Our October meeting was, as is usual, the time for our Annual Meeting and birthday celebration.  This year we are 8 years old and those of us who have been around for the full 8 years are rather proud at how well we have turned out!!  We had a very tasty supper provided by the committee, including delicious chocolate and fruit cakes.

At this meeting we had a produce stall which by the end of the evening was sold out.  Pride of place were many bunches of alstroemeria obtained at cost from a local nursery.  Our competition was ‘Autumnal Art’, won by Karen with her very impressive tree.

The more formal part of the evening was overseen by Melanie, the WI Advisor who kindly attended the meeting in case we needed any help.  It entailed …

• A financial report by our Treasurer Celia Janering – happy to say we have a healthy set of end-of-year accounts!
• A Committee report presented by our secretary Dinah Barrand, together with a slide show of the many events we have taken part in over the last year.  To read Dinah’s full report please click here. The many photos are shown in the report, and also in an extra photo album.
• Lesley Guppy, our President, read out her President’s address.  This was Lesley’s last meeting, after 5 years on the committee, one year as Treasurer and three as President.  She was presented with some presents from the members; a token of our thanks for so much hard work on our behalf.
• Then the new committee were agreed by the meeting, no election necessary as we just had the right number of volunteers.  Watch this spot for names and faces next week!
• We then had an election, WI fashion, and from this exercise arose our new president Dinah Barrand.

The words … Kate Claisse

The photos … Katie Lyne