UWC Magazine #17 March 2024

Message from the Chair of the GC

Dear Fellow Members,

If you have ever attended a UWC Open Evening, either as a prospective member or an established one, you will know that a predictable topic of conversation is the house itself. Number 2 Audley Square is not just our members' home from home, it's a particularly beautiful home in a particularly beautiful location. Two things follow from this: a special obligation to preserve the building for ourselves and our successors; and a special opportunity to exploit our surroundings to offer a varied, stimulating and enjoyable calendar of events

In the pages that follow you will see evidence for how we take care of the building, and how we use it. The list of things that need replacing, repairing or renovating is endless, whether it be furniture, boilers, roof tiles, window-frames, paint, plaster, curtains and, occasionally, chandeliers. But it's done with collective pleasure because we all benefit in the long run. The list of ways we gather to enjoy the building might not be endless, but as you will see, the April-June calendar ranges across music, literature, film, history, salon discussion, fine dining (and imbibing). I'll be at the majority of these upcoming events, and very much hope to see many of you there.

with best regards,

Pauline

Issue number 17: Spring 2024

Messages from Chair and General Manager

Events April -June

Book Club and Film Club Programmes.

From the Archives: Profile of Constance Garrett (1861 - 1946)

Archive transcription project

Lady Russell's Women's History Salon.

2024 Annual General Meeting.

Dr Pauline Foster, Chair of UWC General Committee

Message from the General Manager

Dear Members,

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. As usual the months have flown by since the start of the year and it is almost inconceivable that in Hyde Park (below) the spring bulbs are in full bloom. You can feel that summer is on its way, which can’t come soon enough.

It has certainly been a busy start to the year, with lots going on at the Club. The upgrades to the bedrooms continue apace and we have now started on the 4th floor. The bathrooms on the top floor have long been a matter of concern and we can finally bring them up to the standard of the others on the 3rd floor.

We took advantage of the quiet Easter period to complete the works along with some long overdue improvements to the heating and hot water systems, including an upgraded boiler supplying the 3rd and 4th floors. This, this along with the secondary glazing installed last year, should significantly reduce our fuel bills and our carbon footprint. We hope that any disruption will be minimal and we thank you for your patience.

We have more works to continue throughout the year and are on track to have completed all of the bedrooms by the end of the year, as promised. Refurbishment works are just a part of the job of looking after our wonderful Clubhouse. We have recently added a maintenance assistant to the UWC team whose job is to deal with the million and one things that can go wrong in a building of this size and age. This allow us to be much more proactive in maintenance and thus avoid the need to fix things in the first place!

With summer fast on the way, one of our next jobs is to get the Garden back up to scratch after the winter hibernation. We are very much looking forward to entertaining members again on our beautiful terrace. Today, with South Audley Street bathed in April sunshine, the idea of enjoying a glass of something cool under the dappled shade of our magnificent plane tree is very enticing indeed!

We have lots of interesting and fun events for the coming months, all of which are described in the pages of this Magazine Our events are curated by the Events Committee who meet every month to discuss all the ideas and suggestions that are put forward by Members. I want to thank all of the Committee for their support in filling the calendar with lots for members to do. I also want thank all of the members that run our ‘Clubs within the Club’; they continue to be really popular. You should soon receive a copy of our spring/summer 2024 calendar so please make sure to read it and sign up for the events that interest you Most of our events are open to guests as well, so you can bring along your friends and family to enjoy what the UWC has to offer.

Kind regards,

Alex

Programme of Events April to June 2024

Places at all events can now be reserved online through the Members' Area of our website. www.universitywomensclub.com

April

Monday 8th Lady Russell Women’s History Salon

The Regency & Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: Inheritance Rights and The Marriage Question.

Wednesday 17th Wine Club

A blind tasting of whites and rosés, to make members’ recommendations to the UWC wine list.

Wednesday 24th Music Club

The latest in the Music Club’s popular series. A pre-concert talk in the Library by a distinguished speaker, followed by a musical performance in the Drawing Room. Precise details of the concert programme will be available very soon.

May

Friday 10th Full-day Graphology workshop with Ana Barrow and Sarah Mooney. A look into the symbolism and science of handwriting, what it reveals and how to interpret it.

Saturday 18th Springtime Afternoon Tea, with piano accompaniment by Siobhain O’Higgins. Full details below on page 9.

