THIRTY FIVE members and two visitors who wanted to join for the forthcoming year met last week at Bishampton Village Hall for their A.G.M

Ann Nicholas presided over the meeting which would be her last as she was handing over the reigns after 3 years to Jan Parsons. In Ann's introduction she reminded everyone how the year had started very traumatically as we lost our venue of many years and the committee looked at a large number of venues before settling on our present one at Bishampton Village Hall. The hall had been a resounding success resulting in larger numbers at the monthly meetings and many more regular visitors.

Ann also made members aware of a suggestion box which had been put on the table as the Committee was looking for suggestions for our nominated charity for 2016. The top 3 would then be voted on at the February meeting.

Following Ann's opening address the meeting followed the normal procedure for AGM's with last year's minutes and Treasurer's report and Auditor being adopted

Janis Hodgkins, our Chairperson, then gave her report on the year's activities which were many and very varied. The year started with a Committee meeting presided over by Janis for which she had produced a map with a pin for every location a member lived, and then began the task of finding our new venue, and as reported by Ann this has turned out to have been a very good move for the club. Janis reported that the two evenings where Committee provided tea/coffee/cakes to cover our donation to the funds towards Area's expenses in exhibiting at Chelsea this year, had been very successful and very much appreciated by Area. A club summer outing to Rodmarton Manor had been extremely enjoyable and for Christmas many members had joined together for a Christmas lunch at the Dolphin which was followed by a request to hold another in the summer - we must be doing something right! Three of our members staged displays at Pershore Abbey Harvest Festival. Our November Open Meeting was held as usual at No. 8 and we saw record numbers attending. The demonstrator Sue Davis proved most popular and besides the laughter which was heard vibrating around the auditorium all evening we were shown into Sue's wonderful winter wonderland.

Members were then reminded that we were still looking for a couple of extra committee members. In the meantime the Chairman and existing Committee were re-elected and Ann Nicholas and Anita Bostok agreed to join the committee.

Next came the much awaited trophies for winners of the flower competitions held during the year and these were presented to Jean Spires, Janis our Chairperson and overall winner Brenda Eades

After a very tasty fish and chip supper Chris Parsons had organised a quiz to test our minds. The sections most popular were titled “sightseeing” “abbreviations” and “flowers” - I wonder why everyone did well with this one. Unfortunately the section entitled “Ding bats” seemed to really stretch the old grey matter. The winning table was Lady Chairperson’s -and that was without any favouritism. Chris was thanked for giving us such an enjoyable hour and was presented with a plant for his garden.

Everyone is reminded that should you want to come along to the Club, to see what we are all about, we meet on the third Wednesday in the month at Bishampton Village Hall at 7.30pm and everyone is most welcome.

JILL MILLARD