A Selection of Past Meetings
The IBO has had many meetings offering interesting content and a chance to catch up. Here are some notes on some recent occasions ...
Chichester Meeting March 2026
We were once again lucky with the weather for our first meeting of 2026, held in Chichester.
The day begun in Chichester Cathedral where Charles Harrison, Organist and Master of the Choristers welcomed us and provided a background on the organ before demonstrating it very ably with a selection of pieces. Alan Thurlow (Organist at Chichester from 1980 to 2008) gave an enlightening talk about the history of the town, Chichester Diocese and its cathedral and then members were able to visit the organ loft and have a play.
We transferred down a bustling high street to St John's Chapel where a plentiful lunch of delicicous sandwiches, suadage rolls, cake and fruit was served and members had the chance to chat before the afternoon session started. Alan Thurlow opened the afternoon's proceedings with a talk about this particularly historic area of Chichester and the history of this chapel, which closed in 1970 and was taken over by the Churches' Conservation Trust. The George Pike England (1813) organ was dismantled so that when Goetze & Gwynn were engaged to rebuild the organ (thanks to a large donation) in 2025 Rob Balfour-Rowley was faced with somehwat of a jigsaw to reassemble. He gave an insightful talk of this painstaking process and the day was finished off by a short recital by Alan Thurlow, joined by Barry Newton for a duet rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah as arranged by the Chapel's first organist John Marsh (1752-1828).
We were once again lucky with the weather for our first meeting of 2026, held in Chichester.The day begun in Chichester Cathedral where Charles Harrison, Organist and Master of the Choristers welcomed us and provided a background on the organ before demonstrating it very ably with a selection of pieces. Alan Thurlow (Organist at Chichester from 1980 to 2008) gave an enlightening talk about the history of the town, Chichester Diocese and its cathedral and then members were able to visit the organ loft and have a play.
We transferred down a bustling high street to St John's Chapel where a plentiful lunch of delicicous sandwiches, suadage rolls, cake and fruit was served and members had the chance to chat before the afternoon session started. Alan Thurlow opened the afternoon's proceedings with a talk about this particularly historic area of Chichester and the history of this chapel, which closed in 1970 and was taken over by the Churches' Conservation Trust. The George Pike England (1813) organ was dismantled so that when Goetze & Gwynn were engaged to rebuild the organ (thanks to a large donation) in 2025 Rob Balfour-Rowley was faced with somehwat of a jigsaw to reassemble. He gave an insightful talk of this painstaking process and the day was finished off by a short recital by Alan Thurlow, joined by Barry Newton for a duet rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah as arranged by the Chapel's first organist John Marsh (1752-1828).
Birmingham Weekend Meeting October 2025
The reason for the decision to base the 2025 Weekend meeting in Birmingham was the installation of two new organs by William Drake Ltd at Birmingham Conservatoire. The picutre shows our group of approx 50 in front of the new Juliet organ in the Organ Studio there. In addition to talks by Joost de Boer and Geert Noppers, we were treated to a superb demonstration by Sander Booij from the Netherlands.
Over the course of the weekend we also managed to arrange to visit the Garnier organ at the University of Birmingham at Edgbaston on Friday evening and the enormous Hill organ at Birmingham Town Hall on Sunday morning.
Whenever possible we try to include training on an aspect of organ building during our meetings and this time attention was focussed on electrical systems with the team from Solid State Organ Systems (including their new MD, Chris Betts flying in from the USA especially!) providing a session om fault finding and introducing members to some product development. Last but by no means least, the meeting included the traditional IBO dinner and we were delighted that Andrew McCrea of the RCO joined us as our after-dinner speaker. As ever, the weather held fair and a good weekend was had by all!
AGM Holborn, London 26th July 2025
Our AGM day included visits to two very different churches: St Andrew's Holborn and St Alban the Martyr Holborn. IBO Hon Member Ian Bell gave a very interesting talk on the installation of the organ by N P Mander at St Andrew's in 1989. This church is used by the Royal College of Organists for candidates sitting exams which naturally had an impact on its design. After Ian's talk Edward Kemp-Luck demonstrated the organ for us.A short walk up High Holborn took us to St Alban's where lunch was served in the Parish Centre. we then moved into the main body of the church, with its colourful eye-catching painting covering the entire east wall. St Alban's is home to a large 60 stop 1961 Compton organ which has been restored by B C Shepherd & Sons during 2025. Eric Shepherd gave a talk about the firm's comprehensive restoration work which included the releathering of all the bellows, the restoration of the electro-pneumatic action and the console and the installation of a new electronic control system. The organ was then demonstrated by Edward Batting, Organist & Director of Music.
The day was rounded off by the official business of the Annual General Meeting attended also on Zoom by IBO professional members, where Phil Johnson was elected Chair and new members Tim Bennett and Mark Gatrell welcomed to the Board.
