Secretary's Report 2008

Once again I have to report that the Society had a successful year although the Summer Show still proves to be a problem, but more of that later. At the last count in November our membership was just over 350 so we are now settling at a steady figure picking up new members where we are loosing a few each year. We are still on the hunt for younger members so please tell your neighbours or relatives about us. It is nice to see that we still maintain about 80 to 100 members at each meeting which shocks some speakers who are used to an audience of about 20 to 30. We still produce 11 bulletins a year and more by luck than judgement manage to fill 4 pages most months. Same old plea, please send me some articles, poems, recipes, travel log of your holiday etc. you don't have to be a brilliant author, we can knock it into shape for you just as long as we get the basics. I get great pleasure from members who are not able to attend meetings who drop me a line saying how much they enjoy the Bulletins and are grateful that it keeps them in touch with the Society. The red hot fingers and

aching brain are not in vain.

Sadly we lost our President Wally Skinner last year. Wally served the Society well over many years with his beautiful roses and then later as Raffles. Ben Rainsbury has kindly stepped into his shoes and hopefully will be able to attend meetings although he does not always enjoy good health. We have just lost another great servant of the Society, Vanessa Rochester, who bravely battled against cancer but passed away peacefully on 18th February. She did so much for the Society through her catering skills, we will never forget her wonderful sponges at the Summer show, her welcome cups of tea at the meetings ablely helped by Dora and various washers up and the delicious spread she used to put on for the Quiz Night. She worked tirelessly to give us all very enjoyable holidays and I know she derived great pleasure from all her activities with the Society I am sure this enabled her to carry on when a lesser man would have stumbled at the first hurdle. She will be greatly missed and she will be a hard act to follow.

We had a good variety of speakers again last year. Bill Bossom came and told us all about the roses he had bred and grown.We had a lecture on Waddesdon, one on Butterflies, ( I didn't know they migrated ). We spent a day with Darwin and John Hughes took us on a trek up a Chilean Vulcano. I also understand that the dig for victory lecture brought back memories for several members who were in the Womens Land Army.

The Summer Show was very short on both entries and numbers of exhibitors. Many thanks to the ladies who helped to quickly fill about 40 vases with discarded roses to fill up 4 tables so that the general public saw a mass of flower. (I seem to remember reading of something similar in the distant past.) I say discarded roses but they were of excellent quality which goes to show the high standard of bloom that all our exhibitors put on the show bench. Nigel Chapman was show Champion with Mick Andrews winner of Best and Second Best Bloom. Dora Lemon won best Floral Art, Sam Shuttleworth the RHS Banksian Medal and Joan Dixon was awarded Junior Champion. Although the show always makes a loss due to the amount of prize money we award, the stalls, refreshments and raffle did better than in previous years as did the door takings on the day. We invested in a new banner and an A frame advertising board which did attract passers by and quite a few people came in after seeing our advert in the News Shopper. Many thanks to all who gave a hand in various capacities on the Friday evening and all day Saturday.

We had 2 day trips last year. Once again we visited the Detling Garden Show by request of some members and then had difficulty filling the coach. The Christmas trip was a drive through the villages of north Essex stopping at Thaxted and Saffron Waldon and then going on to the Chocolate Lady at Steeple Bumstead. Once again we had difficulty filling the coach. and in fact lost money on that trip.

The spring holiday was enjoyable. Stourhead was magnificent but I know many members enjoyed the Naked Gardeners efforts at Marlmsbury. We must go back when the roses are out. Our summer trip to Northern Ireland was a great success, a triumph over adversity for Vanessa as she had to deal with some very sticky last minute problems, everyone had a great time apart from being woken up at all hours of the night by wedding guests. The Autumn trip to Northumberland was memorable and it was nice to see how Alnick had matured. We also enjoyed our boat trip to the Farne Islands which we were unable to do last time with Bert. Pity the natives were not more friendly but the seals were glad to see us. The Christmas trip was a little different this year as we seem to have run out of Christmas markets in England, so we did a show at Wicksteed Park Northampton which included a meal. Glen our driver organised a ten pin bowling match on the Hotels bowling alley one evening which led to much merriment and several sore thumbs. The weekend was rounded off with the usual munching of mince pies washed down with a glass of sherry on the way home. We changed our coach company this year and are now with Plan It Travel. Although a little more expensive the coaches are really comfortable with plenty of leg room and you can see out of all the windows. The two drivers we have had, Kevin and Glen have been excellent and we thank them for making our holidays so comfortable and safe.

I must thank the ladies in the kitchen who make our refreshments each month and particularly thank Dora for taking over from Vanessa when she became too ill to carry on. We hardy saw the join ! Many thanks to all who helped organise and prepare the Buffet for Quiz night. We tried a new venture with actual cheese and bring your own wine. It needs a little tweeking but we were all new at it, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Thanks go to Jackie for booking our hotels and coaches and to Gordon for his quizzes.

Your Committee are continually looking for ways to move the Society forward and into the 21st Century without treading on too many toes. As you know by now the annual subscription has been raised from 50p to £1. This small amount doesn't even go half way to covering the Society's expenses; printing, postage etc. Over the next few years the fee will be raised to a more realistic amount, probably settling around £5 or £6.

We do understand that as members grow older they are not able to support us in a practical way by attending meetings and supporting the summer show.We do thank them all for their past contributions, and all of you who are able to participate, we hope that we have been able to make your membership a pleasant experience. Now we ask two things of you. Please put one rose each into the summer show and go out there and capture a young person who is interested in gardening and join them to the Society before they know what is happening. We olduns are fast running out of steam and we need some new blood.May I thank our Chairman for all the bright ideas he comes up with. This year the rest of the Committee are going to make him implement them so that we can have a rest. Grateful thanks to the rest of the Committee and their spouses who get roped in to help. But most of all a big thankyou to you the members who make the Society such a happy one to belong to.