Tuesday 28th Library talk: Author Jane Robinson on her acclaimed biography of Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. ‘Artist social reformer and pioneer of university education for women’

June

Monday 3rd . Lady Russell Women’s History Salon

The Gothic in Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë & the Marriage Question

Wednesday 19th Annual General Meeting

Friday 21st Wine Club. Wine, Canapés and Conversation on the Terrace

Dates and details of meetings of other ‘Clubs within the Clubs’ are given in the pages that follow: Book Club (11-12); Film Club (16-17); Reading Group (15).

March 8th: Celebrating International Women’s Day & Bedroom-Naming.

Celebrating International Women’s Day has its historical roots in the Women’s Movement of the nineteenth century (in the Victorian period, this was called the ‘Woman Question’). Today, IWD remains a vital part of women’s history a history that is still being scripted. IWD is an opportunity to recognise and honour the myriad women who fought hard often behind the scenes to secure rights of access to education, professions, and property for all women. Just as vitally, IWD is an annual call to action for us to gather together in a spirit of solidarity and action.

What better moment, then, for UWC members to memorialise four women who contributed their time, money, property, and resources to establish and maintain our Club? Over a three-course dinner and paired wines, members and guests were treated to four presentations: Pauline Foster, our Club Chair, spoke about Lady Flora Russell. It is thanks to her that we have the freehold of our Mayfair Clubhouse 2, Audley Square was the Russell family’s Mayfair home, and in 1921, when the UWC was seeking to purchase a permanent base, Lady Flora offered the house for what was probably below market value. Pauline then presented on Elizabeth Garret Anderson, whose amazing tenacity eventually forced the UK medical profession to accept women doctors. She was a founding member of UWC, and a long-serving GC member. We were delighted that a Young Member, Claire Haroche, presented on two more influential UWC women: Vera Brittain and Gertrude Jackson Vera Brittain joined the UWC in 1922. A feminist, pacificist, writer, and campaigner for women’s rights, she graduated from Oxford in 1920, the very

first year in which women were awarded degrees on the same terms as men.

Gertrude Jackson was among the first women to attend Girton College, Cambridge (founded for women by the efforts of Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, Emily Davies, and, in part, George Eliot) Jackson went on to become the ‘prime mover’ in the eventual foundation of our ‘University Club for Ladies in 1886.

Our celebratory evening ended with pudding, coffee, and tea, and the official naming of bedrooms Samiha Zaman, former chair of the GC, gave a short address about UWC history, its present, and its future before unveiling the four plaques destined for bedrooms one, two, seven and nine. These have now been attached to the bedroom doors, so be sure to look out for them the next time you are staying in the Club.

It is said that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Turning the phrase around, we can say that those who do know women’s history will celebrate the many great strides that have been taken in the past 150 years to secure our ability to live full and flourishing lives. In the western world at least, women have won, the right to the vote, the right to own and sell property, the right to earn a university degree, the right to enter a profession of their choosing. We are the inheritors and the guardians of this history May we continue to celebrate the gains while remaining vigilant in protecting them, and determined to promote these rights worldwide, both in our spheres of influence and in others.

From the archives:

Constance Garnett (1861-1946): A Pioneering Translator and her circle.

Constance Garnett came to prominence in the 1890s as the first translator of Russian literature into English. Between 1894 and 1934, when her eyesight failed, she published more than 70 volumes, notably works by Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy and Turgenev. Previously, English readers had had to rely on French translations.

She was born in Brighton, daughter of a solicitor, David Black, and his wife, Clara Maria Patten, daughter of the court portrait painter George Patten. After Clara’s untimely death in 1875, the eldest child, Clementina, took over the care of her invalid father and her seven younger siblings, including Constance. After moving the family to London in the 1880s, Clementina Black, who would make her name as the author of seven novels, came into contact with Fabian socialists and other radicals and was soon involved in campaigning for trades unions and for women’s rights. Although she herself had not been to university, it must have been thanks to her support that Constance was able to go to Cambridge, where she studied Latin and Greek at Newnham College after gaining a government grant. Returning to London, she worked as a governess and then as a librarian before marrying Edward Garnett, a publisher’s reader.

She was already established in her career when she was elected a Member of the Club in February 1900, giving her address as 27 West Hill, Highgate. Her proposer was Miss Edith Neville, a Member since 1897; she too was a former Newnham student.

