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Monthly Meeting – Monday 2 November 2026
Exploring London – 20th and 22nd October ’26 – Lissom Grove
Monthly Meeting – Monday 5 October 2026
Exploring London – 30th September and 2nd October 2026 – Queen’s Park and Kensal Green
Box Moor Trust Festival Sunday 20th September
u3aDacorum Facebook Page
2026 AGM – Monday 3 August 2026
Minibus Hire for Day Trips
Cancelled Groups
Web Conferencing using Zoom


Last Updated: 8 Sep ’26

Views: 24

Monthly Meeting – Monday 2 November 2026

 

Boxmoor Playhouse

MONDAY 2 November, 10:00 REFRESHMENTS,

10.30 PRESENTATION

doors open 09:45

Anne Fletcher is an historian and writer. She has a successful career in heritage and has worked at some of the most exciting historic sites in the country including Hampton Court Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Bletchley Park and Tower Bridge.  She is the great-great-great niece of Joseph Hobson Jagger, ‘the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo’.

This is the story of a man who went from Yorkshire mill worker to Monte Carlo millionaire. Amongst the men ‘who broke the bank at Monte Carlo’, Joseph Hobson Jagger is unique. He is the only one known to have devised an infallible and completely legal system to defeat the odds at roulette and win a fortune. But he was not what might be expected. He wasn’t a gentleman or an aristocrat, he wasn’t a professional gambler, he was a Yorkshire textile worker who had laboured in the Victorian mills of Bradford since childhood.

What led a man like this to travel nearly a thousand miles to the exclusive world of the Riviera when most people lived and died within a few miles of where they were born? The trains that took him there were still new and dangerous; he did not speak French and had never left the north of England. His motivation was strong. Joseph, his wife and four children, the youngest of whom was only two, faced a situation so grave that their only escape seemed to be his desperate gamble on the roulette tables of Monte Carlo. Today Jagger’s legacy is felt in casinos worldwide and yet he is virtually unknown

No fee to be paid

Contact: Groups via this link (select addressee: Groups)

The meeting will be hybrid, if you wish to participate on Zoom, use the link that will be supplied in the Group News closer to the date.
If you experience difficulty with the sound, turning on Captions, at the bottom of the Zoom screen on a PC or by clicking on More … on an iPad, should assist greatly. Please bear in mind that the task of getting both sound and picture to members on Zoom is fraught with difficulties. We continue to struggle on, it may not always be totally successful.

Directions

Boxmoor Playhouse
72 St John’s Rd
Hemel Hempstead
HP1 1NP

Parking round the Moor   OR    55 – 57 Park Road, HP1 1JS

The parking outside St John’s church now has a 3 hour limit and no return for 2 hours. This is to discourage commuters going to the station using it for all day parking. The three-hour limit works for our monthly meeting. Warning, there is someone who checks!

Directions

Buses between Hemel and Berkhamsted: 500  and X500 bus.
Buses are approximately every 30 minutes: 500 and X500 Timetable

Local buses running in St John’s Road past Boxmoor Playhouse

H10 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9e20e052-b756-4ff5-afeb-f0a0ce466e1c?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound

H11 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9077ed51-eb28-40df-8838-8c69504b3299?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound&all=on

See Hemel Map

Last Updated: 5 Oct ’26

Views: 268

Monthly Meeting – Monday 5 October 2026

 

Boxmoor Playhouse

MONDAY 3 October, 10:00 REFRESHMENTS,

10.30 AGM & PRESENTATION

doors open 09:45

Andrew taught in Grammar Schools for over 40 years and is the author of a best-selling book on Contemporary British Politics.  Andrew gives his audiences insights into the times through which they have lived with a sharp eye for detail and anecdote.  His incisive character portraits of many very different men and women at home and abroad whose extra ordinary lives have shaped today’s world, are uniformly vivid and compelling.  He looks, as well, at the huge social, cultural and attitudinal changes which have shaped today’s world and at many urgent and often controversial issues which divide us.

In 2024, Andrew dissected the Profumo Affair for us. The presentation was extremely well received. This year he talks about ‘The Second Elizabethan Age: Reliving our own Story’ which is a vivid pastiche of our many post-war social & cultural revolutions, the upheaval in values and the growth of a more permissive culture. Can you believe it?

No fee to be paid

Contact: Groups via this link (select addressee: Groups)

The meeting will be hybrid, if you wish to participate on Zoom, use the link that will be supplied in the Group News closer to the date.
If you experience difficulty with the sound, turning on Captions, at the bottom of the Zoom screen on a PC or by clicking on More … on an iPad, should assist greatly. Please bear in mind that the task of getting both sound and picture to members on Zoom is fraught with difficulties. We continue to struggle on, it may not always be totally successful.

Directions

Boxmoor Playhouse
72 St John’s Rd
Hemel Hempstead
HP1 1NP

Parking round the Moor   OR    55 – 57 Park Road, HP1 1JS

Directions

Buses between Hemel and Berkhamsted: 500  and X500 bus.
Buses are approximately every 30 minutes: Red Eagle Buses

Local buses running in St John’s Road past Boxmoor Playhouse

H10 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9e20e052-b756-4ff5-afeb-f0a0ce466e1c?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound

H11 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9077ed51-eb28-40df-8838-8c69504b3299?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound&all=on

Last updated: 8 Sep ’26

Views: 150

Monthly Meeting – Monday 7 September 2026

   

Codebreaking
Northchurch Social Centre, Berkhamsted

MONDAY 7 September, 10:00 REFRESHMENTS,

10.30 PRESENTATION

doors open 09:45

About eight years ago, after a career in international IT and Management Consultancy, Mike became a volunteer at Bletchley Park, having attended as a visitor for perhaps ten years previously as a visitor.  Mike serves as a volunteer Guide at the BP heritage museum and also demonstrates the Turing-Welchman Bombe and Enigma codebreaking at the National Museum of Computing. In 2024, Mike Barbakoff entertained us with his presentation about The Women of Bletchley Park. He now presents “Codebreaking against the Land of the Rising Sun”. This talk embraces the inception of the UK/USA Special Relationship and highlights the Signals Intelligence activities of the United Kingdom and United States against Japan in the Second World War.  It covers the efforts of Bletchley Park and its overseas outstations as well as the enormous contribution of the Unites States Navy and Army, Australia and New Zealand SIGINT operations. Failures such as Pearl Harbor and successes such as the Battle of Midway are used to illustrate the effectiveness of Signals Intelligence No fee to be paid Contact: Groups via this link (select addressee: Groups) The meeting will be hybrid, if you wish to participate on Zoom, use the link that will be supplied in the Group News closer to the date. If you experience difficulty with the sound, turning on Captions, at the bottom of the Zoom screen on a PC or by clicking on More … on an iPad, should assist greatly. Please bear in mind that the task of getting both sound and picture to members on Zoom is fraught with difficulties. We continue to struggle on, it may not always be totally successful No fee to be paid Contact: Groups via this link (select addressee: Groups) The meeting will be hybrid, if you wish to participate on Zoom, use the link that will be supplied in the Group News closer to the date. If you experience difficulty with the sound, turning on Captions, at the bottom of the Zoom screen on a PC or by clicking on More … on an iPad, should assist greatly. Directions

Northchurch Social Centre Bell Lane, Northchurch Berkhamsted HP4 3RD There is parking at the centre. Please double park! Directions Buses between Hemel and Berkhamsted: 500  and X500 bus. Buses are approximately every 30 minutes: 500 and X500 Timetable See Northchurch Map Last updated: 8 Aug ’26

Views: 114