• 11 or 16 Sep 2014 - Sir Walter Scott commemorative walk, led by Dr Iain Gordon Brown.
• 29 Oct 2014 - Private Tour of Kinross House.
• 3 Oct 2014 - NADFAS Scotland & Northern Ireland Area Special Interest Day:
  "The Genius that is Michaelangelo"
• Another word from the webmaster about missing eMails.

This walk commemorates the bicentenary of the publication of "Waverley", the first of Sir Walter Scott's novels, in 1814.

Our walking tour will be led by Dr Iain Gordon Brown, Vice-President of EDFAS, former President of both the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club and the Old Edinburgh Club, Curatorial Adviser to the Abbotsford Trust and author of books and scholarly articles on Sir Walter Scott’s life and work. The tour starts outside 25 George Square, Scott’s early home. From there we proceed to the National Library of Scotland to see some of Scott’s original manuscripts, including that of Waverley itself, and to Parliament House (where Scott spent much of his working life) to see John Greenshield's statue of Sir Walter Scott in Parliament Hall.

We walk on to Lady Stair’s Close where the Writers’ Museum will bring Scott to life for us with more stories and artefacts from his life. On walking down the Mound, we hear about the building of the Scott Monument (which we shall not be climbing). Moving into the New Town, passing some Scott-related locations, we will be welcomed at Scott’s later home, 39 Castle Street, by the present owners, Professor and Mrs Richard Wiseman. Descending through the New Town, we will pause in Northumberland Street at the former home of J G Lockhart, a contemporary author, Scott’s son-in-law, and his first major biographer.

The tour finishes at 4 Abercromby Place, the home of our tour leader who, with his wife Dr Patricia Andrew, has kindly invited us to take a sandwich lunch with wine and view an important and evocative piece of Scott’s furniture.

Members will meet at 25 George Square at 9.30am on Thursday 11 September, sufficiently fit to undertake the reasonably brisk walk as described above. We expect the tour to conclude around 1.00pm.

Only 20 places are available on the Tour, and if there is sufficient interest, the tour will be repeated on Tuesday 16 September. To apply please fill in the application form (below) specifying which (or both) of the dates that you could attend. Tickets - for members only to begin with - will be £10.00, cheques made payable to EDFAS.

Click here for the flyer

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Described in Country Life as ‘the complete expression in stone of the Renaissance in Scotland’ Kinross House, a neoclassical Palladian mansion, is considered to be architect and politician Sir William Bruce’s masterpiece. So that the house when finished would be set in mature surroundings, Sir William set about creating the designed landscape and formal gardens ten years before construction started in 1685.

Following the Bruce dynasty, the estate passed by marriage to the Montgomery family, where it remained for over 240 years, until Mr Donald Fothergill acquired the property in 2011. Since then, an extensive renovation programme has been undertaken with Kinross House being declared the winner of the Historic Houses Association and Sotheby’s UK Restoration Award in 2013.

As well as a private tour, John Lowrey, Senior Lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh, has kindly agreed to come and share his expert knowledge of the history of Kinross House together with antique furniture restorer, Jeremy Gow, who will describe the work he has undertaken on behalf of the present owner.

Two sessions with refreshments are being offered – morning (10.15 am- 12.30 pm) OR afternoon (2.00-4.15 pm) – to members only at this stage. Both groups are welcome to bring a picnic lunch affording an opportunity to see the gardens between 12.30 and 2.00 pm, weather permitting. Indoor facilities including coffee and tea will also be available during this time. Tickets priced at £20 per head will be issued by ballot after Monday 8th September. Members should make their own travel arrangements. Please say if you are able to offer or require a lift and indicate preferred visit time on the flyer.

Click here for the flyer

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Moray, Banff and Badenoch DFAS have organised this Special Interest Day to celebrate the life and works of Michaelangelo, who died 450 years ago, in 1564. Shirley Smith, an established NADFAS lecturer, will give two lectures on "The Genius that is Michaelangelo". Please see the attached flyer for more information on this event, and on how to join this Special Interest Day, by applying direct to Moray, Banff and Badenoch DFAS.

Click here for the flyer

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I make little apology for repeating this massage about "missing" eMails, as it is of some concern that eMail should be as reliable a means of distribution of our flyers as the traditional, but increasingly expensive, method, by post.

Members have asked about missing EDFAS events eMails, and what we, or they, can do about this. Frequently, a friend has received the events eMail, but they have not. As I mentioned in the previous mailing, there are many possible explanations, a few within EDFAS' control, most completely outside it.

The most common cause of non-delivery is that our message is wrongly flagged as "unsolicited commercial eMail" or spam. Apparently, nearly 70% of all global eMail traffic is spam. We send out the eMails using a bulk mailing program, in such a way that the various mail servers should not wrongly assess our mails as spam. Nevertheless, this does happen, and there is almost nothing that EDFAS can do about this. In some cases, you, our members, may have control over your own spam filter, and, if you do (and know what this means), you may have the opportunity to "Whitelist" the mail address from which we send our mails. Nevertheless, our messages may still be trapped by other spam filters over which you, and we, have no control.

We are trialling a new means of distributing our flyers, Mail Chimp, which comes recommended by the IT professionals at NADFAS House. This may stand a better chance of not having our message flagged as spam. The "look-and-feel" of our message will be slightly different, and it will not come from EDFASmail@gmail.com, but, otherwise, it should be just the same. As ever, I should be interested in feedback, favourable or otherwise, to webmaster@edfas.co.uk.

Again repeating what I wrote in a previous mailing, human factors may also play a part. We have heard of members themselves deleting our mails without thinking, or, worse still (yes, we have heard this!), their spouses may have done so without consulting them. In such cases, EDFAS can do something to help. Henceforth, we shall post a link to any bulk eMails on the "Members' page" of the website. Should you wish to recover the mailing, you should find it there, and be able to link to the flyers for the various events, just as you would have done from the mailing itself. We shall leave the links there until well after the event has passed, and shall then purge the page of old mailings at intervals. We shall be glad to have feedback on whether this is of any help.

Many members are already familiar with the website and use it regularly, but we encourage those who are not to have a look. We are always available to help - up to a point.

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