Monthly Meetings - 2026 Programme of Events
Join us for yet another fun and varied programme throughout 2026. If you have a hobby, interest or know of an exciting speaker that you think we may be able to include in next years programme, please email The President on [email protected] or by using the Contact Us page. We have been working very hard to plan and book our events and speakers for 2026 and our programme is shown below:
All meetings will commence at 8.00pm but please do not arrive before 7.30pm to allow your committee time to set up the room. Thank you.
Monday 19th January - Tony Redmond from UK-MED
Tony is a registered specialist in emergency medicine who has been involved in international emergency humanitarian assistance for almost twenty five years, organising and leading medical support to natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes in Armenia, Iran, Pakistan and China, ) major incidents (e.g. Lockerbie Air Disaster, UN Air Crash Kosovo), conflicts (eg Bosnia, Kosovo,) and complex emergencies (eg established tented hospital on Iran/Iraq border for Kurdish refugees) throughout the world.
UK-Med developed out of the South Manchester Accident Rescue Team which started life as a local medical team, acting in support of the rescue and ambulance services in Manchester.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday16th February - Zara Hodgson
Zara Hodgson (Jenny Banfield’s daughter) is Director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester. She is going to tell us how nuclear reactors could generate green hydrogen as well as electricity and thus play a major role in decarbonisation efforts playing an essential role in achieving Net zero by 2050.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday16th March - Jo Rodman.
Jo is Chair of Trustees of Just Ice in Poynton who manufacture delicious ice cream and raise funds to help those suffering from human trafficking and modern slavery. She was at a crossroads in her life when she met the inspirational Gav and Sally. After hearing Gav give a talk about Just-Ice and modern slavery in the autumn of 2019, Jo couldn't get the idea of starting a second Just-Ice café out of her head. Just-Ice Poynton was established as a registered charity in October 2020 and began trading at local events in the spring of 2021 with their mobile ice cream trike 'Harriet'. The residents of Poynton were introduced to the delicious ethical ice cream and soon developed a taste for it!_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 20th April - Tessa Boase
Tessa Boase is a British author, journalist, and social historian who brings to light the hidden stories of remarkable women from the past. A graduate of Oxford University, she worked as a national newspaper editor before turning to historical writing. Her acclaimed books include The Housekeeper’s Tale, London’s Lost Department Stores, and Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather, which explores the intertwined lives of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst and bird conservationist Etta Lemon. Based in Sussex, Tessa lectures widely and writes on women’s history, fashion, and social change.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 18th May - Luke Iveson
Luke-Matthew Iveson, graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC) in 2012 and was crowned the winner of The Great British Sewing Bee 2024. His grandma got him into sewing when he was about 8 as she made the most amazing costumes for him and his sister and would let him help. He fell back in love with sewing when he went to to college and got into more creative, stage costume type work. He now wants to progress onto lots of different things, including more stage and performance costumes, work with some drag performers and trying new things.
After winning Season 10 of The Great British Sewing Bee, he founded sewlukeivo which became a space to share the approach that making your own clothes should feel accessible, expressive and completely your own and which is achieved through sewing patterns, workshops, and limited drops.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 15th June - Neil Buttery
Dr Neil Buttery is a chef and restaurateur who has been studying and writing about the history of British food for over a decade and he has appeared on Channel 4's Britain's Most Historic Towns, Radio 4's The Food Programme and Channel 5's Secrets of the Royal Palaces. He is also the author of Before Mrs Beeton, the incredible story of the great Mancunian, Elizabeth Raffald, England’s most influential housekeeper. After becoming housekeeper at Arley Hall aged 25, she married and moved to Manchester, transforming the Manchester food scene and business community, writing the first A to Z directory and creating the first domestic servants registry office. She also set up a cookery school and ran a high class tavern attracting both gentry and nobility. She reputedly gave birth to sixteen daughters, wrote book on midwifery and was an effective exorciser of evil spirits, but her biggest achievement was her cookery book The Experienced English Housekeeper which brought her fame and fortune. But her alcoholic husband spent her wealth and she spent her final years in a pokey coffeehouse in a seedy part of town but her book lived on.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
July. Neil Hanson.
Author of The Inn at the Top. Tales of life in the Highest Pub in Britain.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
September Rachel The Wonky Artist.
Rachel broke her neck in a diving accident at the age of 23. She was told that she would never walk again and would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Despite that tragedy she learnt to drive again, adapted a home for disabled living, got married, had a baby, worked and travelled all from her wheelchair .....
_________________________________________________________________________________________
October. 'Strictly Yourselves'
Discover more about some of your fellow Fulshaw members with some one to one mini interviews between our president and some volunteers please !! All discussions will be pre arranged and questions pre discussed and agreed. Hopefully this will prove to be a very entertaining evening with plenty of laughs.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
November - Annual Meeting
As well as the usual Annual Meeting business and Makers Market, there will also be other entertaining activities for you to enjoy.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
December - Christmas Party
All meetings will commence at 8.00pm but please do not arrive before 7.30pm to allow your committee time to set up the room. Thank you.
