Pat Mearing’s Press Release -22nd March 2019

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Michael Harrison,, who started the Discussion Group several years ago,informed the club at the last meeting that he had decided to retire as organiser. His duties  will be taken over by John Newhouse and John Beaumont. They have decided that the topics for discussion at the monthly meetings will be decided by the members attending. The group meets on the first Tuesday of each month.

Jim Flett reported on the last meeting of the IT group when the “Apps” subject was discussed , covering its use for satellite navigation linked to the car through to smart telephone banking.  Security aspects of the “Apps” also came under review  and Jim stressed the need  to use the bcc entry on emails  when sending an email to a large group of people.

The Bridge and Supper season ended with a successful meeting at the Knutsford Golf Club. There were 16 people at it and its is hoped that more members will compete  when the next season starts in the autumn.

The proposed trip to the Rolls Royce Aerospace Museum in Derby in May has had to be postponed because of  building work at the Museum.

Neil Sheldon was the speaker and his subject Alan Turing, who , in 1936, designed the Turing Machine, the forerunner of the modern day computer. Turing was surprisingly not outstanding while at school in  the late twenties  and had to take the Higher School Exam  three times before passing and then needed two attempts at the Cambridge Entrance Exam before being accepted 1931. But then he suddenly broke through. He gained a first class degree in mathematics in 1934, designed the Turing Machine two years later and in 1938 gained a Ph D at Princeton University.

During the second World War he was one of code breakers at Bletchley Park that successfully decoded  Germany’s Enigma machine’s  messages.

After the war in 1952 he was prosecuted for homosexual activities-later granted a Royal Pardon in 2013.But he had died in the fifties.