2024 - 25 Gerry's year

18 ^th July 2024 Setting up a Nanobrewery  Marc Williamson       

Marc explained that his father was one of 8 children, living in the countryside where everyone made something for trading and he chose brewing his own beer, when old enough! So Marc had a natural interest from an early age, to the extent that for his Duke of Edinburgh ‘skills’ project he chose ‘brewing’. He maintained this and in the shed at the bottom of their garden he managed to get through all the loopholes to brew and sell his beer and named it the Linear Brewery, after the Linear former Railway walk in Bingham. After 23 years as research scientist, he came to the major decision to give up his job and turn his hobby into the family business.  He went to the Brew School in Bakewell and actually did some teaching there, then two months at The Navigation in Meadow Lane. The company decided they could make more money with corporate events, so closed the brewing, which enabled Marc to buy some commercial size brewing equipment. So came the move to Screveton, changing from ‘beer kits’ to brewing from grain, based in a large Farm barn and a great ‘community’ who all work together, helping each other.  However, HMRC have still not organised/approved his move from Bingham to Screveton, so currently he can’t sell his beer. Previously it was all bottled, manually, but now he’s focused on Casks, which he can make 11 or 12 casks on one brew, allowing 7 days for maturity and consumption. He talked about the ABV rates, of which his bottles tended to be 5.4%, but he will probably fix on 3.8%, depending what his customers want, as well as the skimming of their own yeast for re-use.  Within the barn some cider is brewed, which he is likely to get involved in. But basically, he just wants to make beer, to enable him to pay the bills and look after his family.  He encouraged and responded to a number of questions about 0 alcohol beers, lagers, recipes

Gail proposed the vote of thanks, mentioning that he should have the right audience as the majority were beer drinkers, so should get their attention and that she really enjoyed Marc’s talk delivered with enthusiasm, humour and the factor of someone getting out of the ‘rat race’ and turning his hobby into a career, asking members to join her with a warm round of applause.            AR

11 ^th July 2024 Space X- Rockets galore!  Joe Colls       

Joe explained that Space X is an American company, funded by multimillionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, that launches satellites. Apparently, he made his millions by selling PayPal, splitting half his profits between Tesla and Space X. They launch vehicles for putting satellites into orbit or off to the moon, using multi stage rockets, which originally sank back into the sea, but their objective was to be able to re-use the rockets, which fall into 4 categories: 1. Falcon 9 2. Falcon Heavy 3. Dragon 4. Starship.  The plan was to bring them back to a landing pad and also landing back at sea on a drone platform. He then showed a number of videos showing the launch from Cape Canaveral and the landings of the 1^st stage rocket (booster).  To date they have completed 350 launches, with only 2 failures and are operating now at 100 launches per annum, and have used 22 re-launch boosters, so far.  There are about 6000 Starlink satellites in low earth orbit and they launch them multi flat packed, using the Falcon 9.  The Space X Dragon was used to service the International Space Shuttle with both cargo and crew.  The Starship is designed for Moon and Mars exploration, using 33 liquid Methane/liquid Oxygen engines. They have constructed a new production and launch tower at Boca Chica, Texas, just North of the Mexican border.  Joe then showed an animation of the re-landing of the booster back to the launch tower, being ‘caught’ by two arms (chopsticks). He mentioned the heat issue when re-landing as the engines have to be used for the manoeuvre, so after the 1^st landing pad was destroyed, they developed an ‘upside down’ shower unit to deluge the area with water.

Space X has a different strategy to NASA, using ‘iterative engineering’, try it out, then improve it next time which compares to NASA philosophy of taking about 10 years to produce the ‘perfect solution’.  They have completed 4 launches. So far: April and November in’23 and March and April ’24.  The plan is for IFT 5 to launch in August, where they hope to ‘catch’ the booster. They are building a 2^nd launch tower at Boca Chica and a further one at Cape Canaveral. Joe talked about the changes in technology that have affected the costs, originally estimated at 50, 000 $/Kg, 5000 $/Kg to the current price of 50 $ /Kg for Starship.  He concluded his presentation with an historical video of James Burke, showing a rocket launch using liquid Hydrogen/liquid Oxygen engines.

