The New Lunar Society

After two hundred years, the Birmingham Lunar Society still, like its eighteenth-century predecessor, focuses on issues that affect the future of the region of Birmingham and quite possibly the world. But this Lunar Society, administrated by Amanda Cadman, is quite different from the one in the eighteenth century.

The meetings of the society are different from what it used to be. Unlike the small, informal meetings back in the days of Boulton and Withering, the meetings of the present are grander than what it used to be. The meetings of this new society are more focused on debating, linking social, economic, scientific, and cultural thinking and sparking action that affects issues that are critical of the future of Birmingham and the region. Also, the membership of the society changed. The society no longer is a club of a small group of intellectual friends, the membership of the society includes accountants, bankers, caterers, doctors, engineers, health administrators, lawyers, manufacturers, marketing consultants, religious leaders, school teachers and university teachers and administrators. Though this society still caps the amount of people allowed in the society per time, it is still way more than the fourteen who initiated this club. The membership is limited to only three hundred people.

Here is a quote from the society about their meetings:

The Society's programme is full and varied. Four Main Meetings each year, addressed by a speaker of inter-national repute and chaired by a member, are followed by discussion and supper. Less formal meetings are arranged, sometimes over dinner, to address issues of local interest affecting work, leisure or welfare in the community.

This new society still reveres its old predecessor by holding several meetings on the history of the original Lunar Society. They also aided in the refurbishment of the Lunar Room in the Soho house, which is now a museum commemorating Boulton, the Lunar Society, and what they did to advance industry.

You can visit their site here.