Royal Over-Seas League (ROSL)

In the latest edition of Overseas, creator of this year’s Overseas Award, ceramicist Judy McKenzie speaks to Mark Brierley about her lifelong love of the medium and the circuitous route she has taken to get to where she is today.

With more and more of us sharing the minutiae of our lives on social media, we are leaving ourselves at risk of identity theft. A little more self-awareness could make all the difference, as conman-turned-security-consultant Frank Abagnale tells Ross Davies in the latest edition of Overseas. 

The Commonwealth is a big place and ROSL’s Education projects touch communities in some of them - Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, India, Pakistan and the Solomon Islands – due to the generous spirit of members and assisting organisations. Margaret Adrian-Vallance reports. 

As we grow, so our opinions and understanding of the world around us change. But the long memory of social media means a misguided comment from the past can be dredged up within seconds. Have we sacrificed the ability to reinvent ourselves? Ross Davies reports in the latest edition of Overseas. 

With the job of curating modern and contemporary art that relates and interprets the National Gallery’s historic collection, Daniel Herrmann tells Overseas how abstract artist Bridget Riley’s newest work was created for the gallery’s Annenberg Court. 

Art is often seen as in need of support, but what about when musicians are doing the supporting? Musicians without Borders works with local musicians and organisations in war-torn countries to build bridges of reconciliation between societies. In the latest edition of Overseas, Abi Millar asks Laura Hassler, the founder and director, how this can be achieved. 

As people increasingly define themselves by their gender, faith, sexuality or race, our empathy is ebbing away, according to the UK's Equality and Human Rights Commission. In the latest edition of Overseas, Abi Millar asks if the drive for greater acceptance among marginalised groups is actually hardening opinions among many people.

To celebrate the opening of ROSL's latest exhibition, Drawn to Architecture, this week, Overseas spoke to one of the exhibiting artists in the latest issue. Anne Desmet RA, tells us about the overlap between the two disciplines of art and architecture and how it has influenced her work. 

The Overseas journal has now been published for 103 years and in that time some exceptional cover art has been created to celebrate ROSL. Everything we stand for, the artists and musicians we support, the education and humanitarian projects we fund, our clubhouse, our patrons, our members from all over the world, and the current events that have shaped that world, have all been depicted at one time or another. More than just the bread in which the meat of each issue is contained, the cover of a magazine can act as a powerful statement of who we are and what we stand for. 

For many young artists and writers, the devastation of war served as a powerful spur to creativity. In the latest edition of Overseas, Abi Millar delves into some of the artistic talents who forged their reputation during the First World War. 

As chief executive of Arts Council England, Darren Henley is on a mission to help provide children – whatever their background – with a well-rounded arts education. In the latest edition of Overseas, he talks to Ross Davies about how encouraging creativity in the classroom can open up new avenues to the stars of tomorrow. 

Its critics have long predicted its demise, yet the Commonwealth remains as a network whereby small and large nations can come to the table as equals. In the latest edition of Overseas Ross Davies asks Professor Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, what makes the organisation still tick amidst an age of geopolitical uncertainty. 

In 2019, Overseas will celebrate its 104th birthday. Read Adele Smith's potted history of the changes to the journal over the course of the past century. 

The street on which ROSL has its home dates back more than 300 years and understandably holds a special place in the hearts of many members. An article in the August 1935 edition of Overseas entitled 'The Romance of St James's' gives a potted history of the street and its famous residents.

From the days of Ancient Rome right through to the Great War and Nazi Germany, propaganda has continued to rear its ugly head. Amid the current age of fake news, our perception of the information we receive remains as shaky as ever, writes Ross Davies in the latest edition of Overseas.

From Chaucer, via Shakespeare and Austen, British humour can trace its root back a long way. To celebrate the visit if improv troupe Austentatious to ROSL on Friday 2 February, Jessica Harris-Edwards looks back at what makes our literary heroes funny in the latest edition of Overseas. 

The Commonwealth’s approach to conflict prevention is marked by respect, impartiality and discretion. This means its work often flies under the radar, but no less important argues Tres-Ann Kremer, Adviser and Head, Good Offices for Peace at the Commonwealth Secretariat, in the latest edition of Overseas. 

In the latest edition of Overseas, Director-General Diana Owen talks life, career, and the future of ROSL. 

Not a week goes by without dire warnings from scientists that we are on course to fail in our obligations to halt climate change. With the US now planning to withdraw from the Paris agreement, it could be up to other nations to step up to the plate, writes Ross Davies in the latest edition of Overseas.

Today marks the anniversary of the first use of atomic weapons in war, when the Japanese city of Hiroshima was almost completely destroyed by an atomic bomb, dropped by a US B-29 Superfortress bomber, known as the Enola Gay on 6 August 1945. The bomb, dubbed 'Little Boy', was followed three days later by the 'Fat Man' atomic bomb, which was dropped on the nearby city of Nagasaki. 

On this day in 1992, The House of Commons elected Betty Boothroyd as Speaker, the first time a woman held the post in its 700-year history. The Labour MP for West Bromwich West beat out Conservatives Peter Brooke and Sir Giles Shaw by a 134-vote majority, to become Speaker and hold that position while in opposition for the first time since the Second World War. 

Serving both to retain ties to the old country and help integration into new cultures, hybrid languages are a vital mainstay for immigrant communities.  With the current European refugee crisis still ongoing, we can expect more to emerge, as world-renowned linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann tells Ross Davies. 

Britain’s First World War poets changed the way we view military conflict and had a deep impact on the national psyche. Yet the stories of the 15,600 volunteers who signed up to the British West Indies Regiment remain largely unknown. What does it mean to fight for a ‘mother country’ that refuses to accept you as one of its own? As a collaborative project, Unwritten Poems invited contemporary Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora poets to write into that vexed space, as co-curator Karen McCarthy Woolf explains in the latest edition of Overseas. 

To celebrate the European Day of Languages, which promotes language education every year on the 26 September, we have been wondering just how many languages are spoken here in the London clubhouse. 

The #MeToo movement has continued to make headlines since it got underway last October. However, has the outpouring of stories actually led to any real social change? Abi Millar investigates in the latest edition of Overseas. 

A veritable feast of different cultures make up the Commonwealth, but it is tied together by a shared language, values, interests, history, and purpose. In the latest edition of Overseas, we speak to ROSL members, music and arts scholars, and recipients of ROSL's humanitarian and education projects from around the world to find out how they see the Commonwealth. 

Snapped Reading Overseas has been a regular feature of the journal since 1920. Our readers have covered hundreds of countries, all seven continents, the high seas, and the higher mountains. Take a look at some of our readers through the ages. 

Many of you will have received your copy of the new edition of Overseas by now, but have you wondered what the hieroglyph at the cover's centre depicts? 

Despite the unprecedented circumstances in which ROSL's new Director-General takes up her position, Dr Annette Prandzioch’s career in law, the charity sector and academia has uniquely prepared her for taking on the role. In the new edition of Overseas, Mark Brierley finds out the route Annette took to Over-Seas House and what her plans are for the club post-lockdown.