Members honoured
The longest serving an d youngest ever members of the Scarborough Forty Club were honoured last week at the club’s 115th annual dinner attended by the mayor.
The Forty Club has been in existence since 1899 and is the only gentlemen’s debating society of its kind in the country. Started by Henry Vasey in 1899 the number of members was limited to 40, hence the name. Previous members have included Scarborough mayors and councillors, local businessmen, police officers and teachers. The aim of the society is ‘the intellectual advancement and entertainment and of its members’.
Alan Staniforth is now the longest serving member of the club since it began. He started in 1965 and has been attending for 50 years. He recently gave a presentation about his time in the club and looked back at how the world has changed since then. In 1965 the first space walk had just occurred, Winston Churchill had died and Beeching was cutting the railways.
Alan said: “At that t i me there were so many members in the club that it was hard to catch the chairman’s eye to get a turn to speak”. Alan has presented nearly 50 talks over the years and they have included a wide range of topics such as suicide, homosexuality, pollution, war, forestry and geology.
He became president at the tender age of 32, acting twice in the role and serving as club secretary for many years. The mayor, Cll r Pat Marsburg, presented Alan with a trophy marking his 50-year contribution.
Alan said: “I am now looking forward to celebrating my 60th year in the club. What keeps us together is the club’s motto ‘ We do not all think alike, but we all alike agree to think’.”
Another member t o receive a trophy at last week’s dinner was James Eat on , who is now the youngest ever member in the club’s 115-year history. In February he gave his maiden s peech on gl obal warming. He impressed members with a confident and well-researched presentation giving a plethora of facts and figures about increasing CO2 levels and the costs of converting to sustainable energy supplies.
Members were given lots to discuss including population levels, volcanoes, human nature, bus fuel consumption, i nternational power grids, coin meters for electricity, the earth’s orbit, wheat crops, low energy bulbs and tea making techniques! 17-year-old James is the grandson of a former long serving member, Keith Wastling, who sadly passed away in 2013.
The Scarborough Forty Club is now in it s summer recess but resumes i n September at 7.30pm on Thursday evenings, to debate more topical subjects. For more information contact the president on ( 01 7 23) 3 5 3 200 or visit www.sites.google.com/ site /scarborough 40club .