Like Constance’s sister Clementina, Edith was a keen social reformer, and in 1921 she established at Newnham a series of working women’s summer schools and urged members of the College to support educational opportunities for workers through the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) and through colleges for working women. The lives of Constance, Clementina and Edith illustrate the kind of networks that developed in the late 19th and early 20th century between women concerned with promoting education and social justice.

In 1891, while pregnant with her only child, David Garnett (later a novelist and member of the Bloomsbury set), Constance learnt Russian from exiled revolutionaries Feliks Vadimovich Volkhovsky and Sergey Mikhaylovich Stepnyak-Kravchinsky and quickly embarked on her career as translator. She made visits to Russia from 1894 onwards and visited Tolstoy at his home.

Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan. Honorary Archivist

Archive Legacy Project: transcription of early candidates' books.

Work continues on the ambitious task of transcribing the earliest candidates’ books to a machine-searchable database. We are very grateful to the members who have already volunteered their time to transcribe samples following the guidelines prepared by the Honorary Archivist, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan. As you can see, this involves some ability in deciphering late nineteenth-century and early twentiethcentury handwriting. .

It’s a painstaking but rewarding process that allows you to feel close to the women who were part of our Club in its first years. All of them were trailblazers in women’s higher education, and till 1919 none could vote.

Once we have a clearer idea of how best to organise the transcription process, we will be ready to seek additional volunteers.

UWC 'mismatched' china collection.

Some of you might remember that in 2020 we invited members to donate ‘orphaned’ items from an old tea set, perhaps sitting unused and unwanted at the back of a cupboard. The idea was to get together a mismatched china collection to use on special occasions when we hosted afternoon teas, such as Mother’s Day, or a Springtime Afternoon Tea (See announcement over on page 8)

We are very grateful to the members who donated; it was such a shame that the Covid lockdown hit before we had got very far, and the initiative lost steam.

We are now breathing new life into it.

To build up our collection, we are again looking for donations of cups, saucers, tea plates, milk jugs, sugar bowls and teapots. These need to be in good or excellent condition (no chips, cracks or stains, please).

If you don’t have any such items languishing in the back of your cupboards, but you see something pretty in a Charity Shop, please consider getting it to donate to our collection. There are some beautiful finds to be had out there for next to nothing.

Trusting fragile things to the parcel post is a risk, so if you can, bring your well-wrapped items with you the next time you visit, and leave them with Reception. We will gladly welcome them to their new service.

Springtime Afternoon Tea with Pianist Siobhain O'Higgins

On Saturday May 18thin our beautiful Drawing Room, we will be serving a special Springtime Afternoon Tea with a piano repertoire provided by Siobhan O’Higgins. Those of you who attended the wonderful Christmas Concert back in December will remember Siobhan’s excellent accompaniment to the singers. Her website https://www.siobhainohiggins.org shows just how accomplished a pianist she is, and how lucky we are to welcome her back to play our Drawing Room piano

Our Spring Afternoon Tea menu will feature the traditional finger sandwiches, pastries, and scones with cream and jam. In addition, we will be offering a range of black, green, and herbal infusions from the French tea makers, Dammann Frères

The Dammann family has been in the tea, coffee, and chocolate business since 1692. In the early twentieth century, two Dammann brothers, Robert and Pierre, launched Dammann Frères as a new company, blending their own teas and becoming commercial suppliers. Their teas are of such a high quality that they quickly became the supplier for the celebrated and famous Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (French Line). (‘A Historic Tea Company,’ High Teas London.)

Today, Dammann Frères’ teas are served in fine cafes all over Paris. So, we are pleased to offer a selection to you, including Thé Caramel (Caramel Black Tea), Thé Noir (Breakfast Blend from Sri Lanka and India), Thé Vanille (Vanilla-infused Black Tea) Jasmine Green Tea, and two Tisanes (Peppermint & Lemongrass Citrus).

We will be setting the table with flowers and our mis-matched china to make everything as springlike and pretty as possible. This will be special treat for you, your family or friends, which we hope many of you will enjoy

Look out for the special poster which will be sent round shortly. Booking will open soon on UWC website events pages.

Date for your diary: The 2024 Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 19th at 6.30pm.