Monday 19th January - Tony Redmond from UK-MED
Tony is a registered specialist in emergency medicine who has been involved in international emergency humanitarian assistance for almost twenty five years, organising and leading medical support to natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes in Armenia, Iran, Pakistan and China, ) major incidents (e.g. Lockerbie Air Disaster, UN Air Crash Kosovo), conflicts (eg Bosnia, Kosovo,) and complex emergencies (eg established tented hospital on Iran/Iraq border for Kurdish refugees) throughout the world.
UK-Med developed out of the South Manchester Accident Rescue Team which started life as a local medical team, acting in support of the rescue and ambulance services in Manchester.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday16th February - Zara Hodgson
Zara Hodgson (Jenny Banfield’s daughter) is Director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester. She is going to tell us how nuclear reactors could generate green hydrogen as well as electricity and thus play a major role in decarbonisation efforts playing an essential role in achieving Net zero by 2050.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday16th March - Jo Rodman.
Jo is Chair of Trustees of Just Ice in Poynton who manufacture delicious ice cream and raise funds to help those suffering from human trafficking and modern slavery. She was at a crossroads in her life when she met the inspirational Gav and Sally. After hearing Gav give a talk about Just-Ice and modern slavery in the autumn of 2019, Jo couldn't get the idea of starting a second Just-Ice café out of her head. Just-Ice Poynton was established as a registered charity in October 2020 and began trading at local events in the spring of 2021 with their mobile ice cream trike 'Harriet'. The residents of Poynton were introduced to the delicious ethical ice cream and soon developed a taste for it!_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 20th April - Tessa Boase
Tessa Boase is a British author, journalist, and social historian who brings to light the hidden stories of remarkable women from the past. A graduate of Oxford University, she worked as a national newspaper editor before turning to historical writing. Her acclaimed books include The Housekeeper’s Tale, London’s Lost Department Stores, and Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather, which explores the intertwined lives of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst and bird conservationist Etta Lemon. Based in Sussex, Tessa lectures widely and writes on women’s history, fashion, and social change.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 18th May - Luke Iveson
Luke-Matthew Iveson, graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC) in 2012 and was crowned the winner of The Great British Sewing Bee 2024. His grandma got him into sewing when he was about 8 as she made the most amazing costumes for him and his sister and would let him help. He fell back in love with sewing when he went to to college and got into more creative, stage costume type work. He now wants to progress onto lots of different things, including more stage and performance costumes, work with some drag performers and trying new things.
After winning Season 10 of The Great British Sewing Bee, he founded sewlukeivo which became a space to share the approach that making your own clothes should feel accessible, expressive and completely your own and which is achieved through sewing patterns, workshops, and limited drops.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday 15th June - Neil Buttery
Dr Neil Buttery is a chef and restaurateur who has been studying and writing about the history of British food for over a decade and he has appeared on Channel 4's Britain's Most Historic Towns, Radio 4's The Food Programme and Channel 5's Secrets of the Royal Palaces. He is also the author of Before Mrs Beeton, the incredible story of the great Mancunian, Elizabeth Raffald, England’s most influential housekeeper. After becoming housekeeper at Arley Hall aged 25, she married and moved to Manchester, transforming the Manchester food scene and business community, writing the first A to Z directory and creating the first domestic servants registry office. She also set up a cookery school and ran a high class tavern attracting both gentry and nobility. She reputedly gave birth to sixteen daughters, wrote book on midwifery and was an effective exorciser of evil spirits, but her biggest achievement was her cookery book The Experienced English Housekeeper which brought her fame and fortune. But her alcoholic husband spent her wealth and she spent her final years in a pokey coffeehouse in a seedy part of town but her book lived on.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
July. Neil Hanson.
Author of The Inn at the Top. Tales of life in the Highest Pub in Britain.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
September Rachel The Wonky Artist.
Rachel broke her neck in a diving accident at the age of 23. She was told that she would never walk again and would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Despite that tragedy she learnt to drive again, adapted a home for disabled living, got married, had a baby, worked and travelled all from her wheelchair .....
_________________________________________________________________________________________
October. 'Strictly Yourselves'
Discover more about some of your fellow Fulshaw members with some one to one mini interviews between our president and some volunteers please !! All discussions will be pre arranged and questions pre discussed and agreed. Hopefully this will prove to be a very entertaining evening with plenty of laughs.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
November - Annual Meeting
As well as the usual Annual Meeting business and Makers Market, there will also be other entertaining activities for you to enjoy.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
December - Christmas Party
