Catsfield

Quiz Night: Also tomorrow (Saturday 10th) the Catsfield Horticultural Society are holding a Quiz Night in the Village Hall, tickets cost £5 per person (teams of up to six people) and are available from the Village Stores or from Wendy on 892965. There will be a licensed bar but bring your own nibbles. The doors open at 7pm for 7.30pm and this General Knowledge Quiz is to raise money towards the expenses of this year’s Summer Flower Show and Fete.

Rounders: The Rounders Match between the parishes of St Georges Church, Crowhurst and St Laurence Church, Catsfield will be held at the Catsfield Playing Field on Saturday 17th June at 3pm. This event last took place two years ago and was great fun with teams consisting of players of all ages and Father Michael acting as a totally impartial referee. A trophy will be awarded to the winning parish, which last time was the team from Catsfield and there will be great competition as they attempt to retain the title. Your support is needed, whether as a player or spectator, a regular church goer or not, all are welcome, so do please be there on the day – your village needs YOU! Tea and cakes will be served from the pavilion after the match when the trophy will be presented.

Car Boot Sale: The fundraisers of St Laurence Church will be holding their next big event on Saturday 24th June at the Catsfield Playing Fields. The gates open for sellers at 8.30am and to the public from 9am – 11.30am the cost for cars is £7, Vans £10 and entrance for Browsers is 50p. Hot and cold refreshments will be available, this event is renowned for its bacon butties and it’s worth a visit for them alone!

WI: The June meeting of the Catsfield WI was mainly about the ‘Fun Flower and Produce Show’ – though as the President pointed out in her opening address, (after she had experienced difficulties in getting her entries together that morning), in future years the word ‘Fun’ will be dropped from the title! We were given many dates for our diaries of forthcoming events, both within the WI and involving the village as a whole, which emphasised the fact that Catsfield has a thriving community spirit. Our secretary had drawn up a quiz for everyone to tackle whilst the judging took place of the show entries, no-one had all twenty answers correct but a few groups claimed 2nd prize. The intended prize was a packet of four KitKats and the President suggested that all members of winning teams should have about an inch each. As we didn’t have a tape measure handy, this was replaced by a box of chocolates which was passed round for everyone to share. It was then tea and show time and we all enjoyed wandering round looking at the many lovely items made by our very talented members – lots of homemade cakes and biscuits, some beautiful flower arrangements and some very clever handicrafts. The next meeting will be on Thursday 6th July at 2.30pm when the speaker will be our own WI member, the very talented Sandra Shoobridge who will talk about ‘Life in Full Bloom’.

Boat Race: The second Catsfield Boat Race was held last Sunday 4th June when the roads around the village triangle were closed for two hours and a large number of spectators lined the route to cheer on the energetic – and slightly crazy – competitors carrying their homemade boats around the course. The weather remained dry and mainly sunny for the event and the runners must have been glad of the breeze, which cooled them down a little as they careered towards the finish line. The winners of the heats met in the final, which of course meant getting out there and doing it all again and they gave it all they’d got! The Catsfield Boat Race Committee will be announcing all the winners of the entire day by the end of the week along with plenty of pictures, so watch out for that. The family day of fun and games continued on the lovely Playing Field. Scott, Mike, Carol, Russell, Jenny and the rest of the organisers were joined by the WI serving over 200 hot drinks in the pavilion kitchen, Gary the “Burger King” feeding a long line of hungry punters, Jess at the Pimms table, a bar, cake stall run by Richard, Poppy of Pre-School organising crowds of extremely active young children in their boat races, Pass and Go running beat the goalie games, bouncy castle, stalls, tuck stall etc etc. Some ferocious cannibal drummers were extremely entertaining, then a rock band appeared and so it went on. What a successful day!

Maureen and Peter Baker: The funeral of Peter and Maureen Baker of the village sausage shop took place on Monday in the presence of many relatives and friends from Catsfield and Dallington. They had been married for almost 57 years and only been apart for twelve weeks owing to illness. Since they came to the village in 1982, they joined in local life, contributing to the various activities held in villages and brought up their two boys Bernard and John. Bernard regaled us with stories of their lives together. Two poems written by Rudyard Kipling were read at the service and a short history of the two families emphasised Peter and Maureen’s rural history.

Sport

If only our cricketers had won Sunday afternoon away at Southbourne, the day would have been perfect. However, we were beaten by seven wickets, despite James Wilson scoring 70 runs and Andy Williams 24 towards our total of 141 all out. This Sunday we play Jevington away, when the hope is it won’t be as windy as last Sunday.

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