Winter Event 30th November 2013

About 60 members attended, bringing lots of lovely food to share, all of which drew compliments as we ate.

John Metcalf had set up a very educational quiz (ie: we couldn't do it!) of dead stems. I think the top score was 6 out of 21. ( Training course needed?)

Colin Pusey, his wife, Maria, and Lionel Ponder took care of the raffle, with an interesting assortment of prizes including a pheasant which had grown into a turkey, and back again, during the course of the day.

Ben Potterton was his usual entertaining self, demonstrating the production of three seasonal arrangements which he kindly donated as raffle prizes. This probably boosted the raffle proceeds.  Ben also introduced the self-explanatory term 'spriglet' and said that he was not a 'real flower-arranger', but a 'plonker'. He had a range of very non PC artefacts, which he used to identify the character of some towns and villages within the group, (lynching party from Ipswich?) - and who was it defined by orange string, or the plastic flowers?

We also had an “ideas board”, and book where members could vote for some of our present activities or alternative ones, or write new ideas in the book. These will be considered at future committee meetings to see what the consensus is, and what we can do to brighten up our drab wretched lives!

After lunch, Andrew had devised a set of themes, one for each table of up to 8 members, requesting them to create a flower arrangement, prompted by Ben's demonstration, as a group. A vast amount of props had been provided by Andrew, plus quantities of greenery, dried material and frivolous bits for decoration, as well as quantities of extra material generously provided by members. We voted by placing a coin in the pot for the one we liked best. One group won by a wide margin. Ben presented prizes to the best three. I asked him afterwards which one he thought was best, and he said that the winning one had been 'outstanding' in it's flower-arranging quality. They were all interesting and good enough to take home, so each group agreed amongst themselves who would have their creation, (remembering to return to Andrew any special artefacts after Christmas.)

Thanks to the committee, especially Anita , Cynthia and Andrew for the detailed organisation, and other committee members and the 'usual suspects', plus some new ones, for helping in the kitchen and clearing up. We all had a great day which has started us off towards a very happy Christmas to everyone.

Chris Davies
photos by Colin Pusey