Jane Crumpton-Taylor: perfecting walks & talks

How did you get into group organising?

I joined the group in about 2018 just after I’d retired and realised that they had different groups for various interests. The leader of the architecture group wanted to retire and he said, you just need enthusiasm. So, I gave it a go. It’s a mix of talks in the winter months and trips in the summer and I just expanded on those and then combined some with the art visits group, which is another group I took over. Then the holidays group wanted somebody to step in and help. I really wanted to introduce people to the sorts of holidays that I liked having – I wanted them to have the same experience I had.

Can you share some examples of where you’ve been?

We went to Manchester and visited the Imperial War Museum and spent a day doing The Lowry, Salford Museum and Ordsall Hall in Salford. Then there was a free day in the city centre where I provided maps and ideas of what people could see. There was an optional walk around the Northern Quarter. We had a coach trip to RHS Bridgewater Gardens and we did old Stockport on the way home. I also organised the evening talks. When we have a free day, I’ll quite often arrange a walking tour, mainly looking at the buildings because I also run an architecture group.

When we went to Cornwall, I wanted to stay as far west as possible, which is a real challenge, but on the way down, we went to Stonehenge and Salisbury and stayed the night. Then we went to a number of National Trust houses and gardens, and we had some very good evening talks. When we went to Glasgow, we had some more evening talks, we did National Trust properties as well as The Burrell Collection. The trips are quite full – people do say you need to be fit.

What’s your biggest challenge?

The problem is always with the limited number of single rooms. I can understand the hotel’s perspective. For our recent trip to Guildford, we had a record number of typically women who were ready to share twins. Some of them will share regularly and others try it once and then never again. People know that the single rooms will sell out within half an hour of when I launch the bookings. The twins and doubles go more slowly.

Tell us more about the talks that you organise?

It’s a different element to the visits. To arrange them, I email local U3As and also the universities. Sometimes I strike lucky and get really good speakers. We had a wonderful speaker in Glasgow on Charles Rennie Mackintosh and that was organised through the U3A - she was a wonderful, inspiring and jolly speaker.

In Cornwall, I wanted to talk about geology because it was very important in the area. We had a wonderful person who was very happy to talk, and he then came to the tin mines and did a completely free geology talk around the mines and coast.

In Leicester, we had talks by members of the University of Leicester archaeology team, one of whom had actually found Richard III which was wonderful.

In Guildford, we were again lucky with all the talks. There was one about the use of stately homes in World War Two, because we were going to a lot of the stately homes.

How do you come up with ideas?

Sometimes people will suggest things, but mostly it’s scouring maps and finding the right person. At RAF Barnham near Thetford in Suffolk, there’s an old nuclear storage facility, so we had a day there which was fascinating. In the afternoon, the owner of the site did a talk and tour around the facility which was rather remarkable.

If a day trip involves more than just art or architecture, it attracts a wide spread of people. I’ve got a trip coming up to St Albans which includes visits to the abbey and Verulamium and also Harlow, which will be a mixture of art and architecture.

What do you enjoy the most about being a GTO?

It’s lovely when people enjoy it and they feed back that they’ve enjoyed it. I like hearing that they’ve done things that they wouldn’t otherwise do.

It’s nice to make people happy and to enjoy things, and to get us all to be a bit active.