matthew Warchus, the incoming artistic director of the Old Vic. Number of places 20. Price per person £60. Website booking available.

King’s Society Reading Group Friday 12th February 10.45am

The Library This term we are going to meet to discuss Laline Paull’s debut novel The Bees.

Flora 717 is a worker bee born into the lowest caste of her totalitarian hive society. Though prepared to sacrifice everything for the Queen and work herself to death, she is a survivor who escapes internal massacres, religious purges, and can even successfully confront a huge marauding wasp. With each act of bravery her status grows, revealing both the enemies within and the sinister secrets that rule the hive. But when Flora’s devotion to a life of service is overwhelmed by fierce and forbidden maternal love, she must break the most sacred law of all and embark on a collision course with everything she holds most dear.

Laline has very kindly agreed to come along to our book group to talk about her novel. “It’s always an honour to be chosen by a book group, so I’m delighted to be invited to the King’s Society Reading Group with my debut novel The Bees. As a late bloomer as a novelist, I’m always keen to encourage anyone who might want to write, and I always love talking books with people. Books and cake, even better”.

Laline studied English at Oxford, screenwriting in Los Angeles, and theatre in London, where she has had two plays performed at the Royal National Theatre. She is a member of BAFTA and the Writers’ Guild of America.

Number of places 15. This event is free. Website booking available.

Private tour of the National Gallery and the Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art exhibition with Art History UK Friday 26th February 10.30am

National Café, National Gallery, London, WC2N We will be guided around the permanent collection with Catherine from Art History UK. Catherine will contextualise the Delacroix exhibition by looking at French 19th century painting and the pre-eminent artistic waves of Romanticism and Neoclassicism. She will explain the artistic relationship between Delacroix and Turner before looking at Delacroix’s influence on the later generation of French artists, the Impressionists. The tour will lead to an understanding of Delacroix’s nickname as the ‘Grandfather of Modern Art’. At 12.30pm we will visit the Delacroix exhibition. Catherine will not be able to guide formally but she will be there casually to discuss issues and themes with the group and to answer any questions.

We will meet at 10.45am in the National Café where a table will have been reserved for us.

Number of places 15. Cost per person £40. Website booking available.

The Circles, Squares and Triangles of Bloomsbury – a guided walk with Blue Badge Guide Viv Haxby Tuesday 1st March 10.30am Bloomsbury Square, London WC1 Join Blue Badge Guide, Viv Haxby, on a guided tour of London’s intellectual heart. We will explore this peaceful area of London characterised by it association with the arts, medicine and academia. Viv will tell us about the Bloomsbury Group and the Bedfords; anaesthesia and the Pre-Raphaelites; Faber & Faber and the London Foundlings; Charles Dickens and Mahatma Gandhi – all in the shadow of some of London’s most pleasing architecture.

After the walk, Viv will give us a highlights tour of the British Museum.

We will meet on the south side of Bloomsbury Square. Number of places 20. Cost per person £10. Website booking available.

King’s Society talk The Somme through the Lens by Andrew Robertshaw

Thursday 3rd March 7.30pm

Schoolroom In conjunction with the History department here at King’s, The King’s Society is delighted to host a talk given by Andrew Robertshaw, one of our most exciting military historians.

Andrew has a a unique hands-on approach to history, combining archaeological and experimental techniques with unparalleled archival research and crowd-sourcing to reveal what it was really like to be on the frontline of history. Andrew is a former head of education at the National Army Museum and decided to build a network of trenches on land adjoining his house after working as an adviser on the 2011 Steven Spielberg film War Horse. After 16 weeks of filming at nearby Wisley airfield, Robertshaw says he was left with a field full of props. And so he decided to create a living museum to educate schoolchildren in the heart of the Mole Valley.

‘The Somme through the Lens’ is a study of the filming of the battle of July 1916. The investigation of the locations, units, people and events shown in the film includes lip reading and forensic techniques of facial recognition. This research led to the book ‘Ghosts on the Somme’ and documentaries for ITV and the BBC. Number of places 50. This event is free. Drinks and nibbles will be served. Website booking available.

