The Charles Williams Society

Events

Read about upcoming and past events of the Society. Further information may be obtained from the Secretary: Dr Richard Sturch, 35 Broomfield, Stacy Bushes, Milton Keynes. MK12 6HA or at by e-mail: charles_wms_soc@yahoo.co.uk

Extraordinary General Meeting Update

A quick update! Our Extraordinary General Meeting was held last week – June 16, 2016 – and the attendees unanimously passed the necessary resolutions for the winding up of the society.  More details are forthcoming, and we’ll post them here.

In the meantime, if you’d like to stay involved with future incarnations of a Charles Williams society, you can sign up for a new Infrequent Newsletter here: https://tinyletter.com/charleswilliams.

 

EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING
Saturday 18 June 2016
At 12.00 noon
The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
St Michael’s Hall, Shoe Lane, Oxford

Dear Members,

As you know we are in the process of winding up the Charles Williams Society in its present form and have been in conversation with the Oxford C S Lewis Society with a view to transferring our assets to them in the near future. This society is deemed to be the one most capable of maintaining the aims and purposes of the original foundation of our own society.

The C S Lewis Society already publishes The Journal of Inklings Studies – which you have been receiving – and will continue to promote the work of Charles Williams. It will take responsibility for the reference collection and the maintenance of Charles Williams’s grave in Holywell Cemetery.

The website of our society will continue to be managed by Matt Kirkland. The name of the new website has still to be decided but it will, as heretofore, be devoted to the memory and work of Charles Williams.

As we are a charity we are obliged to conform to the laws governing charitable bodies as well as abiding by the rules of our own constitution. This means that we are required to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting for the passing of two resolutions.

1. To alter Rule 12 of the Constitution and Rules of the Society by replacing the words ‘to any charity or charitable institution with similar objects as the Society’ with the words ‘to the University of Oxford Development Trust Fund to be used for the purpose of the Oxford University C S Lewis Society’.

2. To wind up the Society in accordance with Rule 12 (as amended) of its constitution and Rules.

 

10 April 2016
Brian Horne
Chairman

Annual General Meeting 2015 and Lecture

Mark your calendars!

The Society will be meeting on Saturday, June 6th, at the Centre for Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, Shoe Lane, Oxford. The Society’s AGM will be held at 11:30 am; after lunch there will be a talk by Sørina Higgins, who edited and was responsible for the recent publication of Williams’s early play “The Chapel of the Thorn“.

All are welcome to the latter, whether members of the Society or not.

  • 11.30 a.m. Coffee
  • 12.00 AGM
  • 12.45 – 2.15 p.m. Lunch
  • 2.15 p.m. We are delighted that the visiting American scholar, Sorina Higgins, who has recently edited and published Charles Williams’s early dramatic piece, The Chapel of the Thorn, is able to be with us and will give a talk about her work on Williams.

 Agenda

  1. Apologies for absence
  2. Minutes of the last AGM
  3. Secretary’s report
  4. Treasurer’s report
  5. Librarian’s report
  6. Chairman’s report
  7. (Election of Officers)
  8. A O B

 

Annual General Meeting 2014

The Annual General Meeting of the Charles William Society will be held on Saturday 12 April 2014 at 12.00 noon in the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Shoe Lane, OXFORD.

Agenda

  1. 1. Apologies for Absence
  2. 2. Minutes of the previous AGM
  3. 3. Matters Arising
  4. 4. Reports from the Officers of the Society
    • (a) Secretary
    • (b)   Treasurer
    • (c)    Editor
    • (d)   Librarian
    • (e)  Chairman
  5. 5. Election of Officers
  6. 6. Charles Williams’s Grave – Holywell Cemetery
  7. 7. Future of the Society
  8. 8. Any Other Business

After lunch – at approximately 2.00 p.m. –  there will be readings from Charles Williams’s works. Members are asked to bring any piece(s) of Williams’s writings that they would like to share with the group.

It is hoped that as many members of the society who are able to attend will do so. Guests will be very welcome.

Brian Horne

Chairman of the Council

Call for Papers: The Inklings and King Arthur

Society Member Sørina Higgins is collecting papers related to King Arthur and the Inklings.

