Catsfield

The WI meeting held on Thursday 7th February began with the usual singing of Jerusalem followed by the necessary ‘business’ matters of the meeting. There were several forthcoming events to write in our diaries including the annual Jumble Sale on Saturday 9th March, which will be a couple of days after our next meeting when Catsfield Parish Counsellor, Peter Josling will talk to us about ‘Garlic from the ground upwards’. There will be a special meeting open to visitors on 18th April to enable anyone interested in viewing the Magic Lantern show of a ‘Voyage in the Sunbeam’. The local rambles will start again in the middle of March, when hopefully there will be a marked improvement in the weather.

A cheque for £405 was presented to Ruth Tomkins as the last contribution from the WI to our charity of 2011 and 2012 towards the funding of Admiral Nurses for East Sussex. The new charity for 2013 is the Demelza Hospice Care for Children.

The meeting then sat back to enjoy a talk given by Mel Rees entitled ‘Brought to Book – My family and other setbacks’. Everyone was soon in fits of laughter at the tales that he told with ‘anger, passion and humour’ (Mel’s own description) of his parents and growing up as an only child in Clapham Junction, with his mirror as his only confidante and companion. This self-confessed, train-spotting snob turned out to be a very amusing stand-up comedian, as he regaled us with tales of his wife and children and their lives together and the obviously happy relationship that they share. He ended by telling us of his venture into writing and introduced us to the books that he has written and that were there available for anyone to buy.

The East Sussex Mobile Library will be in its usual place outside the Village Hall tomorrow, Saturday 16th February from 4.15pm until 4.45pm

Lunch Club are pleased to announce we will remain open for the foreseeable future! Some new diners have joined us but we do still have some spaces available which we need to fill in order to keep this service in the village. Dinner is just £3.00 for two courses and tea or coffee and we also have a monthly raffle.

If you would like to book a place at our Friday Lunch Club please telephone Libby on 892360.

At last there was a temporary respite from bad weather and we managed to fit in a football match v Crowhurst away. Catsfield played well, but we lost 2 - 3, Colin White and Louie scoring our goals. This leaves the team at the bottom of Division 1 with only 7 games left to play and the general feeling is that Division 2 might suit us better. Hopefully, there will be a game against Mountfield at home 2 pm on the 16th, but writing this on an extremely wet Sunday, the ducks will have to move from Horns Corner for the pitch to be fit to play on.

You are cordially invited to Catsfield Horticultural Society’s AGM on Friday 1st March at 7.30pm in the Village Hall. If you are at all interested in the future of your village fete and evening barn dance, please come along and have your say! The barn dance has started to decline in the last couple of years, we have been dancing to the Catsfield Steamers for 33 years now and thoughts are that we need a change. We are considering the band who entertained us during our Jubilee celebrations, but the cost is quite a considerable difference. We need your thoughts on this if we are to make any changes.

We also need someone or a group to run the fete. Maybe your club or society are a bit short of funds and would like to reap the benefits of running that side of things. If a small committee could be formed to run the fete, the job is not such a daunting one!

All we ask is for an hour of your time on the above evening, and as a thank you, join us in a glass of wine and nibbles.

For any further information please don’t hesitate to contact me. I look forward to seeing you all on the March 1st! Vanessa, Chairman - Catsfield Horticultural Society.