Another month and another live meeting at the Village Hall!
This month we welcomed Wendy from Johnson's Coaches, a local family coach firm. There was an unfortunate start to the talk with Wendy having first gone to the wrong village before realising her error and then having to change direction! She did assure us that this was not typical of a Johnsons Coach trip ......
However, once here she did receive a warm welcome and we listened with interest on the history of Johnsons Coaches. It was an interesting talk and with insights into the Johnson family, you did feel the family care about their customers and as Wendy said, you holiday with Johnsons and you holiday with friends. 

Yes - we did it! We held our first proper indoor meeting since September last year. It was a lovely return to meetings with a demonstration from Fladbury Flowers on making floral crowns and of course, we all got to make one. As well as welcoming the ladies from Fladbury Flowers, we also welcomed several visitors. 

We had hoped that our July meeting would have been our first proper indoor live meeting following the latest lockdown. However, as restrictions were extended meaning we could not meet outdoors, we decided to proceed with our July meeting but held it outdoors instead at our local recreation ground. Chairs were set up,  photographs of activities during lockdown were displayed as bunting, a show table of knitted hats for the Big Knit 2021 was prepared and bowls of strawberries & cream were ready to welcome our members. It had been sunny most of the day but then just as we were starting our meeting, it began to rain and quite heavily! So we decamped onto the Recreation Ground building's veranda (still outside) where we were able to take shelter. Our President and Secretary braved the rain (under an umbrella) discussed brief business, which was then followed by (very) short talks from various members about the Zoom meetings we had held. So whilst the weather was exceedingly damp, it didn't dampen our spirits nor our enjoyment of the evening. 

We had planned 2 events to celebrate this first NHS Day: a tea party for all villagers at the Village Hall with donations going to the 2 designated charities and a free raffle for any NHS, social care or frontline/key worker who worked during the pandemic and lived in the village. Unfortunately as lockdown restrictions were extended, we had to cancel the tea party. The free raffle was still able to go ahead. We had 12 lovely prizes & vouchers donated by local businesses with the draw for the lucky winners being made at The Anchor Inn on July 5th by the Parish Chair, Tim Knight, with independent observers from the Anchor staff. 

 Whilst our members are able to get out and about more, they are are still being creative at home. The Quirky Bird workshops are popular with a lot of WIs and one of members recently joined the latest workshop and painted this delightful picture. Also taking part in the Big Knit 2021, one of our members has been extremely busy creating little hats for Innocent Bottles!

Click on the pictures for full view

​Our first get together with members this year was the ACWW Women Walk the World on April 29th. 10 members and 1 prospective new member had a gentle stroll down to the river; we enjoyed a social distanced cup of coffee and biscuits followed by a gentle stroll back. We raised £51.50 for ACWW – a great achievement. Thanks to our President for organising all the refreshments and chairs. 

here it is ...... our latest Newsletter

Well, what an educational evening we had last week. Mandie Cran led a Zoom meeting on the history, horticulture and healing of aloe vera. A fascinating plant that has been used since the days of the pharoahs, it has helped to soothe many a problem and whilst it is not a cure-all plant, it does enable your body to help its healing process. But before you go cutting your aloe vera plant to pieces, there are over 400 types of the aloe vera plant and only 5 have the healing properties with another 15 being positively poisonous!