Lunches
The lunches are held on the third Thursday of each month at 11.30 for 12.30 in the Homestead Court Hotel in Welwyn Garden City. Dress is normally smart casual with a jacket and tie for the men. Expect to get away by 3pm. The three course lunch with coffee costs £30 and includes a starter, meat main course, a dessert or cheese and biscuits, and coffee. An alternative main course “chef’s selection of fish”, may be pre-booked when registering for the lunch.
On arrival for lunch members check in by the hotel reception. Those who have ordered a variant from the menu will receive an envelope containing cards which indicate a diner's choice of alternative for the 'Starter, Main Course and Desert or Cheese and Biscuits’. They should be displayed on their lunch table to help the waiting staff. A cash bar is open for drinks before, and with the meal.
Lunches must be booked no later than the Friday of the week before the lunch. The club has recently introduced an online lunch booking scheme which has made life easier for both lunch attendees, the Lunch Secretary and other committee members. Links to the online booking forms are emailed to members about one month ahead of each upcoming lunch. Details of the lunches, along with the necessary booking forms are also included in the Newsletter. The club also strongly encourages lunch payment by online bank transfer.
Any Member who is unable to attend after booking is responsible for the cost unless a cancellation is notified by the Friday previous to the booked lunch.
Some individual members reserve seats for themselves and their guests by placing cards on the tables. Whilst this has disadvantages and is less than ideal, nobody has yet come up with a more acceptable idea!
Details of the talks to be given at the next two lunches are given below. The dates and times of Lunches, outings and other upcoming events, can be found on the Google Calendar of HELC Events. This is currently set as Agenda view, but you can change to Week or Month view; you can also print a list of events over any range of dates you choose. Public Holidays are shown in green text, all HELC items are a different colour. Click on an event to see full details, including a link to a map of the meeting point or venue.
19 November 2026
Career at the BBC
Sally Little
Sally’s talk will be about her job which involved interviewing presenters, producers, senior executives, and technical staff including broadcast engineers. An informative talk about life at the BBC
Sally Little (née Hillier) was barely out of her teens when she joined the BBC as an assistant in the TV Political Research Unit in the Lime Grove Studios, home to Panorama, Newsnight and the now defunct Nationwide. Her role was to compile information to be used on air by the likes of Sir Robin Day, David Dimbleby and Peter Snow
Subsequently, Sally became a reporter on, and then the deputy editor of, the BBC in-house newspaper that was published weekly and was read by tens of thousands of employees in the UK and in news bureaux around the globe.
17 December 2026
Handel in London
Paul Herring
The German-born composer Handel lived most of his life in London settling in Brook St Mayfair in 1712 becoming a naturalised British subject in 1727. Handel was one of the greatest late-baroque composers. This presentation looks into the musical world of Georgian England when London became the operatic centre of Europe. Handel enjoyed royal approval and financial support and composed 40 operas. He attracted the finest singers and musicians in Europe. But his hugely successful career was not without controversy. The so-called ‘soprano wars and the use of castrati singers like Senesino caused a real sensation. With the decline of opera Handel moved to the oratorio where he again achieved artistic perfection with works like The Messiah and Solomon.
The presentation will be supported by Power Point slides and numerous short video performances of some of Handel’s finest works often performed on authentic instruments.
Paul studied organ at St George’s Chapel Windsor under John Porter, then Assistant Organist to Dr Sidney Campbell. He continued his studies at Chester College and on completing his PGCE entered the teaching profession in 1981. After 4 years teaching music at a comprehensive school in Norfolk, Paul was appointed Head of Music at the Knights Templar School in Baldock. He has been the organist at St Mary’s Church since 1986 and now teaches Music and Organ at St. Francis College, Letchworth.