The collection will compare the Arthurian works, especially the mythological geographies, of Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, Barfield, their predecessors, and their contemporaries, in historical context.

Read all the details and view topic ideas here. Abstracts are due on 1 January, 2014 so get started now!

Annual General Meeting 2013

The Annual General Meeting of the Charles Williams Society will be held on Saturday 4th May at 12.00 noon in the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Shoe Lane, OXFORD.

Agenda

  • 1. Apologies for Absence
  • 2. Minutes of the previous AGM
  • 3. Matters Arising
  • 4. Reports from Officers of the Society
    • (a)   Secretary
    • (b)   Treasurer
    • (c)   Editor
    • (d)   Librarian
    • (e)   Chairman
  • 5. Election of Officers
  • 6. The Future of the Society
  • 7. Any Other Business

After lunch – at approximately 2.00 p.m. – Grevel Lindop will speak on:

The Arthurian Poems of Charles Williams

Some Recent Reflections

It is hoped that as many members of the society who are able to attend will do so.  Guests will be very welcome.

Next Meeting: 4 May 2013.

The next meeting of the Society will be at the Centre for Mediaeval Studies, Shoe Lane, Oxford, on Saturday, May the 4th, 2013. It will begin with the Society’s annual general meeting at 12 noon. In the afternoon Professor Grevel Lindop will be speaking on Williams’s poetry. Guests are welcome as well as members.

Meeting April 28, 2012

Our next meeting was held on April 28th, 2012, at the Oxford Cenre for Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, Shoe Lane, Oxford. The Society held its annual general meeting at 12 noon, and after a break for lunch reconvened at 2 p.m., when our speaker was be Professor Grevel Lindop, giving an account of his work on the biograhy of Williams he is writing for the Oxford University Press.

Theology in Action – A Dorothy Sayers Study Day

Our friends at the Dorothy L. Sayers Society are hosting an upcoming conference: Theology In Action.  Click here for more details.

The Future of the Society: April 2011 AGM

At the annual general meeting of the Society, held on April 9th 2011, important decisions were taken on the future of the Society/The Chairman said that there were two great problems facing the Society. One was the composition of the Council. All members had been on it for ten years or more, and were anxious to pass on their tasks, but no-one had come forward. The other was the changes in the world. since our foundation in 1976. Then, no websites or internet existed, and transport was cheaper, so meetings were more popular. We had already reduced our meetings from four a year to two, but attendance was still meagre.

Two possibilities were open. One was simply to close down altogether. the other was to adopt something on  lines proposed by Mr. Barber, which are described below and were accepted unanimously by the meeting..

Mr. Barber said that we were a membership organization in order (a) to publish the Quarterly and (b) to hold metings.  There was no real need for the latter,and website publication would  be cheaper than print. His proposals came under seven heads.

1. We should continue to exist as a society until the publication of Dr. Lindop’s biography. (probably in later 2012 or early 2013).

2. The website, if Matt Kirkland was agreeable, could continue, but with a discussion forum and a section on news and events. Those wishing to contribute to the forum would be asked to register.

3. Meetings could be held in people’s own homes, except for the AGM required by law for charities. Those hosting discussion groups could notify the website with details and a contact email address (not the host’s personal address but a forwarding one working through the website.)

4. Our finances being in a healthy state, we could use our funds to publish or republish uncollected writings by Williams. He had a list of possible suggestions.

5.  Negotiations should continue with Judith Wolfe, the editor of the “Journal of Inklings Studies”,, and its parent body, with a view to transferring activities, assets and goodwill to them.. This was a peer-reviewed organ; non-scholarly material could use the website. Archives might continue to be held at the Oxford Centre for Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, as at present; if so, part of the Society’s funds should go to the Centre to support this.

6. If this went forward, membership could be transferred (with obviously the possibility of opting out for those who wished to). [The current subscription to the JIS is £12 a year, so subscription rates would be slightly lower than at present.]

7.  If proposal 5 went forward, any remaining funds, together with the libraries and archives, would go to the parent body of the JIS (subject to the agreement of the Charity Commission). Archives should also be supplied to the Bodleian, the British Library, and the Marion Wade library at Wheaton.