14
Apr

Review of 13 April 2013 Richard III Society Meeting

   Posted by: Leslie McCawley   in Meetings, News, NSW Branch News

The NSW Branch of the Richard III Society met on 13 April 2013 at the Harry Jensen Centre in The Rocks, Sydney. Our Branch Chairperson Judith welcomed all the regulars, members from overseas, and a number of visitors, whose interest had been aroused by the recent discovery of the remains of Richard III in the Leicester carpark.

The Committee has been busy since the last meeting with Judith and Dorothea speaking to the Military Historical Society at Victoria Barracks, and Judith and Julia to students at Chifley College who were studying Richard III for their HSC. Julia was a member of a panel discussing the Genesian Theatre’s approach to Richard III in their current production. In addition, of course, the Committee has been finalizing the extensive arrangements for the July conference, with some last minute changes.

Julia presented the Secretary’s report and reminded us that although it is past the official deadline that it is not too late to get our registrations in for the upcoming conference in Sydney on the weekend of 12-14 July 2013. It is going to be a great weekend of learning and social activities with Ricardians, and not to be missed.

Julia also explained that because of full programs for the rest of the year no Scrabble Speakers will be needed. That means that all of our eager public speakers will just have to wait their opportunity next year!

The Minutes from the February 2013 meeting were taken as read. There was no Treasurer’s report as the Treasurer was away. Dorothea presented the Webmaster report. This branch website continues to receive many visitors. Dorothea has also extended the Branch online presence to Facebook, so everyone who has access to the internet should visit and “like” it! It can be found at http://www.facebook.com/pages/NSW-Branch-of-the-Richard-III-Society/269971479692592

Lynne announced the arrival of the new pewter boar pins for those who had pre-ordered them. More may be obtained in the future if there is a demand from members.

An extra feature today was Dorothea reporting on her recent trip to the University of Leicester conference entitled “The Greyfriars dig: a new Richard III”. Dorothea had previously posted elements of her presentation on the branch website for online visitors to read.

The Guest Speakers were Yvette Debergue and Rachel Allerton from the University of Sydney Centre for Continuing Education and the WEA, where they teach medieval courses. Yvette recently completed her PhD at the University of Sydney on the area of Gender and Medieval Heresy. She has taught at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Medieval Studies as well as the Departments of History and Religion; her area of expertise being Heresy in the Middle Ages. For more information on upcoming her courses visit http://cce.sydney.edu.au/course/HAWI Their interesting presentation was on the different interpretations of Richard’s physical presence and character in several film versions of Shakespeare’s Richard III. They referred particularly to those featuring Lawrence Olivier, Ron Cook and Ian McKellen. Sadly the technology was not completely cooperative, so I have attached some of the YouTube clips from their presentation:

Olivier’s version of the soliloquy.

The BBC’s version with Ron Cook as Richard.

Horrible Histories Richard III Song.

The next meeting will be on Saturday, 8 June 2013, and the speaker will be Ben Cross on Medieval Thought and Philosophy.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 14th, 2013 at 14:57 and is filed under Meetings, News, NSW Branch News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. Richard III Society of NSW » Blog Archive » RICHARD III AT THE GENESIAN THEATRE    Apr 15 2013 / 5pm:

    […] the general meeting of the NSW Branch the day before I saw this Richard III, our speakers had talked about ‘Richard III in movies’, […]

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