Convention 2009
Convention
The 2009 Convention took place over the weekend of 29th May -
1st June. It was a great success with a tremendous mix of projected
stereoscopic programmes, workshops and tutorials, socialising and a fun
excursion.
If you would like more specific information, you can download or view the Programme as a pdf file. Personal impressions and images will appear in the Journal soon.
The basic venue and other information shown below will be replaced with Convention 2010 information as soon as it is available.
Ramada Parkway Hotel, Leeds 29th to 1st June 2009
The 2009 Convention will be held in Yorkshire at the Ramada Jarvis Parkway Hotel which is located about six miles north of Leeds on the A660 Otley Road in beautiful countryside next to the Golden Acre Park and Nature Reserve.
The Hotel is a Tudor style building with a Seb Coe Health Club to enable members to prepare for the Olympic Games in 2012. The projection room will be the Ballroom on the Park with an enormously high ceiling and a balcony giving us ideal viewing conditions from all parts of the room without heads intervening.
The hotel has free parking for 250 cars but, for those wishing to travel by train, there is a direct bus service from the central bus station in Leeds every 15 minutes which stops directly outside the hotel in both directions. A shuttle bus operates between the Railway Station and the Bus Station. The hotel is even closer to Leeds Bradford Airport , only a short taxi ride away, or the airport bus can be taken to Leeds Bus Station.
The Hotel have offered us very competitive rates for fully catered accommodation from Dinner on Friday 29th May to Breakfast on Monday 1st June at £175 per person for the three night stay, £135 per person for a two night stay and £85 per person for a single night stay during the weekend period. The Hotel is normally busy during mid-week, but they are prepared to offer our members a rate of £85 per room for Dinner, Bed and Breakfast for additional nights before and after the Convention. This rate is most attractive for couples and those willing to share rooms.
To secure these advantageous terms your Society has had to make a commitment to take a block of rooms in the hotel which we shall start to release at the beginning of December to avoid penalty payments. It is therefore vital that you should make your hotel bookings directly with the hotel at the earliest possible date to secure accommodation at the very low rates we have negotiated. Each booking should be accompanied by the full payment either by credit card or by post dated cheque, which will not be presented for payment before 15th may 2009.
We have arranged with the Hotel for buffet lunch to be available on the Saturday and a packed lunch for members to take on the excursion on the Sunday and both are included in the accommodation charge. Teas and coffees will be provided during the interval of the projection sessions, following the AGM and mid afternoon on the Saturday. This is free for residents and at an additional charge of £10 on the Convention booking fee for non-residents.
Excursion.
We are anxious to give members the opportunity to explore some of the rich history of this part of Yorkshire on the Sunday Excursion but realise that all we can hope to do is to give a taste of the several themes which may be explored then leave you with a guide to further places which you may wish to visit to “flesh out” some of these topics, either by extending your stay or during later visits to complete a story or documentary in 3D.
The most recent visitor attraction in Leeds is the Armouries exhibition with the adjoining Tilt Yard where Knights joust as in days of old. Some of the armour dates to the Civil War and our next visit will be to the Elizabethan Manor House, Oakwell Hall in Batley, home of the yeoman Royalist family who fought in the battle of Marston Moor nearby. Oakwell Hall was “Fieldhead” in Charlotte Bronte’s novel “Shirley” and the Red House at Gomersal nearby, “Briarmains” in the same novel, was the home of her lifelong friend Mary Taylor. The area is called Shirley Country and was the location of the Luddite attacks on the woollen mills in the novel.
The house actually called Fieldhead in nearby Birstall was the birthplace of Joseph Priestley who discovered Oxygen without which we should all be trying to live by breathing only nitrogen!
Haworth Parsonage and the Bronte Museum were visited during a previous Convention, but the birthplace of the sisters and their brother Branwell is in Thornton where the ruins of the old Bell Chapel lie opposite the church where the font used for their baptisms and the Bell from the Chapel are housed. Time permitting, further stops may be made at Ponden Hall and Wycoller which have strong Bronte links and the latter has three very ancient bridges.
Some details of the excursion are still to be resolved but I hope that the above will be of sufficient interest to encourage you to book immediately.
The forms can be found on the Downloads page