“For my part, I travel, not to go anywhere but to go; I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.”
“I travel for travel's sake and to write about it afterwards”
— Robert Louis Stevenson: ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes’
Cheetah Cub, Kenya © Jonathan & Angela Scott
In the 2015/16 season Guildford Travel Club celebrated its 50th anniversary. A number of special events were held throughout the year, including a special ‘Golden 50’ quiz at the November social. The season culminated in a social and anniversary talk on Transnistria by Rory MacLean in April 2016. Also in attendance were the Club’s President, John Pilkington and the Vice President Gerry Holman. The event is recorded in a gallery of images from the evening. All those present received a copy of Gerry’s personal memoir of the Club’s history.
Throughout the year posters using information from the archives were displayed at various talks, with most of them on display at the anniversary talk. Following a number of requests it was decided to put the content of these posters on the website so that people who attended could have another opportunity to read them and also allow those people who were unable to attend to see them.
Guildford Travel Club is lucky in having:
- original records and a minutes book with details of the first meetings of the Club;
- scrapbooks of press cuttings, photos and event tickets;
- folders of programmes and committee meeting minutes;
- scrapbooks and details of Operation Drake and Raleigh.
Long-standing Club and previous committee members Jean and Harry Wickens went through the archives to produce the posters and information, now adapted for the website.