The Eighth Alabaster Gathering took place over the weekend of 25–27 April 2008, based in the Guildhall Complex, Hadleigh, Suffolk.

Saturday programme

• 9.45 am — Arrival and coffee
• 10.45 — General Meeting of the Alabaster Society
• 11.30 — Ann Beaumont and the Alabaster connection — Sue Andrews, Hadleigh Archivist
• 12.00 pm — Victorian Delights — Betty Alabaster West shares treasures from her collection
• 1.00 — Buffet Lunch
• 2.00 — Display of Alabaster memorabilia
• 2.30 — One Family’s History — Laraine Hake
• 3.30 — William Alabaster and the publication of Apparatus, 1607 — Tony Springall
• 3.45 — Presentation of Apparatus to the Mayor of Hadleigh for the town archives
• 4.00–5.00 — Guided tours: St Mary’s Church (Hilary Griffin), Hadleigh Archives (Sue Andrews), or a walk around Hadleigh
• 5.15 — Tea, biscuits and the raffle

Evening dinner

Dinner was held in the Old Town Hall within the Guildhall Complex, followed by a talk by Clive Paine on The Plague in Suffolk during the seventeenth century, with particular reference to Hadleigh.

Costs

• Daytime with buffet lunch: £18
• Full day including evening dinner: £37

Sunday

Members visited Ipswich on the Sunday — attending the morning service at St Matthew’s Church (where some Alabasters were baptised, married and buried in the 17th and 18th centuries), followed by a guided walk and lunch overlooking the Quay.