The Lunar Society

The Lunar Society

Today's Lunar Society has several hundred members and includes leading practitioners from all walks of life in Birmingham and the wider region. Like its illustrious 18th century predecessor, it provides a lively forum for its membership to influence change through stimulating ideas, broadening debate and catalysing action.

The next meeting of the Society is a public debate at Town Hall on 14th October: Should Birmingham be planning a radical response to climate change?

Chaired by Lunarman Sir Michael Lyons, the panelists on this Question Time-style debate are the former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, Michael Meacher MP, former OECD Chief Economist David Henderson, IPN Director Julian Morris, Executive Director of the European Environmental Agency Professor Jacqueline McGlade & Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre.

Sir David Arculus is the Guest Speaker at the Lord Mayor's Lunar Society 2008 Annual Dinner on 18th November. The Winter Social on 9th December is at Highbury.

Deirdre Kelly: Review of the Year at the 2008 AGM

Deirdre Kelly gave extracts from her Review of the Year at the 2008 AGM at the Council House, Birmingham on 23rd July. Her Review ends with these words: "It is an exciting time for the Society. We have achieved a great deal in the last year, and will build on what we’ve done — by presenting a lively programme of meetings and events, encouraging relationships with other organisations, and recruiting individual men and women from all walks of life, people who are eager to meet the intellectual challenge of how best to contribute to the common good now and in the future. We look forward to involving you more!" The full text of the Review can be read here.

David Urquhart: 2008 Boulton & Watt Commemoration

The Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd David Urquhart gave the Society's 2008 Boulton & Watt Commemoration Lecture Reflections on 18 months in Birmingham at St Mary's Church, Handsworth, on 12th May. The text of his Lecture can be read here.

Sir Liam Donaldson: 2008 Annual Lecture

Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, gave the Society's 2008 Annual Lecture The Challenges for Medicine in the 21st Century to a capacity audience in the Leonard Deacon Lecture Theatre at the University of Birmingham Medical School on 5th March. The Birmingham Post report of his Lecture can be read here. Owing to confidentiality issues, the full text of his speech is not available on-line. However, a summary can be read here.

Trevor Phillips: 2007 Annual Dinner speech

Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, ended his Annual Dinner speech Knowledge, Difference and Inequality: The Potential for Combustion with these words:
"Birmingham will face the demands of dealing with difference earlier and more fully than most. I entreat you to put your considerable skills - your professionalism, your intellect, your enthusiasm - to working out here, in the one of the nation's great laboratories of diversity, how we should confront this 21st century challenge. This is no longer a local issue. It is global. You here, in this room, with your ingenuity and your energy could in the years ahead, become a beacon to the world."
The full text of his speech can be read here.

Professor Parkinson: 2007 Boulton & Watt Commemoration Lecture

Professor Michael Parkinson gave the Society's annual Boulton & Watt Commemoration Lecture: Where is Birmingham going in the 21st century?, chaired by the Society's Vice Chairman, Alan Wenban-Smith on 31 October 2007. Acknowledging the "brilliant first act" of Birmingham's renaissance in the 1980s and 90s, Professor Parkinson put this in the context of comparatively more successful cities in the 21st century, both in the UK and in Europe. Alan Wenban-Smith's summary of his Lecture can be read here, where pdfs of Professor Parkinson's presentation can be downloaded.

AGM: New Chair Professor Deirdre Kelly sets vision for the Society

At the 2007 AGM, the incoming Chair Professor Deirdre Kelly, set her vision for her two-year tenure of office, saying. "The Lunar Society is a unique society. It has been hugely successful and has talented and accomplished members. It is an enviable brand. We are able, through our neutral position to facilitate discussion and debate on many leading edge issues and concerns and influence the outcome."
The full text of her speech can be read here.

John Armitt's 2007 Annual Lecture

The Society's Fourth Annual Lecture Engineering the Future delivered by John Armitt at Matthew Boulton College last March can be downloaded from here. John Armitt has since retired from his position as Chief Executive of Network Rail to take up the position of Chairman of the EPSRC. From 1 September, he will also lead the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) as its Chair.

David Miliband's 2006 Annual Dinner Speech

David Miliband's Speech One Planet Living: Towards a 3D Energy Revolution made at the Annual Dinner in the autumn can be read here or downloaded as a pdf from here. Members will recall that, in a departure from his prepared speech, the Minister pledged his Department's support for the Lunar Society's challenging target for the region to be carbon neutral by 2030.

David Miliband left DEFRA to become Secretary of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office with Gordon Brown's premiership.