News from around the clubs - September 10

Cooden Afternoon Millennium Townswomen's Guild

FOLLOWING the August break, our chairman Mrs K Murphy welcomed back 50 members and visitors to our September.

During August Mrs Murphy hosted our garden party on a very rainy day. Despite the weather, the party was great fun and raised 245 for our chosen charity for this year, the Alzheimer's Research Trust (ART).

Our speakers, Josie and Miranda, fund-raising managers for the ART, gave an interesting and thought-provoking talk on this devastating disease, a type of dementia.

The Trust is Britain's leading dementia research charity, funding vital work to find an effective solution. It gets no funding from the government and relies on donations to maintain its crucial research.

Our chairman thanked the speakers for their visit and Kaye presented them with a cheque for 500, representing monies raised by the Guild since February.

An arts and crafts afternoon will be held at St Augustine's Hall on Monday, September 13, featuring demonstrations and a chance for visitors to try there own skills.

Bexhill Downs are having a full day event on Friday, October 29 to include a hot lunch with wine, tea and a quiz. Tickets are available through Mrs Keen and we hope to raise a team for the quiz.

There will be an autumn fair on October 16 at Sackville Road Methodist Church where local Guilds will be represented. Please add your support.

We will be needing a new treasurer in February next year as our present treasurer is retiring.

An outing is planned before Christmas to a garden centre at Poll Hill, near Sevenoaks, with a visit to a hobby centre en route. The visit to Glyndebourne for a Christmas concert on December 12 has been well supported.

We look forward to seeing members old and new at our next meeting on Wednesday, October 6 at 2pm.

Bexhill Philatelic Society

OUR first meeting of the new season will be on Tuesday, September 28. Our new venue is St Andrew's Church Hall, Wickham Avenue, Bexhill. For more information please telephone 01424 731845.

Little Common Photographic Club

A TRIP to the Bluebell Railway and Sheffield Park Gardens was enjoyed by five members on July 21 and provided opportunities for taking photographs for forthcoming club trophy competitions, including Flowers for slides and Water for prints.

Three weeks later, poor weather broke just in time to deliver a beautifully sunny and hot afternoon for the club's annual garden party. Hosted by June and John Larkin, it was attended by 10 members and four guests.

With changes to digital format, the club has included a couple of digital image projection competitions for this season. There are vacancies for a digital secretary and a programme secretary.

An open evening on Monday September 13 at 7.45pm marks the start of the 2010/11 season, to feature 10 to 15 minute presentations of slides and prints on any subject which members are asked to bring along.

The meeting, in the main hall at Little Common Community Centre, Shepherds Close, will also introduce club activities and welcome prospective new members.

Annual subscriptions are now 29, plus the LCCA fee of 3, and tea or coffee will cost 35p. For further information about the club, contact chairman John Larkin on 01424 842364.

Bexhill Artists' Workspace

Bexhill Artists' Workspace AGM was held last week. A large number of members heard the chairman, Mr Terry Carter, report on an excellent year - two high standard exhibitions, very successful workshops in the winter, good weather for the outdoor drawing sessions this summer, a lot of interest in the Open Studios demonstrations held at Bexhill Museum every Sunday and several new members joining to take part in the life drawing sessions held in the summer.

Terry had announced his resignation as chairman and explained that Maggie Carpenter wished to give up being secretary. He was delighted to say that there were nominations for all the vacancies on the committee with several members sharing the work of secretary.

The nominations were duly seconded and the members elected Maggie Carpenter as chairman, Chas Couldrick as treasurer, Elaine Crate as minutes and correspondence secretary, Penny Hobson as membership secretary, Janet Woolf as exhibition secretary, helped by Madeleine Day, Gill Streater to run the workshops, Dorothy Webb to continue to edit the newsletter, Eleanor Harding to continue to produce our leaflets and update the website, Stacey Sangster to take on publicity and Barbara Mullen to liaise between the membership secretary and the committee. Doreen and Terry Carter volunteered to remain on the committee. Val Tidiman and Jean Parkins volunteered to organise refreshments, Val for workshops and Jean for exhibitions.

The members also very gladly endorsed the proposal of the committee that Terry Carter should be the president of the group and he was happy to accept the position.

As his last task as chairman he spoke of his sadness at the death of long-time member Anne Enefer and that the committee had decided to present an award each year, to be called the Anne Enefer Award to the member (not on the committee) deemed to have made a special contribution to BAW.

Unfortunately the chosen winner this year could not be present but he was happy to announce that the award was to Philipa Coughlan for her tireless work behind the scenes with publicity, catering and liaising with Surestart.

Highwoods Preservation Society

WHAT'S about in September:

It will be interesting to see what effect the unseasonable wet and cold August has on autumn.

As summer slips away we are suddenly aware of cooler mornings when the dew highlights spider webs. At this time of the year we can get some idea of the huge number of spiders that are around.