Welcome to the International Guild of Battlefield Guides

Preliminary Programme

The two-day programme over the weekend (starting on Friday evening and ending Sunday evening) will include battles and battlefields from:

• The Hundred Years’ War
• The War of the Roses
• The English Civil War
• 18th century wars (including American War of Independence, Battle of Jersey 1781)
• WW2 and the German Occupation 1940-45 – particularly putting the Channel Islands into wider context of WW2 history

We will also see the very extensive British Napoleonic and 19th century era fortifications, in many cases used and adapted by the Germans.

There will be opportunities for members to take and assist in stands to supplement the local history with the wider historical context of the period/era.

We could have a group dinner together on the Saturday evening, and a traditional Guild quiz night, probably the day before.

Accommodation, costs and travel

We are expecting to procure a discounted group accommodation rate at the Merton Resort hotel -https://www.seymourhotels.com/merton-hotel . The daily B&B room rate for two sharing will be about £105, with single occupancy being slightly lower. Other costs will be advised in due course.

Flights are available from a number of UK airports, ferries from the UK south coast and from St Malo and Granville. Unfortunately, the schedules for airlines and ferries have not been published yet. The main local tourist website is www.jersey.com

Options

We are also aiming to organise optional activities and visits covering other battles, prehistoric warfare, naval engagements, and an afternoon on the range between Thursday (18th) and Monday (22nd) for those who may like to stay longer. Current ideas include:

• Friday 21^st - prehistoric warfare, archaeology/ history tour (Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages)
• Thursday 18^th afternoon/early evening – 20th century military firearms range event
• Monday 22^nd – boat trip (max 7 persons unless we can gather a flotilla of small boats (as Dunkirk & St Malo 1940!) – naval engagements, commando raids, fortifications from the sea and/or the Battle of Cezembre 1944 (this will be weather dependant)

Alternative activities and visits

Dependant on numbers, there is also a possibility to organise parallel non-battlefield/military history visits/activities for spouses, partners etc who might not ordinarily come on a IGBG event.

Expressions of Interest

Any members interested in going to Jersey in May 2023, please let Marc Yates know with numbers, sole/twin occupancy preferences and whether they would be interested in the optional activities / visits etc - email governance@gbg-international.com. A suggested reply form is here, and any information provided will assist in planning the detail and costing of the weekend.

Every year the Guild of Battlefield Guides holds its Annual Golf Championships; more details nearer the time from James Davis.

The annual Badged Guides Dinner will be held in London on 18 August 2023.  Further details from Tony Scott in due course.

A Cold War recce is planned for September 2023. It will be held in the former East Germany (GDR) and will study both NATO and the Warsaw Pact Naval capability, Air capability, Land capability, the use of Special Forces, Intelligence gathering and the Soviet plan to invade Berlin and Western Europe. The event would have the usual quiz, prizes and a visit to Colditz Castle.

The Guild will be running a recce in Normandy in November 2023.  Dates are Friday 3 November to Sunday 5 November.  The aim is to cover the British and Canadian break out battles.  Please note the dates in your diary for now.

Full details will be available in the New Year and we will be asking for names then.

We are looking for three or more experienced guides to volunteer, one to lead each day.  Once we have the leads for each day or part of a day we can then pull the programme together.  We can split the days up between lead guides if we need to.

The general topics for each day are likely to be:

• Day 1 – Op GOODWOOD, TOTALIZE and TRACTABLE.
• Day 2 – Op EPSOM, Hill 112 and Villers Bocage.
• Day 3 – Op BLUECOAT and Mount Pincon.

There is an option to do either Falaise, or Op COBRA and the Americans at St Lo, and if someone wanted to volunteer to do one of those we could drop one of the other topics.

If you would like to volunteer to take on one of the main topics as lead guide please get in touch with Simon Burgess on sfb22@hotmail.com.

Our Annual Conference and AGM weekend will be held in the Doubletree Hotel, Lincoln. We will include the usual mix of activities – validation opportunities, Guild AGM (Saturday afternoon), Guild Awards Dinner, a quiz, bring-and-buy stall, and a range of speakers.

There will be a pre-Conference visit to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, with a hangar floor visit.

More details of the Conference will follow in due course.

The Guild will conduct an Ypres recce 11-15 March 2024 , very much along the lines of the 2022 Guild Somme recce. The purpose will be to focus on some of the lesser known aspects of the Immortal Salient. The outline programme will be:

• 11 March. Deploy
• 12 March. The Indian Corps in the Salient 1914-1915
• 13 March. The Logistics of 3rd Ypres 1917
• 14 March. The Battle of the Lys 1918
• 15 March. Recover

Transport will be in shared cars

Please indicate interest to John Cotterill on john.cotterill@btinternet.com, so that he can look at accommodation in Ypres , which is always difficult to arrange for large numbers at short notice.