The AGM is an important date in the UWC calendar. It’s an opportunity for members to meet the General Committee, to receive a variety of reports on how the Club is doing, to ask questions and to express their views. It’s also an opportunity for them seek to put forward motions and have them voted on. For those who arrive early, there is an opportunity to catch up with fellow membersoverteaandscones. If you are not able to attend in person, there is always to possibility to attend remotely, by zoom.

All members have been sent by email or letter post details of how to present motions to the AGM, and how to stand for election to the General Committee. If you are interested in standing for election, information is provided on pages 18-19.

The AGM will take place in the Drawing Room. If you have not been there recently, you might notice it is looking brighter and even more elegant. This is thanks to two longoverdue projects: the cleaning and relining of the curtains, and the cleaning and restoration of the chandelier. Originally designed to hold 20 candles, the chandelier was at some stage converted to run on electricity, but with only 10 bulb-holders. Now it has been restored to its full complement of lights, and the effect is dramatically improved. We are considering a dimmer switch to give us a broader range of lighting moods!

The Lady Russell Women’s History Salon

This year we are excited to have introduced a regular event to our calendar: the Lady Russell Women’s History Salon. At the inaugural meeting on March 4th some thirty members and their guests gathered in theLibrary to join a discussion on Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1790). A We were all eager to pool our knowledge and learn from one another, both about Wollstonecraft in particular and the many forms of writing of the time which shaped narratives about women. (For example, Dr. Fordyce’s sermons; some of us remembered JaneAusten’s allusion to them.)After discussing the intellectual and social–political landscape in which Wollstonecraft was writing, we watched clips from Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla (2023). Not only is Coppola a feminist auteur, but also her latest film underscores how key feminist themes the mind and the body, education and family roles, distinctions between being a subject and an object-- highlighted by Wollstonecraft in the 1790s persist strongly into the twenty-first century. When the Salon ended, many of us retired to the Dining Room where lively discussions continued over dinner.

The next Salon is on MondayApril 8th when the topic will be The Regency: Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, Inheritance Rights, & the Marriage Question.

Please join us! We are open to all members and their guests, and we would be delighted to build a wonderful community around a shared interest in women’s history. Each meeting is organised around a single author and text, but there is absolutely no reading required or needed to enjoy the evening and learn something new. For those eager to read new texts or re-visit old favourites, the calendar of events and texts is listed below. You can book your place through the Events pages of the UWC website, or by calling Reception.

Monday 3 June.

The Gothic in Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë & the Marriage Question, continued.

Monday 1 July.

The 1840s: Elizabeth Gaskell, Factory Women’s ‘Rights,’ & the Industrial Revolution.

Monday 2 September.

George Eliot, Women’s Self-Determination, & the Marriage Question, continued.

Monday 7 October.

The fin de siècle & the New Woman at Home and Abroad: Olive Schreiner’s Thoughts on South Africa

Monday 4 November.

The Married Woman’s Property Acts: 1870, 1882, 1893: Coverture, Citizenship, & Women’s Clubs

Thursday 18th April

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

Hilary Mantel

Book Club programme: April - July 2024.

'A stunning Orwellian nightmare.' Literary Review

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street was Hilary Mantel’s third novel which was published in 1988, long before her Tudor trilogy. It is the story of Frances Shore who joins the expat community in Jeddah, when her husband’s work in the construction industry takes them to Saudi Arabia. A veteran of expat life in Africa, she was prepared for restrictions on her lifestyle but is appalled by the reality of life in a punitive patriarchal theocracy.

The Jeddah of Eight Months is a nightmare of a city. Glutted with wealth, throttled by censorship, it’s a place of secrets, fear and disorientation - a place where even the physical terrain seems to shift, as brash new buildings spring up almost overnight. Frances, a maker of maps by profession, loses her bearings. Jobless, stuck at home all day, unable to take a stroll on streets where, as a foreign woman, she faces continual harassment, she begins to obsess about the supposedly empty flat upstairs. She hears footsteps and muted sobbing; she glimpses figures in the hall. Is the flat, as local rumour has it, a secret meeting place for a Saudi politician and his mistress? Or is something much more sinister going on? One aspect of the novel is the way it evokes the tradition of ‘woman in peril’ stories, the footsteps overhead reminiscent of Patrick Hamilton’s Gas Light. It is at once a subtle political tale and a riveting psychological thriller which ends in murder.

