How much does it cost?

We estimate that the total cost of belonging to Newbury Round Table is very roughly £300 per year, including all your meals and entertainment at events, if you go to most of the local events. Members usually attend at least 60% of meetings and support and participate in as many of the other activities as possible. As with any hobby the more you put in, the more you get out.

What sort of people join?

All sorts! The national Round Table movement has 13,000 members covering a huge range of people. Tablers come from all occupations, religions and political outlooks. The only things that they have in common are that they are male, aged between 18 and 45 and want to have fun. Newbury Round Table reflects this diversity in its membership.

Who owns and runs it

The members do. Newbury Round Table has elections at the Part 1 Anual General Meeting in April. All posts, from the chairman down are up for election except for the Secretary (who gets appointed by the incoming chairman). Some positions, such as Community Service Officer are hotly contested, whilst others such as Vice Chairman (who usually gets elected Chairman the following year) sometimes require a bit of arm-twisting. Everyone who wants a job gets one, from Crafty Craft Organiser (a huge undertaking) right through to say Sports Officer (duties usually limited to reporting that he has done nothing at the next year's AGM).

Part II Annual General Meeting happens a couple of weeks later and is a more formal dinner with good entertainment, at which the incoming officers take over from the outgoing ones.

What about the ladies?

Newbury Round Table has a sister organisation called Newbury Circle. Like Newbury Round Table they are very keen to welcome guests and prospective new members. http://www.ladies-circle.org.uk.

What happens when I reach 46?

Ex-tablers often join the Newbury 41 Club, which usually meets once a month for a dinner. It has very close links with Newbury Round Table, although is largely a dining club without the activities and busy diary of Round Table.

It is called 41 Club instead of 46 Club because the Round Table rules were changed only a few years ago to extend the age limit from 40 to 45 and so people originally joined when they left Round Table at 41. Some Newbury tablers in their early 40s belong to both Round Table and 41 Club. There are over nine hundred 41 Clubs in the UK, with 22,000 members. The first one was formed in Liverpool in 1935, and devised the motto used by the organisation, May the hinges of friendship never grow rusty, which has since been modified to the snappier May the hinges of friendship never rust. New ones were formed in London (the London Old Tablers Society, 1939), Lytham St. Annes (1941) and Wakefield (1943). Perhaps more would have been formed but for the suspension of the 40 age limit during the war (the rule was reinstated at the national conference in August 1946 and applied nationally on 1 April 1948). However these four had a conference in Wakefield in 1945 at which the Association of Ex-Tablers' Clubs was formed and which celebrated its diamond jubilee in 2005.

The equivalent of 41 Club for ladies is Tangent, which has the motto In continuing Friendship. The first meeting of the Association of Tangent Clubs took place at the Hinton Firs Hotel, Bournemouth, in 1965.

What about other Round Tables?

There are about 1000 Round Tables in the UK, with a national umbrella organisation. Whilst every Table adheres to the principles of the organisation, each one is slightly different as they reflect the wishes and personalities of their own members. Newbury Table has close links with several other tables, either because they are local or because of contacts between individual members. Events are often arranged amongst tables which are in the same geographical area. Newbury is part of Area 25, the Thames Valley.

What other Tables are in the area?

The other tables in Area 25, and when they meet in the month, are:

Ascot meets 2nd and 4th Tuesday
Basingstoke (rtbi page) meets 2nd and 4th Thursday
Basingstoke Alençon (rtbi page) meets 1st, 3rd and and 5th Wednesday
Burnham and District(rtbi page) meets 2nd and 4th Tuesday
Caversham (rtbi page) meets 2nd and 4th Wednesday
Hungerford meets 2nd and 4th Thursday
Henley-On-Thames meets 2nd, 4th and 5th Tuesday
High Wycombe (rtbi page) meets fortnightly on Tuesdays from 15 April 2003
Maidenhead meets 1st, 3rd and 5th Tuesday - phone 07775 845139 or email

Marlow & District meets 1st and 3rd Tuesday
Reading(rtbi page) meets 1st and 3rd Tuesday
Reading Valley (rtbi page) meets 2nd and 4th Tuesday
Sandhurst & Yateley meets 2nd and 4th Tuesday
Thatcham (rtbi page) meets 1st and 3rd Thursday
Twyford & District meets 1st and 3rd Wednesday
Wallingford & District meets 2nd, 4th and 5th Tuesday
West Forest (rtbi page) meets 1st and 3rd Thursday
Windsor & Eton meets 2nd and 4th Monday
Wokingham meets 2nd and 4th Wednesday

Where does the charity money go?

