Once again we had a stand at the Orsett Show in the Heritage Corner. It was manned by Joan James, Pam Cartlidge, Barbara Allen and Fred Price. We had many visitors and were busy answering questions all day.

Over 300 people joined us for our Open day on Wednesday. At one time it was difficult to move around with so many people catching up with old friends and looking at the images and artifacts on display.

We had at least three people who joined the Company in the 1930's visit for the first time, they were all impressed with the Centre and it's contents.

On the evening of Wednesday December 3rd the Centre opened it's door to host the first showing in Thurrock of the film Colony. This film made by a group of artists including Michelle Williams, is primarily set in Batanagar, India. It shows the crumb ling outpost of the Bata Empire in 2006. In it's heyday there were 16,000 workers at Batanagar, now there are just over 2,000 and the future does not look good.

Michelle and her friends have interviewed people around the world during the making of this film, one of the interviews was with Mary Duffus, a volunteer at the Centre who died earlier this year. It is nice to have this permanent reminder of our friend, and to know that she was involved with the making of such a moving documentary.

After the showing of the film there was lively discussion about the content and how Bata people around the world are very similar in their outlook on life and work