The tour was a success despite cold, showery and windy weather. 28 of us went including 3 current committee members and many past members; the oldest being 95. She held up very well and was an inspiration to us all!

The hotel had excellent rooms, good food, a swimming pool, good WiFi and splendid grounds. We knew our driver (Mark) from the Amsterdam and Delft tour and he was, again, excellent. Our first stop was at Audley End (see photo), enroute to the hotel on day 1. The remaining 1⁄3 of a Jacobean Royal palace, it was magnificent.

On Tuesday. our magnificent guide Claire joined us for three days. We loved Constable country, visiting Flatford Mill and Dedham. Later in the day, we visited Colchester castle museum.

On Wednesday (day 3) we went to Ickworth House. It is an ornate Italianate house consisting of a central Rotunda and 2 wings connected by corridors. Sadly the dissolute habits of a recent owner has led to the east wing being sold off. It is now a luxury family hotel. (www.luxuryfamilyhotels.co.uk) A quick check on google shows that it is somewhat family orientated, but may well warrant a visit for that special occasion. The remainder of the property and gardens are now owned by the National Trust.

Later, in nearby Bury St Edmunds, we visited the ruins of an Abbey which was demolished after the reformation of Henry V111. It had been, clearly, a very big and rich Abbey. In the same grounds now stand a cathedral and a church with a magnificent hammer beam roof. The day concluded with a visit to, and the detailed history of, a surviving regency Theatre. If you were a real theatre addict, the theatre visit tour was good, but, perhaps a little too long for most members.

Day 4 (Thursday) started with a visit to Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich. A house built on the riches of trade and now owned by the people (specifically not the town; so the Council cannot sell it off!). At the main gate, in the road, are 2 stone memorials to 2 winners of the Victoria Cross, by men of Ipswich. Both men died with no known relatives and left their medals to the town. A touching memorial meaning they will not be forgotten. The afternoon started with a visit to Aldeburgh, where we had lunch. The day finished at Sutton Hoo, a National Trust property and the site of the Anglo Saxon ship burial portrayed in the recent film The Dig. A most interesting visit, much enjoyed.

Friday was our last day. On our, slightly circuitous, way home, we visited Kentwell Hall. It was well worth the minor diversion. The house is the earliest symmetrically designed house in UK as well as being the first “Statement” house in England; so we were informed. The owner gave us a 2 hour guided tour and he proved to be almost as interesting as his house. A barrister by profession, he and his wife bought the house in 1972. He was born in Devon, when his mother moved there to escape the blitz, but now considers himself an East Anglian. An excellent example of the wealthy shabby chic in his baggy and scruffy trousers, thick leather waistcoat and a fine, but now unravelling, sports jacket!

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from the website host.. A “plain english” explanation is given below.

We had 278 users in June 23 compared to 173 in May 23. There were 499 sessions at 00:02:54 sessions per user compared to 00.01.55 user in May 23. The number of pages viewed was 2121 compared to 784 in May 23. The peak activity in June occurred on 20 June and there is no obvious reason for that. Other peaks occurred in early June, in the run up to our June lecture and AGM, and around 26 June when an email with a date change was sent out. 70.1% of hits were returning visitors with 29.9% new users.

After ExeDFAS recent sponsorship, with a grant from the Patricia Fay fund ‘of an arts days’ for Devon Young Carers last November, we have helped to fund a further day this last May. These young carers, some only seven years old, are often the main carers for sick or disabled parents. Our contribution to these arts days helps to provide a little respite time for them as they work with artists.

Sadly, our current reduced financial situation means we may not be able to assist these activities in the next year or two. None the less, the day went well and the children certainly seemed to enjoy themselves.

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from the website host.. A “plain english” explanation is given below.

We had 173 users in May 23 compared to 154 in March 23. There were 235 sessions at 00.01.55 sessions per user compared to 00.02:14 per user in March 23. The average number of pages viewed was 3.34 compared to 3.90 in March 23. The peak activity in May occurred at the time of our monthly lecture. 68.2% of hits were returning visitors with 31.8 % new users.

Tour to Belfast and Northern Ireland

17-21st April 2023

We had 29 on the tour as one member had covid and chose not to come.

We stayed at Dunadry Country house hotel. It had had large rooms, superb food and a lovely large garden. The weather was good with a blue sky and sunshine. However, the price of a large glass of red wine was a bit stiff. Furthermore the heating was not on in the rooms unless you phoned down and asked for it to be put on; then it was only on for an hour!