4x4 Off-Road Experience with True Grip Off Road Saturday 5th March 10am

Eastwell Court, Lenacre Street, Ashford, Kent TN25 4JT For the aspiring or frustrated rally drivers amongst us….we hope this morning’s driving experience might appeal!

At True Grip Off Road we will have the opportunity to get in the driving seat of an up-todate 4x4 and venture off road for an exciting and challenging drive. Under the guidance of highly qualified experienced and professional off road driving instructors we will enjoy venturing off tarmac and drive up slopes we didn’t think were possible to climb. True Grip’s centre is spread over the picturesque 3000 acre Eastwell Park Estate near Ashford and combines spectacular Kent countryside scenery with diverse off-road terrain to provide the ideal site to experience the amazing capacities of these 4x4 cars.

Number of places 12. Price per person £60. Website booking available.

Forthcoming events Summer Term 2016 Normandy Landings and Bayeux Thursday 5th - Saturday 7th May

Dr Andrew Thomson who has taken the King’s Society on many trips to the First World War Battlefields has organised a two-day trip to the beaches where the Normandy landings took place in World War II. We will stay in Bayeux which will afford us the opportunity to visit the Bayeux tapestry.

As a brief guide, this trip will include visits to Gold, Juno and Omaha beaches looking at how the landings on 6th June 1944 took place. We will look at the remains of German defences, and understand why the fight was so hard in places. We’ll see a ‘swimming tank’ (an adapted Sherman tank) brought up from the seabed forty years ago and the remains of the Mulberry Artificial Harbour in the sea – the biggest and most impressive World War II remains in the area. We will also have the opportunity to visit Bayeux city’s Memorial to War Reporters (killed in action from 1944 to the present day).

On our final day we will have time for a stroll around the Saturday market in Bayeux before driving to Pegasus Bridge to hear the story of the glider troops who seized the canal bridge there at just 15 minutes after midnight, right at the start of D-Day. Number of places 15. Price per person as follows: £210 per person to be paid immediately to secure your place £105 per room ( irrelevant of whether it is single or double occupancy) to be paid by 1st March to cover the cost of two nights in the hotel including breakfasts If you would like to join us on this trip please contact Ali asap. If you will like a more detailed itinerary, Ali would be very happy to provide this for you.

Website booking not available.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Thursday May 19th 7.30pm

Garrick Theatre, London WC2H To conclude the inaugural season of Kenneth Branagh’s work at the Garrick Theatre, Branagh directs Romeo and Juliet which reunites the stars of his celebrated film Cinderella namely Lily James and Richard Madden. We have booked 20 tickets for this play which is already sold out.

The King’s Society 10th Anniversary Party Saturday 2nd July 6pm

Lattergate Garden To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the creation of The King’s Society, members will be invited to this party which will prove to be a drinks party with a difference…..

King’s Society events are open to all members. Most events can be booked using the school’s online booking facility at www.kings-school.co.uk which is the easiest and most efficient way of booking tickets. If you are paying by cheque, it should be made payable to The King’s Society and sent to Ali at The King’s School, Canterbury, CT1 2ES. Please note, payment is required prior to an event and places cannot be guaranteed until payment has been received. If an event is full, it is always worth your name being put on Ali’s waiting list as spaces often occur at the last minute.

Committee Members Manager: Treasurer: Parents:

Mrs Ali Huntrods Mr Andrew Bruce Mrs Caroline Bagshawe, Mrs Claire Burns, Mrs Jan Carr, Mrs Eloise Coulson, Mrs Frances Gerth, Mrs Alison Streeter

Staff:

Mrs Lisa Cousins, Mr Richard Ninham, Mrs Liz Worthington

Hong Kong Committee Members Parents: Mrs Rosanna Chan, Mrs Amanda Snow OKS: Mr Darrin Woo

For any King’s Society Enquiries re Membership and Events Please contact the King’s Society Manager Mrs Ali Huntrods Tel: 01227-595774 Email: ah@kings-school.co.uk Mobile: 07825 016282