Does the Agatha Christie Society UK still exist?
shana
Paramaribo, Suriname
Almost two decades ago I borrowed an AC novel from the library. In it I found the adress of The Agatha Christie Society in London. I wrote a letter to become a member but unfortunately it was returned with a note of the Postal Services in the UK saying something about the adress not being correct. After that I never tried again. I wonder if the Society still exists or maybe has been moved to a different adress.
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Hi Shana
I have been re-reading items published in the Christie Chronicles and hopefully can answer your question on the New York Agatha Christie Society.
The first annual Society gathering outside of the UK was on 22-24th September 2000 in New York. This was followed by an announcement in the Christie Chronicle ‘Winter’ 2000 #28: due to costs it was decided that the Chronicle operations would be transferred to a New York and Kate Stine would be the new Editor. However, Christie Chronicle ‘Fall’ 2001 #35, states that the society was to close with immediate effect. The Internet was the way forward with development of the Christie web site.
So, as far as I know the New York Society no longer exists, that was also implied by two New York Facebook friends.
NB: the society had almost 300 members, if I recall correctly.
@shana. There has been no progress on the topic of an AC Society resurrection here in the UK. When I last spoke to a member of AC Ltd they did not see the need, I think they thought they were going to have to get involved and currently they would not want to put any resource behind it. For the ‘Society’ to become official, it would need to have the support of AC Ltd and their blessing. To do anything else there would be a problem in using the patented name of ‘Agatha Christie’. I see from the threads, there is ‘Official Agatha Christie Appreciation Society’, which have been meeting for 25 years in North-eastern Pennsylvania, USA. (See Facebook). I feel that this website is there to promote AC’s books and sales products, the fact that there is a ‘discussion forum’ for fans to communicate is part of history and of no interest to the owners of the website.
I think you have got to ask, how many fans would be interested in an AC official E-Magazine website. When I look at the numbers of individuals visiting this website, I think they are very low, that is suggested by the interest in the Mystery Man Game this year. How would ‘you’ promote interest in an e-magazine to make all the hard work involved worth it? When it was running the Christie Chronical was almost a full time job for Elaine Wiltshire, which was one reason why Chorion (AC Ltd) closed it down. To test the interest, it might be worth creating one page of an e-magazine and see the interest it generates!
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
On the topic of The Mystery Man Game, I think it would lose its interest if it was activated too frequently, and don’t forget the work involved for the person setting it. I have monitored the number of people participating in the four games since 2010 (in 2014 it was Write Your Own Christie) and it has been a falling number. The reason might be because fewer people know about the game or that it has been of little interest on the site; it’s normally been in September of each year.
My thoughts about the subject of paying someone to take photographs is the cost, I don’t think that the Agatha Christie Ltd would foot the bill and there are lots of photographs out there - there are some groups on Facebook that regularly post their photographs there. Tours to locations of Christie interest are available, but need to be managed correctly; the Agatha Christie name is registered by Agatha Christie Ltd and license activities to see that they are promoted in the correct way.
On the topic of forums, these are triggered by the regular users, moderators review for bad language and suitable subject content, but they are not there to stimulate activity, in my opinion. The content can be started by forum members, but it’s the users that will follow the thread and show interest. You can identify the threads started on this site, and there may be a number of views, but many have no further comments.
Lastly, there are publications in the market place which would satisfy all your interest / questions, you just need to search for them. Having bought all the written works of Agatha Christie I wanted read books on Christie by authors that had researched her and during 2014 I purchased 18 books costing from 1p to £10, some made good reading, others less so.I don't think that cost would necessarily have be too much of an issue. Perhaps, there are clever ways of generating income from a website, so the articles, etc, end up being covered. To be honest, Dr Sheppard, I thought that what a website was, that is somewhere to collect together in one handy place all the information and ways of enjoying a topic. I've a friend who is on a slimming website - she has an app for it. She says she does it because she can get all her calorie counting devices, and hints and information in one place. Not being difficult, but if we are in the business of celebrating and keeping alive the work of AC, should we really be suggesting fans do their own searching about for books on AC? Shouldn't it all be made easy for them?
Is their an Agatha Christie app?
I think that people today like social media. Maybe that is where a lot of fans go. But websites can go a bit deeper into topics.
@shana I'm in no rush to do a poll, but I'm not sure the regular visitors to this website can answer the sort of questions that Griselda believes there is a need to satisfy.
Have either of you seen a copy of the Christie Chronicle that was available via the Agatha Christie Society?
http://drjamessheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/christie-chronicle.html
Why is it so difficult to attach pictures to this website?
I have been looking for some pictures of Greenway house on the internet without any luck, they may be protected by the National Trust, now that they own the property. When you visit Greenway, the NT say, they have tried to give the visitor the impression that the Christies have just popped out for a while at the time of ‘your’ visit, everything is just as they left it on display and there to view. All the family members were great collectors and there are a vast number of their belongs on display. The National Trusts own Souvenir guide to Greenway, is excellent for pictures – you can buy a new copy on Amazon UK for £2.00 or used 1p + postage. My own copy is well thumbed as I have visited Greenway at least three times a year for the last few years.
Mathew Pritchard gives a very brief 'tour' of Greenway, it's rather a talk which is quite interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsgNRvnUtHQ
Hope this is of interest.