12.00 - 13.00 BZS 44th Annual General Meeting
Agenda
Welcome and Introduction by Chair
1. Apologies
2. Minutes of 43nd AGM held 19th October 2024 via ZOOM
3. Matters arising
4. Annual Report from Chair
5. Treasurer's Report and accounts
6. Secretaries' Reports including Membership Report
7. Other Reports (SKLA)
8. Motions for debate
9. Roll of Honour
10. Election of officers and Executive Committee Members
11. 2026 Programme
12. Any other business
13.00-13.30 Break
13.30 GUEST SPEAKERS
Keynote Speaker: Father Brian MacGarry on Community Organisations in Zimbabwe
Chaired by Dr Knox Chitiyo, President, BZS
Followed by Professor William Beinart speaking on The Background to The Rhodes Legacy, and the Zimbabwean Sculpture Exhibition currently on display in Oxford
Chaired by Professor Diana Jeater, BZS Executive
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
FATHER BRIAN MACGARRY
Father Brian MacGarry celebrated 50 years as a priest of the Society of Jesus in Zimbabwe in 2024. He joined the novitiate in 1959 and studied philosophy, theology and chemistry prior to his first posting to what was then Rhodesia. He taught science at St Ignatius College, Chishawasha, as part of his training and formation for the priesthood. He made his final vows in 1980, and moved to Silveira House where he did research into appropriate technology for the new country of Zimbabwe, developing solar ovens, methane gas digesters and equipment for fruit drying. In 2001, he moved to Harare, living and working at Zambuko House, a home for street children in Hatfield. Since 2006 he has been living at St Peter’s, Mbare, where he is much involved in the local community. Father Brian has been a close follower and commentator on current events and has published widely in a variety of magazines and booklets, including the BZS’s own quarterly magazine, Zimbabwe Review.
PROFESSOR WILLIAM BEINART
William Beinart is emeritus professor at the African Studies Centre, and St Antony' College, University of Oxford. After completing university at UCT and SOAS, he worked at the Universities of Bristol and Oxford. His research has largely covered southern African history, and particularly the rural Eastern Cape, but occasionally also Malawi, Zimbabwe and Kenya. In recent years he has focussed especially on environmental history and on land reform. Books include Twentieth-Century South Africa (2001), Environment and Empire (with Lotte Hughes, 2007), African Local Knowledge (with Karen Brown, 2013) and The Scientific Imagination in South Africa (with Saul Dubow, 2021). He served on the Oriel College commission on the Rhodes legacy and an examination of 'Cecil Rhodes: Racial Segregation in the Cape Colony and Violence in Zimbabwe' is on the College website and in the Journal of Southern African Studies. The small exhibition of Zimbabwean stone sculptures in Oxford in October/November 2025, organised with Richard Pantlin, and the focus of his talk, is an outcome of the student protests against the Rhodes statue at Oxford and Pantlin's submission to the commission.
Headline picture: The BZS Research Days in Oxford, June 2025 (Photo credit: Rori Masiane)