Hilary Mantel lived in Jeddah with her husband, a geologist, for four years in the 1980s and has based much of this novel on her life there. In the reader’s guide at the end of the novel she writes, ‘When you come across an alien culture you must not automatically respect it. You must sometimes pay it the compliment of hating it.’

Thursday, 16th May

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

John Le Carré

‘The best spy story I have ever read’ Graham Greene

In John le Carré's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction. With inside knowledge culled from his years in British Intelligence, le Carré brings to light the shadowy dealings of espionage in the tale of a British agent who longs to end his career but undertakes one final, bone-chilling assignment. The time is the early 1960s. Alec Leamas is the head of the West German office of the British Secret Service. He’s been out in the cold for years, spying in the shadow of the newly built Berlin Wall. His main adversary, Hans-Dieter Mundt of East German intelligence, has been successfully eliminating all of Leamas’ agents one by one, and Leamas has just witnessed the death of the last double-agent he had in East Berlin. Called home, Leamas expects he will be retired, but he is asked to stay out in the cold for one last mission: to take part in an elaborate sting to infiltrate the East German set-up and bring down Mundt. To do this he must defect to East Germany and frame Mundt as a double agent for SIS. But first he must establish a convincing cover story for himself – one that will make the East Germans believe that he is willing to betray his country.

Thursday, 20th June

The Portrait of a Lady

Henry James

Thursday, 18th July

The Pursuit of Love

Nancy Mitford

If you would like further information about the Book Club, please write to Jeanne Langley at jslangley.uwcbookclub@gmail.com

At its publication during the height of the Cold War the moral presentation of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold made it revolutionary by showing the intelligence services of both the Western and Eastern nations as engaging in the same ruthless amorality in the name of national security.

‘Henry James’s great humane masterpiece’ – Hermione Lee .

The Portrait of a Lady was first published as a serial in TheAtlantic Monthly in 1880–81 and then as a book in 1881. Like many of James’s novels, it is set in Europe, mostly England and Italy, reflecting the author’s interest in the differences between the New World and the Old, often to the detriment of the former. It largely focuses on the themes of personal freedom, responsibility and betrayal.

When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spiritedAmerican, is brought to Europe by her wealthyAunt Touchett, she inherits a great deal of money, and it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved ‘to affront her destiny’ and determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. After travelling to Florence, however, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the worthlessAmerican ex-patriate, Gilbert Osmond, and marries him. Isabel and Osmond settle in Rome, but their marriage rapidly sours, owing to Osmond’s overwhelming egotism and lack of genuine affection for his wife. Only then does Isabel discover that wealth is a two-edged sword and that there is a price to be paid for independence.

Astory of intense poignancy, with an ambiguous ending, Isabel’s tale of love and betrayal still resonates with modern audiences. It is one of James’s most popular novels and is generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early period.

‘Clever, clever Nancy. I am

proud to know you’ – John Betjeman

When Nancy Mitford’s novel The Pursuit of Love was published in December 1945, it was an instant and phenomenal success. The critics praised it, saying there was ‘more truth, more sincerity, and more laughter than in a year’s output of novels’. The public talked of little else.According to Mitford’s biographer, Selina Hastings, it was ‘the perfect antidote to the long war years of hardship and austerity, providing an undernourished public with its favourite ingredients: love, childhood and the English upper classes’.

Mitford wrote the novel when she was working as an assistant in our local bookshop – Heywood Hill in Curzon Street. Earning just £3 a week, she used to walk home to Maida Vale to save the bus fare.After publication the book earned her so much money, she felt she was sitting ‘under a shower of gold’.

The Pursuit of Love has many autobiographical elements. The heroine, Linda Radlett, is beautiful and feckless and is one of seven children in a family much like the Mitfords. The hero is a French duke, Fabrice, who is modelled on Gaston Palewski, Mitford’s lover. But the character who dominates all others is Uncle Matthew, based on Mitford’s father, Lord Redesdale. Irascible and unreasonable, he is up at dawn hunting his younger children with bloodhounds and repeating his unshakeable conviction that ‘abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends!’

Although it was primarily a comedy, The Pursuit of Love was not without its tragic moments. Mitford’s father, whose opinion of the novel was awaited with some trepidation, was delighted with it but he cried uncontrollably at the ending.

