| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Leader: | |
| When: | Monthly on Wednesday afternoons 2:00 pm-4:00 pm Week 1 |
| Venue: | Mountford 3 |
Ancient Greece, led by Juliet Walker, has been running since January 2015. The group meets once a month, on the first Wednesday, at the Community Centre. Meetings are from 2 to 4pm, with a tea break in the middle. A small annual contribution is made to cover the cost of refreshments, printing and hire of the projector. A reminder email with information about the content of the meeting is always sent out a week beforehand.
It is a lively group enjoying presentations, discussions, and the company of like-minded people. We have covered many aspects of the civilisation, in a thematic rather than a chronological way, from the Minoans in prehistoric Crete to the Classical Age of the 5th/4th Century BC. Members are encouraged to contribute to the sessions, whether by talking about items of classical interest they have found in the media, or by leading part of a session on a topic that interests them.
We go on outings – when possible – and have been on three trips abroad, the most recent being in April 2024. Two of these have been to the archaeological sites of mainland Greece, particularly those on the Peloponnese, and one to the Greek and Roman remains on Sicily. We have also been on many visits to the British Museum, often to their major exhibitions on the classical world, and once to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. We have sampled Greek meals in pubs and restaurants. Last year some of us went to the musical Hadestown and to the film The Return, with Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and this year we are looking forward - with some trepidation! - to the summer blockbuster The Odyssey (Matt Damon as Odysseus this time!) and to the new take on Antigone at the Minerva in the autumn.
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