ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Saturday 26 May 2018
The Catherine Cookson Room, The Word, 45 Market Place, South Shields NE33 1JF
Attendance at the AGM is free of charge. Tickets for the optional refreshments and tours £15.00. How to find AGM locations
PROGRAMME:
11.30 am: Foregather at South Shields Town Hall for a tour of the building starting at 11.45 prompt.
13.00 light buffet and refreshments at The Word; 14.00 AGM business; (see Proposed amendments to the Constitution and explanatory Schedule of Amendments to the Constitution)
14.30 Tour of The Word building, ending 15.30 at the latest.
The Town Hall (also known as the Municipal Buildings to distinguish it from the Old Town Hall in the Market Place) was built in 1905-10 to a design by E.E. Fetch of London and is described in the Durham volume of 'Pevnser' as "the most convincing expression in the County of Edwardian prosperity". It is widely regarded as the best bit of Edwardian Baroquery in the North-east.
Our tour included the surviving (and recently restored) original interiors as well as the exterior, led by a guide from the Mayor of South Tyneside Council's staff.
We werel also able to enjoy the classical exterior of the Old Town Hall (1768, probably designed by the Newcastle-based surveyor and engineer John Wooler, who prepared plans for the Market Place for landowners the Dean & Chapter of Durham in that year) as we passed through the Market Place on our way to The Word.
The National Centre for the Written Word opened in 2016. Its building is a strikingly modern design by Killingworth-based architects FaulknerBrowns. Circular in shape, its external fins evoke the fanned-out pages of a book. Our tour was led by a member of the Librarian's staff.
Downloadable PDF of the booking form circulated to members.
