With Dan at the lectern, we had two surprisingly entertaining & different speakers who both spoke about quite new subjects:-

• James Willcox – Impressions of Afghanistan. A more exotic travel adventurer than most, James ended up working as a travel guide in Afghanistan, after falling in love with the country on overland trip via Pakistan many years ago. Yes his early days across the country were scattered with the detritus of numerous wars but it is not as uniformly throughout the country.Whilst Kabul & Helmand province endure much, Bamian & the Central Highlands still have so much to offer the brave visitor cultures reflecting the millennia of trade & conquest, a network of teahouses to rival Nepal and an incredibly friendly cross section of peoples.James still works regularly in Afghanistan and you can understand more via his company’s web site at http://www.untamedborders.com/.
• Chris Weston – Animals on the edge. Another traveller who has undertaken what seems a nonstop & ever changing journey, Chris Weston started out as a photographer, after getting bored, and has ended up as a well-regarded specialist on eco tourism. Chris’s main message, delivered passionately but not preaching, is that human / animal conflict over valuable resources is the main cause of species’ threatening extinctions.But Chris doesn’t stop at using his excellent photography to deliver the big stories & pictures he also works at delivering thoughtful solutions – his message is that we can only effectively conserve if we economically value the animal & plant worlds on a meaningful &interactive human level. Visit http://www.animalsontheedge.org/ to see how Chris & his team enjoy gorilla trekking in Rwanda or searching for Tigers in their last remaining strongholds of India & Russia.

The London branch’s future meetings are detailed at London Meeting Programme.

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend – then the meeting rolls forward to the next weekend.

There is no London meeting in August, so we start afresh each September.

For more information, contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 7193 2586, or visit the web site: https://globetrotters.co.uk/local-meetings.html.