The tramway between Avenue Road, Leamington and the Warwick Arms on High Street, Warwick, ran with horse-drawn trams from 1881 to 1905 and then with electric vehicles until 1930. Starting with a general introduction to UK tramways, we will look at how and why the Leamington to Warwick tram started, the operation of the service, who used it, and why it was finally discontinued.
Our talk is entitled A Powerful Story which will provide a look back at how arguably electricity became our most critical utility, alongside water, and is now the bedrock of everything we do today. The talk will look at how we, as a country and a population, might address the enormous challenges of continuing to secure sufficient electricity for the future as we rush headlong into decarbonising our economy. Dave doesn’t attempt to offer a crystal ball but I will consider how we might ‘keep the lights on’ in the next 20 to 30 years as electric vehicles, domestic power generation and heat pumps become the norm.
Chris Forse is a retired teacher and administrator who spent 33 years in Hong Kong where he was also a sometime columnist and radio panel guest. He has travelled widely and globally and enjoys travel photography and self-publishing. Until recently he was chair of Warwick District u3a. An old friend whose talks we have enjoyed many times.
After a media career in England, Wales, the USA and Ireland, he spent 9 years chairing 2 NHS Trusts.
The talk explains what AI is in non-technical terms, how it will try to mimic human decision-making using machine learning, the tools it uses to do that, and of course, how it needs to mimic human decision making to do it. I’ll briefly also discuss very recent newsworthy programmes such as ChatGPT.
I then talk about the balance between the risks and benefits of AI and some processes and controls that could be used to effectively manage it.
Coventry, once the heart of automotive production continued its world reputation for design and development into the new millennium up to the modern day.
Iran in the 90’s relied heavily on the Paykan (Arrow) car which we knew as the old Hillman Hunter, with sanctions biting hard the only alternative was a self developed vehicle produced locally. Their search for a suitable partner concluded in Coventry.
King Richard III: Hero? Murderer? Loyal Brother?
Was Richard the monster that Shakespeare would have us believe?
Was he the rightful King of England after his brother Edward IV?
Not only that……was EDWARD the rightful king? All set against the complexities and horrors of the Wars of the Roses. Complete with armour, chain mail and weapons of the period!
The Octopus is an amazing and intelligent animal. It does all the things we do but it got there first, by about 400 million years. So, we both do the same things but in a totally different way.
Eighty years ago, the Western Allies began to deliver their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord. The following ninety days were decisive.
Irishman Harry Ferguson is globally recognised as the man who put the ‘mechanisation’ of farming on a global footing. As a farmer’s son, Ferguson fully understood farming habits and techniques. It was his inventiveness and vision surrounding tractors and implements that set the scene for many trends in global farming machinery that are in widespread use today.