The 2023 Annual - our Fun Day and AGM

This year's event was held at Warwick University, Coventry.

It was held on 2nd of September. A full review of each year's event appears in that Winter's Nutwood Newsletter.

Here are some photos

This year was once again held at the Radcliffe House at Warwick University on the edge of Coventry in the West Midlands. Because we liked the location last year, we decided to come back here.

On Friday evening some Followers started to arrive and gathered for a lovely meal.

After the meal, Mark and Lizzie Hackney presented the 'Big Fat Rupert Quiz'. 60 diverse and surprising trivia questions were being presented to the puzzling participants. With a baffling 49 points the winning team was announced after a intense battle of the bear facts.

the Quiz Winning Team -  headed by Mike Ward, Maurice Paterson, Jordy Schaap, Pamela Stones and Stephan Vango (at his first annual conference, he just happend to sit at the right table).

Saturday kicked off as usual with The Dealers' Bourse

Welcomed by Rupert himself

Stuart with his beautiful artwork for the raffe. 

The winners of the artwork.

There were interesting talks throughout the day:

Howard Smith's talk was sold-out. He started with a brief summary of Mary Tourtel's early career but his continued research had produced some fresh information about Mary's husband Herbert Tourtel.

Next was Mark Manley who talked about restoring and colouring of a Alfred Bestall story called Rupert and the Weather Man. This is one of the few stories that only once appeared in the Daily Express in it's original run, and then never has been printed in bookform or ever again in the Express. Mark has spent the past year restoring this story digitally, only with the use of original, hand-cut pieces of the newspapers from 1964. A very painstaking matter which consumes a lot of time, patience and pencils.

Then Kate Kisler, the daughter of illustrator Jenny Kisler, went to talk about her mother's life and work. Kate and her brother Matt talked and showed the personal archive of Jenny that was kindly donated to the Followers after Jenny's passing in 2020.

The Annual Gala Dinner:

And so off to home.

Charles and his team created an excellent conference and the chosen vanue could not be faulted for location, accommodation or catering at a reasonable price.