A start at 4.00am from Budleigh was a bit of a shock but all went smoothly. Our guide, Tommy Collins MBE, was a delightful local man and Jimmy, our driver, drove us around safely and smoothly.

On arrival we found that our itinerary was affected by the Clintons visit for the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Their schedule was top secret, so we only found something was closed on the day. After a quick stop in Belfast we went to Mount Stewart on Strangford Lough – lovely gardens and house – a lot of history there.

We spent Tuesday in Londonderry; a delightful place. We walked the walls – some bounded by really high fences to stop petrol bombs and paint being lobbed in. We could have spent much longer in the Tower museum. However, the Clintons coming that day curtailed our visit. Tommy had to think on his feet and we went to Antrim Castle gardens and walked to Lough Neagh.

On Wednesday, we went to the Giants Causeway and the spectacular Antrim coast. Blessed with good weather, the basalt lava was a picturesque site although very busy. We ended up at the privately owned Glenarm Castle gardens. Sadly we could not get into the castle!

Thursday proved to be one of the highlights of the tour, with the visit to Castle Ward on the other side of Strangford Lough. It is where Winterfell was filmed (Game of Thrones, for those who don’t know). The castle has most impressive ceilings. One half of the house is Gothic and the other half Palladian. The couple who had the castle built couldn’t agree on the styling. She left him soon after the house was built and returned to Bath. She left him with five of their six children and never returned!

From Castle Ward, we went to Queens University, the Ulster museum and the Botanic gardens.

Friday was Titanic day! Hailed as the best Exhibition ever, the Titanic experience is truly wonderful. A few stayed on till we had to go to the airport. The rest of us went on to the wonderful City Hall and St Anns Cathedral. Tommy took us on a tour round the Shankhill road area. These areas,

although much redeveloped, are a reminder of an earlier inner city way of life. With the money that has poured in since the Good Friday agreement and from the EU, the impression is that NI is doing very nicely and prospering – more so, perhaps, than England!

The return journey to Bristol went well. However, our coach was an hour late and a complaint has been lodged with our Travel Company

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from the website host. A “plain english” explanation is given below.

We had 146 users in April 23 compared to 154 in March. There were 221 sessions at 00.02:38 sessions per user compared to 1.77 per user in January 23. The average number of pages viewed was 3.77 compared to 3.90 in March 23. The peak activity in April occurred around the date of our monthly lecture. 72% of hits were returning visitors with 28% new users.

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from the website host.  A “plain english” explanation is given below.

We had 154 users in March 23 compared to 216 in February 23. There were 264 sessions at 00.02:14 sessions per user compared to 1.77 per user in January 23. The average number of pages viewed was 3.90 compared to 3.36 in February 23. The peak activity in March occurred when our email giving the cut off date for the visit to Dartmouth was sent. Other peaks included a similar email about the SS Great Britain visit and in the week of our monthly lecture. 70.5% of hits were returning visitors with 29.5 % new users.

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from the website host.. A “plain english” explanation is given below.

We had 216 users in February 23 compared to 277 in January 23. There were 324 sessions at 1.50 sessions per user compared to 1.77 per user in January 23. The average number of pages viewed was 3.36 compared to 4.75 in January 23. The peak activity in February occurred immediately before the lecture, perhaps because a new speaker had been recruited at short notice after the dropout of the original speaker.

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from the website host.. A “plain english” explanation is given below.

We had 277 users in January 23 compared to 284 in December 22. There were 397 sessions at 1.75 sessions per user compared to 1.70 per user in December 22. The average number of pages viewed was 4.75 compared to 3.39 in December 22. The peak activity in January occurred immediately after the lecture presumably as feedback was given on the site.

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from the website host.. A “plain english” explanation is given below.

“284 users accessed the site last month compared to216 in November. DID YOU? The peak activity was on December 20 when news from Jan Lawson (Thank you Jan) of the ChristmasTree Festival was first posted to the site. Did you goto see our tree and all the others? Did you make a donation to the charities? Did you sell membership of ExeDFAS on the back of our attendance at the Festival?

And there was also a flurry of activity immediately after the December lecture on Dec 8. Thank you SO much for the helpful reviews left on the site. Bounce rate has increased to 40% from 30% being visitors to the site going no further than the Home Page.

On average, website visitors are looking at more than 3 pages down from 5 pages in November.”

