Catsfield

Spring Concert: Tonight at 7.30pm a Spring Concert is to be held in the parish church of St Laurence. The evening will feature the St Laurence Church Choir and Guest Artists and will raise money to help maintain this beautiful old church. If you haven’t already bought your ticket from the Village Stores, they will also be available on the door for £6, which will include a light supper.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Mar 2015, 23:00 BST

Catsfield WI: At the March meeting of the WI, our speaker was Catsfield resident Sarah Moore and her daughter Anya talking and demonstrating ‘Spinning – Past, Present and Future’. We hadn’t anticipated what a delight this talk was to be until Sarah’s knowledge and delightfully infectious enthusiasm for her subject immediately captivated her audience. She showed us how it was possible to spin even the coloured cotton wool balls bought from a chemist into a yarn.

We were given twenty-five different samples of various fibres suitable for spinning and challenged to see how many we could identify. Some of the answers were most surprising, not just silk, cotton or the fleeces of various sheep or goats, but from other organic materials such as bananas and jute. She also explained the importance of ‘plying’ the yarns to avoid the end garment having a definite twist or slant.

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Her obvious love for her craft and of all her many spindles and yarns, along with the stories and history of this ancient craft (ably demonstrated by Anya) meant that she was encouraged by her audience to continue well beyond the allotted time and left everyone feeling that we wanted to hear much more at some time in the future. Our next meeting on 2nd April will be the great occasion of Catsfield WI’s 97th birthday and will start at the summer time of 2.30pm. The speaker will be Sharon Elizabeth, who will entertain us with a talk entitled ‘Deco Delights – Music and Lives of Stars in the 20’s and 30’s’.

The Women’s World Day of Prayer: This international service was organised and gently led by Jackie Saxby and was celebrated by about twenty ladies and two gentlemen – Father Michael and David Wilson, who accompanied the hymns on the organ. It is always moving to think that around the world, throughout the twenty-four hours of that day, exactly the same service was being followed by women in vastly differing circumstances and cultures in all the many time zones of the world. This was beautifully illustrated by the words of the closing hymn ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended’.

WI Jumble Sale: A long queue of buyers was waiting for the doors of the Village Hall to open last Saturday morning, all eager to buy the many good quality bargains on offer. It was a very quick affair, with the hall being completely cleared away by 11.30am. The trend nowadays seems to be that people come early and then leave, presumably getting ready to visit afternoon jumbles. There was a lovely selection of home-made cakes on sale too and satisfied customers left the hall loaded with their purchases. The event raised £152 for the WI charity, The Air Ambulance Service, this was particularly poignant in view of the recent tragic accident in the village, which their helicopter attended and flew the Catsfield resident involved to a London hospital, where he sadly died. The sale of cakes and refreshments raised £88 to help boost WI funds.

Sports News: Our football team actually played another game last Saturday, true we lost 1 - 3 against Tackleway, but we played well and the result could have gone either way. Several ex-players came up to the Playing Field to watch Tony Luke score our only goal and a convivial time was had on the touchline. There are only five more matches to go and then it is over to stoolball and cricket.

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The cricket club held a successful AGM and dinner at The Squirrel Inn where the food was delicious accompanied by good service. James Wilson won the bowling cup and Derek Fuller the batting trophy. Chairman Mike Davey said his contribution to our Sunday matches was outstanding and he couldn’t remember another player scoring two centuries in a season. Tea ladies Chris Cook, Jackie Gurr, Margaret Pratt and Ann Davey were presented with an orchid as a personal thank you and scorers Barbara and Katherine Cook were handed spending vouchers by their father Keith Cook. You will notice there are rather a lot of Cooks involved with our cricket club and we are extremely grateful for their contribution along with the other volunteers. This summer’s fixtures are all done and nets organised, so the boys will be getting the pitch ready for the first home match on 3rd May. There are 12 home fixtures this year, which if we can encourage the tea ladies, will result in increased income for the club at a time when costs are going up.

Jill Jarrett

Broadview, Bexhill