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.
17 September 2026
Water supply to Growing Populations in an Era of Climate Change
Dr Ilias Karapanos – Affinity Water
Large parts of the Southeast of England have been designated by government as “water stressed”, including Hertfordshire and the Home Counties. The Water Framework Directive and the need to help local rivers achieve “Good Ecological status” are driving significant reductions in abstraction, primarily from the Chalk aquifer, aiming to leave more water in the environment. Meanwhile, climate change is projected to put additional pressure on water resources in the decades to come, suggesting that water availability for both the environment and public water supply needs, will decrease. At the same time, population growth and housing development alongside industrial and infrastructure needs, are all increasing the demand for water. In addition, the rise of data centres and government’s agenda to accelerate growth in this sector, raise further challenges. All the above factors need to be considered in the long-term planning for water resources, in order to ensure a healthy supply-demand balance for future generations. This talk will elaborate on Affinity Water’s water resources management plan and propose solutions aiming to transform the water supply system, whilst seeking to enhance drought, flood and operational resilience.
Dr Ilias Karapanos is a water resources specialist with over 18 years’ experience in the field of hydrogeology and water resources management. Working as a hydrogeologist for Affinity Water since 2011, his research has primarily focused on low flow studies and the impact of public water supply abstraction on river flows and groundwater levels in the Chalk aquifer. Ilias has managed several National Environment Programme projects and has led numerous pumping tests and groundwater pollution investigations. On his current role as the Head of Water Resources Management Planning team at Affinity Water, he is responsible for the delivery of the Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP), which is the long-term strategic plan for water resources looking into the supply-demand balance up to 2075. He also provides advice and technical support to a number of teams within the business, including drought resilience and flood management of water resources. Ilias is a Chartered Geologist with the Geological Society and a Council member since Spring 2024.
15 October 2026
Bridget goes to Mars - An everyday story of the search for life on the red planet
Paul McMahon (HELC member)
Paul's will reveal who Bridget is during the talk! The talk will last about 45 minutes and would be a useful adjunct to the visit in March. The talk will be timed to coincide with World Space Week (https://www.worldspaceweek.org/) which falls every year between Oct 4th and Oct 10th. The UK is usually quite poorly represented in the recorded events on the website this would help to promote space related events in the UK. It can
Paul worked at the Airbus site in Stevenage, which we recently visited, for 43+ years between Aug 1975 and Dec 2018. During that time I worked on over 40 different Space projects and there are over 100 items of hardware in orbit around the Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System that I was involved in. Nearly half of those 43 years were spent involved in Missions to Mars; Beagle2 and The ExoMars Rover.