Joe fielded a few questions regarding the funding, answering that the launches are quite profitable, use of Methane engines and weather tolerances. Adrian proposed the vote of thanks, mentioning that he might be the right person to do the vote as a ‘space enthusiast’, but he might be biassed. He suggested that we all grew up in the ‘Space Age’, so should have some empathy with the subject matter. He concluded that he really enjoyed Joe’s talk delivered with enthusiasm, humour and many facts, a fascinating subject and amazing technology and asked members to join him with a warm round of applause.          AR

5^th July 2024 Florence Boot  Sian Trafford       

Sian began by commenting that Boots were synonymous with Nottingham. Jesse learnt his trade from his mother who processed herbs in the first shop on Goosegate in 1891 and working there from when he was 13 following his father’s death.

Jesse suffered with his health and whilst convalescing in Jersey he met Florence and despite her being 12 years his junior eventually they quickly married. Florence had worked in her father’s stationers’ shop, giving her excellent grounding in selling and dealing with customers, always with the belief that shop work was a dignified profession. Their ‘flagship’ Boot’s shop opened in1892 in Pelham Street, Nottingham, advancing from a chemists to a department store through Florence's creative and artistic flair, progressing to 7 shops. By 1893 it was 33 shops growing to 250 by 1900. She had travelled the world to source the various items they sold, but in 1899 they had their first son, John, quickly followed by a 2^nd son that unfortunately died, then two girls, Dorothy and Marjorie, but she carried on working. She had a well-developed ‘social conscience’, with a ‘motherly interest’ in “her Boots girls”, introducing the provision of breakfasts and the appointment of a part time welfare officer, eventually becoming full time in 1911, (Eleanor Kelly). She started a range of welfare outings and excursions, including walks, team games, trips to Castleton and culminating in 500 staff being taken to Skegness. The largest ever excursion of 5000 staff being taken to the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley in 1924, and opened by the King and Queen.

Jesse and Florence built a house called Plaisaunce on the Trent embankment with a sports ground. In the first World war they held events there and Flag days to raise funds.  They gifted 36 acres of land on the N. bank for’ people in the City’ and had 11 rent free properties built in Wilford in 1908 (Dorothy Boot Homes).  Various houses were purchased throughout the country for holidays and convalescence for their staff, some catering exclusively for women. (Trusthorpe, Barton, The Knowle at Gt. Missenden.) In 1898 she bought a large collection of second hand books which she sited at the back of the store, creating the Boots Book Lovers’ Library ( A London Librarian called Mercer Stretch was so fascinated by this action, he cycled from London to Nottingham and eventually became her librarian, also establishing libraries in Jersey and Weymouth and Parcel Post Books. She invested in her staff’s education with ½ day study for 14- to 16-year-olds and in 1920 created Boot’s Continuation School and were involved in Highfields Park establishing East Midlands University (Nottingham) in 1919. This had a Women’s Hall of residence for 100 students in 1928 (Florence Boot Hall)

In 1921 they retired to Jersey purchasing Villa Millbrook in St. Helier and built 22 cottages for families there as well as the FB Playing Fields (for Florence and the Governor Frances Bingham). In 1920 Sir Jesse sold Boots to Louis Liggett, from an American Pharmaceutical firm, as Sir John was considered more of a ‘playboy’ than businessman, but Louis made Sir John a director and after Jesse died in 1931, John bought the Boots company back in 1933, the same year the 1000^th Boots store was opened in Galashiels. Florence donated Sir Jesse’s Rolls Royce to the City for use as an ambulance after his death. In 2014 Boots was no longer English ownership, being sold to Walgreens Boots Alliance (US),

Ian Torr proposed the vote of thanks, mentioning that his Father and Mother both worked for Boots all their life and He and his 3 siblings really enjoyed visiting the Pelham Street store, mentioning Boots discount and the Sports events and Social Club He commented that he really enjoyed Sian’s talk delivered with enthusiasm, humour and many facts, providing some of the interesting local history and asked members to join him with a warm round of applause.            AR