MEET THE CENTRE 

After almost 25 years based at what is now the Havant Academy, we have moved to the under ground floor of St Francis church above. This gives us the chance to meet in the daytime as well as evenings as the need arises. So who and what are we? Well, during our life we have done our best to keep growing with technology and so have a very wide range of research material.

It is often thought by the description of the word 'Meeting' implies that we are the same as any other Family History Society, but that is a long way from the truth in many ways. We have strong records for the Havant and Portsmouth areas together with Hampshire and Sussex and the Isle of Wight,but we go wider afield than that and cover a lot of the United Kingdom and even the rest of the world.

We are, in fact, a Record Office with microfiche readers and online computers. We have an incredible number of microfiche and CDs including the IGI for the whole world. We welcome visitors at any stage of their researches and we can also give one-to-one instruction and help if needed. There is a lot more we could say, but why not pop in and see us and find out for yourself

At the moment we are open on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday evenings of every month from 7.30pm and, of course, 24 hours for Emails. Parking is free and there are always refreshments available.

We have the minimum of rules, all members voting on occasions when decisions have to be taken. The day-to-day running of the Centre is undertaken by four elected members and these are:

                                Our Leader is Phil Hammond

                                Treasurer is Ernie Oliver and

                                Publicity Officer/Librarian is Sue Renault

                                Our Internet Network Manager is Ben Fletcher

LOOKING FOR CHILDREN

Like every other organisation during the past year, we have suffered loss of membership several due to the pandemic and a few for other health reasons. This means that when we re-open in May we will have a few spare places in the computer area. We have been asked before whether we would be able to have involve children and this we have done with the Library services at Havant, Fareham and Eastleigh but not before in our Centre. Investigating this to cover all regulations, we can take children either with or without a parent providing they are 12 years old and above. The regulations for child welfare are strict but we could take up to six if that number were interested.
If any children are interested in tracing their family heritage and being an extra to the schools history syllabus, could they please write a little about themselves to our website at contactus@thestauntoninfo.org and we see if its look viable. We might add that all computer and printed works are available and are free.