If you would like to attend an Open Evening to meet and chat with potential new members, the dates are listed opposite. Write to the Membership Secretary to let her know you will be attending.

membership@uwclondon.com

University Women’s Club Open Evenings.

We organise these monthly to give prospective applicants an opportunity to have a tour of the Club, to meet existing members, and to find out what UWC membership entails. These are very informal and friendly occasions, and a great chance to tell others why you became, and continue to be, a member. You are warmly invited to join us.

In-person Open Evenings: every third Tuesday in month at 6.30pm

April 16th

May 21st

June 18th

July 16th

If you live too far away for an in-person Open Evening, you can join in the virtual equivalent, on Zoom.

Virtual Opening Evenings: every first Tuesday in month at 6.30 pm

May 7th

June 4th

July 2nd

Third Tuesday Lunches

Have you just joined the Club and know very few members? Do you wonder how to make contact with your fellow UW Clubbers?

An important part of joining a social Club is being welcomed into the group; no-one joins in order to be anonymous and solitary. The Club table in the Dining Room is always reserved for members who are lunching or dining alone to signal their wish for company and conversation. But there is another way to even greater conviviality: The Third Tuesday Lunch.

At 1.00 pm every third Tuesday in the month, members gather to make a lunch party. Some are regulars, others drop in occasionally, and others are first-timers. All are really welcome. If it’s your first time, you will find a group of women who are happy to make your acquaintance, and to converse on any topic that might arise. After lunch, those enthusiastic for further fun (and not just a snooze), and who are lucky enough not to be tied to a work timetable, will go out together to a Mayfair gallery, or an exhibition at a nearby museum (such as the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, the Royal Academy), then back again to the Club for a restful cuppa

Several of the regulars at the Third Tuesday Lunch opt to stay on for the Club Open Evening (see previous page) in order to chat with prospective applicants. If you are enjoying your membership, it is very nice to share that enthusiasm with visitors over a glass of wine and some canapés. The more, the merrier!

UWC 'Reading Group'

On February 27th in the Drawing Room and online, the first meeting of the Reading Group discussed Posy Simmon’s graphic novel Cassandra Darke. The attendees had not read a graphic novel but were interested in finding out about the genre, or else had read a graphic novel but not this particular one, or had actually read this one and were ready to contribute their impressions. It all lead to a very fruitful exchange of ideas with plot spoilers carefully avoided!

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday May 1st, when the Reading Group will discuss Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, from a literary genre best described as ‘metafiction’. The novel centres on a 999-line poem in four cantos, written by a recently deceased (and fictional) poet, John Shade. Around this the editor and textual commentator, Charles Kinbote (also fictional), has written an elaborate exposition of the poem. Slowly it becomes clear that, while the editorial commentary claims to guide the reader through the poem’s obscure meanings, it bears increasingly little relation to it, and reveals instead Kinbote’s strange and deluded inner world. As a work of metafiction, it can be read poetry first, or commentary first, or by switching between the two.

You might have read Pale Fire, or only heard of it because you have enjoyed other novels by Nabokov, or you might never come across either Nabokov or indeed anything called metafiction. Whatever your experience, this is a chance to explore with other members a unique literary work.

Attendance can be in person, or on zoom. Book through the UWC events pages.

For further information about the Reading Group, contact Pauline Foster (pauline.foster.uk@gmail.com)

Film Club Programme April to August 2024

. The discussions take place on zoom, every second Tuesday in the month, starting at 7.00pm, London time.

Tuesday 9th April

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

This screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel tells a dark and disquieting tale of 1980s Texas where warring drug cartels are changing the old cowboy tradition of lawlessness into something far more sinister. As a veteran sheriff pursues a relentless cartel hitman, he struggles to make sense of the new reality, where there are no moral restraints, and no boundaries. Somehow, the Coen brothers deliver this apocalyptic foreboding with wit, pity for the human condition, and a sweeping sense of grandeur in the Texan landscape.

Tuesday 14th May

Loving Vincent (2017)

Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman.

Described as a ‘fully painted’ animation, this film was created over twenty years from 65,000 oil-painted frames referencing 120 of Van Gogh’s best-known works. The viewer has the experience of Van Gogh’s landscapes and interiors springing into life, with all their pulsating, twirling brush-strokes, as the story of the months before his death is set into the context of his art. The result is unique, and visually stunning.

