Sandy Bay Park Residents Association (SBPRA)

We continue our meetings every 4 weeks on Tuesdays from 10am at the Sandy Bay bar. We start with coffee and a natter, getting started around 10.30 for an hour or so. Everyone is, of course, welcome to join us, and we have a group of around 10-15 members, but can expand. We have talks until June. I am very aware, having done it since 2014, we have covered a great deal. I can carry on finding topics, but am never sure if they will be what you want, so, suggestions for topics for me to cover that you think will interest people are welcome, as are volunteers to do a talk or organise a local history visit.

The group works best with more of you and less of me, and we do try to cover a good mix of family, local and social history topics, though I appreciate topics often cross over categories. I know that with the demise of the local History group, we have expanded from just Family History, though it still is our key starting point.  Anyway, have a think and let me know in the next couple of months so I can prepare a meetings list for the rest of the year. My email address is the best contact method, paulbancroft800@gmail.com.

 

4th March: Georgia on Irish ancestors and the hard task of trying to trace them back. Most people have Irish ancestors, so please come and listen to Georgia as she always has lots of useful advice. If you have any information about Irish ancestors like names, dob, father's name, religion or county, it will help, though you might not have much. All I have is names, probable year of birth and Ireland, but I'll give it a go. Please bring laptops, tablets etc to look up some of the sites. 

 

1st April: Me on April Fools Day, with some of the classics. Please bring along, family ones, work ones, national ones, any you did etc to add to the discussion at the end.

29th April: Me on local shops and beyond, mainly those no longer with us, ie most of them! I will start locally with Canvey shops and move out.

27th May: group session. We do these about once a year, and everbody has a chance to tell us something brief, about 5 mins or so. "In the family" is about family traits across the generations. These could be anything such as unusual things like all left handed, or more common links like similar names, particularly common Christian family names, military service, common jobs, causes of death, passing businesses down the family, mainly crooks or dodgy(like mine), many in the workhouse, living in the same area, or even street, physical characteristics, anything at all really. Jot it down and bring it along.

24th June: Graham Larke on My Life in Basildon from 1953.

 

Meetings follow on 22nd July, 19th August, 16th September, 14th October, 11th November (possible armistice talk) and 9th December. These dates are all still available for suggestions.

 

I hope to see you on the 4th March to support Georgia.

 

Take care and Regards,

 

Paul, convener.