Finally, the website has a lot of “normal text” which contain links to other websites. For ease of recognition, many of these are texts such as “click here” or “learn more here” and are various colours other the than black. If you hover your pointer over that text, you should get a pointing hand symbol.

This means a click will take you to the relevant website page. We hope you will find it a quick and handy way to reach web pages of interest.

On our website we tend to be more explicit saying “click here”or “learn more”. On other websites, it is always worth hovering your cursor over text which is not black as it might turn out to a hidden link, embedded in the text.

Our monthly analytical report on the usage of our website has been received from our website host.. A “plain english” explanation is given below.

“195 new users accessed the site in November and 216 in total.  The peak activity was on November 14 after the November lecture when almost 50 users visited the site (many, presumably, reviewing the lecture).

Our ‘bounce rate’ is more than 30% of visitors to the site.  ‘Bounce rate’ means ”the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page”.  The converse of that statistic is that almost 70% of visitors go to more than one page.  On average, website visitors are looking at more than 5 pages.

There was a flurry of activity on November 23 after it was announced that day that the booking window for the Northern Ireland trip is closing soon.”

In addition to those figures, we can report that the website now has a fully functioning feedback page, accessible from the home page.  It has been used for feedback on our November and December talks.  In November we had 29 feedback inputs.  In December, it rose to 41.  So that is an encouraging trend and members are encouraged to use the facility.  The website feedback option offers a much more sophisticated and varied assessment than the buttons in the jar!

Data is just in on the new website – this in respect of the month of October. The new ExeDFAS website (thank you so much Ralph and David) was visited in the 31 days of October by 151 users, about 5 a day. On average each user visited twice and on average each user visited 7 pages. The peak visitation was on Oct 10 – i.e. immediately BEFORE  the lecture when almost 40 users visited the site (>15% of members). We’ll track these data points and comment on the behaviour suggested over the next months and report again.

ExeDFAS recently successfully applied for a grant from the Arts Society’s ‘Patricia Fay Fund’ in order to sponsor ‘arts days’ for Devon Young Carers.  These young people, some as young as seven, are often the main carers for sick or disabled parents and gain a little respite time working with artists.  We hope these ‘arts days’ will take place in May 2023.

We supported similar days last year, and also two years earlier.  During these ‘arts days’, the young carers work with artists in various materials, and often have something to take home afterwards.

During the pandemic ‘lockdown’, we paid for a number of ‘art boxes’ containing brushes, paints etc., which were delivered to their homes, so that they could work on art of their own making.

Our Tour to Floriade and The Netherlands

2 -7th October 2022

There were 18 Members on this tour, having dropped from 24 for various reasons.  We had an excellent coach driver and new 53 seater coach.  It took about 14 hours to get to our hotel in Delft.  That was without any hold ups!  The use of the Club Lounge on the P and O ferry both ways was much appreciated by all.  The hotel was 10 mins walk from the main square.  The dinners and breakfasts were excellent.

The following day we had a morning tour of Delft and we saw where Vermeer spent a lot of his life.  In the afternoon we enjoyed a tour of Royal Delft pottery and museum.

The next day we had a tour of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  It is a really high quality  museum.  One couple went on to the Van Gogh museum.  In the afternoon we had a boat tour of the canals.

On Wednesday, we went to the Floriade from 10.30am till 4.00pm.  It seems possible that this might be the last one.  It has been badly affected by Covid in the last couple of years, particularly in terms of shops and merchandising.  It was a vast outdoor experience with a cable car and we were blessed with good weather.  There were some intriguing art exhibits and much to learn about sustainability and soil-less gardening.  There were some lovely borders in bloom.  It was not crowded and was an enjoyable experience.

Thursday was a highlight.  We had a guided tour of the Panorama Mesdag in The Hague, a cylindrical painting over 14 metres high and 120 metres in circumference.  Depicting the vista of the sea, the dunes and Scheveningen village, this is the largest painting in the Netherlands and was painted by Hendrik Willem Mesdag, the most famous painter at The Hague School.  This is a 3 D, sound and light experience and was truly remarkable.  We went behind the scenes to see how it was built and one could have stayed for hours there.

From there we went to a tour of Mauritshuis in The Hague, known as the ‘Royal Gallery of Paintings’.  Recently reopened after a major expansion and renovation, the gallery is home to an outstanding collection.

Going to Ghent on the way back was ambitious.  We got only a couple of hours there.  It was just enough time to visit the Cathedral but not properly tour it.  We had a 15 hour journey back.