For further information about the Film Club, contact Pauline Foster at pauline.foster.uk@gmail.com

Tuesday 11th June

The Lost Weekend (1945)

Directed by Billy Wilder

In this film noir, darkness does not emanate from crime, but from the evil of alcoholism, consuming and ruining a man’s life and relationships with others. The story revolves around the day-to-day lies by which an alcoholic attempts to hide his addiction while maniacally focussed on getting to the next drink. The screen portrayal of drunkenness as tragedy rather than comedy was far ahead of its time, and Ray Milland ‘s extraordinary performance won him the Oscar as best actor

Tuesday 9th July

Potiche (2010)

Directed by François Ozon

Adapted from a successful stage play, Potiche (Trophy Wife) is a comedy drama starring two towering figures of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.

In the late 1970s, with France riven by strike action, workers at an umbrella factory take the owner hostage. His wife (Deneuve) calls on the local Mayor (Depardieu) to help her navigate between the stupidity of her husband and the fury of the workers. Along the way, she transforms from housewife to channel her inner Margaret Thatcher.

General Committee election update Programme for Autumn 2023

At its foundation in 1886, the University Women’s Club was set up to be managed by its membership, for its membership, through 12 elected members known as the General Committee.

https://www.universitywomensclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/UWC-Rulesand-Bye-Laws-2023.pdf

This year, there are five places open to election of new GC members, or re-election of existing GC members who have reached the end of a three-year term. Every full voting member of the Club wanting to get involved in shaping how our Club operates, now and into the future, is warmly welcomed to consider standing for election.

But first, what are the duties and responsibilities of being on the GC?

• Members of the GC undertake to attend six committee meetings per year (usually the 3rd Wednesday evening in alternate months). Additionally, there is an annual Strategy Day in the spring (usually a Saturday), and of course there is the June Annual General Meeting (usually a mid-week evening.)

• Attendance at GC meetings is expected to be in person, though for Country or Overseas members this may not always be possible, in which case Zoom is an option.

• Before meetings, GC members commit themselves to checking the circulated agenda, making sure they have delivered on any action points from the previous meeting. They should read through the shared folder of documents which accompanies the agenda, and get ready to contribute to discussions. GC members are also expected to volunteer for one or more of the GC sub-committees /working groups, e.g. House &Finance, Events, Marketing, Archives, Vision 2036, and Wine. These meet on Zoom; some monthly and some less frequently.

• Finally, GC Members are expected to support the Club by regularly attending Open Evenings and other Club events.

GC terms of office are three years, and can be extended by re-election for a maximum of two further terms. If an elected GC member finds the commitment of time and energy is too much to fit into a busy life schedule, she can stand down

What would make you an ideal General Committee member?

In addition to the all-important virtue of being a team-player, the GC is well served by members who are cheerful, generous of spirit, willing to listen, and able to seek consensus. You also need a reservoir of energy and spare time, and to be in charge of your diary.

Looking ahead to elections to the 2024-2025 General Committee

The process of nomination and election could not be simpler, and is done by completing a short form. A link to this form can be found in the AGM announcement recently sent to members. In essence, the form invites a candidate to provide a very brief ‘statement of intent ‘(approximately 250 words), a resumé of no more than one side of A4, and the names of two other UWC members who have agreed to act as proposer and seconder. The proposer and seconder supply short (approximately 150 words) endorsements of the candidate. The completed form is then submitted to the Honorary Secretary by post or email, to arrive no later than May 1st .

If there are no more candidates than vacancies, all the candidates will be considered as elected unopposed.

If there are more applicants than vacancies, a simple-first-past-the-post ballot will be held The results will be announced at the AGM, and the new 2024-2025 GC will meet for the first time in early July.

What's in it for you?

One current GC member has summed this up very succinctly: “I can recommend it as an excellent way of gaining more knowledge of how the UWC works, getting to know many more members, and feeling much more a part of the Club. Being a GC member means it is your job to have your say and be an active part of decision-making with colleagues on the GC and UWC management team.”

If you would like to talk informally about the GC application process, please contact either Lucy Wheatley (lucy.honsecuwc@gmail.com) or Pauline Foster (chairman@uwc-london.com) or any other member of the GC.)) or any other member of