Roughly £14,000 per year is raised by Newbury Round Table. The major fund raising activity is Crafty Craft followed by the Santa's sleigh collections at Christmas, both of which go into our Community Service fund (registered charity 1047033). Our Community Service fund is used to help local causes. We usually have one or two major beneficiaries; for example in 2004 it was to purchase additional equipment for the new West Berkshire Community Hospital which it would otherwise be unable to afford. The remainder of the fund is allocated in parcels of typically a few hundred pounds in response to requests throughout the year to help fund specific local projects. For example a recent request funded was for a tricycle for a little girl with cerebral palsy.

We also collect on Children in Need day, and the money raised is passed directly to that charity.

We welcome requests for funding, and actively encourage local charities to contact us with proposals - details are given on the contact page.

How did Round Table start?

Round Table was founded in Norwich by Louis 'Mark' Marchesi, in March 1927. The son of a Swiss imigrant and a professional pastry cook, he decided to set up an organisation which would cater specifically for young men. The idea had occurred to him two years before when he attended a Norwich Rotary Club luncheon as a member. As the invited speaker did not turn up, some of the Rotarians present were asked to speak on any subject which they knew more about than anyone else in the room. Marchesi, being by far the youngest there, chose "what it feels like to be twenty seven". From the very beginning it was agreed that Round Table would be a non-religious, non-political club.

A second Round Table was established in Portsmouth almost immediately afterwards and by the end of 1929 there were 16 tables. The first overseas table was formed in Copenhagen in 1936. On the outbreak of the Second World War ten years later there were 125 active tables in the UK with 4,600 members. By the end of the war the number had dropped down to 96, but it quickly rose again afterwards and passed 250 with 7500 members in 1950.

Tables are numbered consecutively as they are formed, which makes Norwich Round Table number 1, and Newbury 391. Newbury Round Table was formed as an offshoot of Basingstoke Round Table and had its first meeting on 15 October 1953. Newbury were presented with Basingstoke Table's old bell, which is still rung to get some order at meetings; and in turn Thatcham Round Table was formed a few years later by Newbury.

Where does the name come from?

The name of the organisation and its motto, Adopt, Adapt, Improve, both originally came from a speech by the Prince of Wales (who was later Edward VIII) which he gave when opening the British Industries Fair at Birmingham in February 1927. He said that "The young business and professional men of this country must get together round a table, adopt the methods that have proved so sound in the past, adapt them to the changing needs of the times and, whenever possible, improve them".

And the logo?

The original logo was a pedestal table as shown below. This was changed within a couple of years to a rondel based on the paint scheme of King Arthur's Round Table which hangs on a wall in Winchester Castle. The design on the table probably dates from about 1517, in Henry VIII's reign, athough the table itself is 250 years older.

Different Round Tables used variations, for example changing the number of segments, until June 1950 when it was standardised. Round Tables outside the UK use rondels which are similar in concept to the UK's, but differ in detail, as can be seen from the Belgian and Hungarian versions below.

Newbury's logo

Many tables still create their own version by incorporating the rondel into a larger design - for instance Newbury Round Table uses one with the ruins a castle sitting on top of it. The castle is the remains of the gatehouse of nearby Donnington Castle, all that remains of the large castle built in 1389 and demolished by Act of Parliament at the end of the Civil War.

Curiously, the logo of Newbury Town itself is a different castle. Newbury Castle was probably a wooden structure about four miles from Newbury near Hamstead Marshall, where three medieval castle mottes still exist. Not much is known about it; the only contemporary record being John D'Earley's poem, L'Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal which briefly describes its siege and capture by King Stephen in 1153, and it was probably demolished shortly afterwards. The site adjacent to the Wharf was promoted as the location of the castle during the 19th century, at a time when there was a fashion for all things medieval. However, there is no archaeological or earlier documentary evidence for a castle on Newbury Wharf.

Non-geographical themes are also used, for example Ferndown Round Table has number 1159, and has a rondel forming the centre of a clock with the hands pointing to one minute to twelve.

Swansea Table has a swan above their logo as a pun.