Rodborough Friendly Circle Annual General Meeting and Report

RODBOROUGH Friendly Circle held it 61st Annual meeting on Thursday, August 4, at the Stroud Rugby Club Rooms.

It was attended by fifty-three members.

The catering team had laid and decorated the tables for the two course summer lunch which was very much enjoyed those present.

Afterwards a ticket was drawn to decide who should cut the birthday cake, the honour going to Mrs Olive Heskins, the cake was then distributed along with a celebration glass of wine or fruit juice.

There was a spontaneous round of applause to appreciate the hard work of the ladies involved in producing a splendid meal.

Following the lunch it was down to business and the President Mr R Cook, welcomed members to consider and approve the reports and elect their committee for the coming year.

The Treasurer, Mrs A Evans, handed out the financial report which showed the Friendly Circle was healthy but warned that increased costs of transport for members and room hire charges meant there would be need to find extra funding in the coming twelve months each meeting costing nearly £200 per time.

The Friendly Circle are very grateful for the grant of £200 it received from the Rodborough Parish Council towards transport.

The Annual Holiday, day trips and Christmas dinner organised by Mrs J Fry were very much enjoyed and showed a small profit in her year end report.

Membership secretary Mrs O Heskins reported a small drop in membership mainly due to age related problems and encouraged members to ask along friends or neighbours along to the meetings.

The meeting learnt of the retirement from the Circle of two long serving members Mr and Mrs N Neale who have been staunch supporters and active fund raisers for many years.

The Membership wished them well for the future.

The Secretary’s report gave an accurate account of the years highlights of all the meetings extracts of which are detailed below.

Members gladly received all the reports and thanked the committee for the hard work involved during the year.

The election of officers and committee was simplified as all the members were willing to continue in their different roles which was greeted with approval by the meeting.

Last years meetings were varied and enjoyable.

In September when the planned speaker failed to show up the President filled in with a talk about the Rev George Whitefield of Gloucester the famous 18th century evangelist and a founder member of the Primitive Methodist movement.

For the Harvest Auction in October a good variety of produce was given by members.

It was a lot of fun and raised just over £100.

The Rev Eric Massey entertained the November Meeting with amusing stories, jokes and sing along accompanied himself on guitar, it was very enjoyable afternoon.

December was our Christmas Party and seasonal singing with excellent entertainment by the older children from Rodborough community Primary School. who afterwards handed small gifts out and chatted to members.

The first meeting of 2016 was in February with Mr Cresby Brown sharing some of his recordings of stories told by local people from the Stroud area.

They included games that were played, May walking, the maypole at Paganhill, and the Whiteshill Fife and Drum Band Day’s when life was so different from today.

Mr Bob Smith was welcomed to the March meeting with a slide show of ‘Marvellous Moths’.

It was a revelation to everyone to see so many different and beautifully marked moths.

In stark contrast the April meeting was hugely entertained by Mrs Margaret Daniels, known as ‘The Bard of Barnwood’’.

She gave a rendering of funny stories and poems taken from her own experiences of family and animal life, mostly true and told with great imagination.

In May, Peter Berry took the meeting to far flung places with trains in mind!

Being a steam train enthusiast he with friends had visited and hired out trains in both Cuba and the Ukraine and taken unusual pictures of different railways together with the local people and country side.

The slides showed the two extremely different countries in an interesting comparison.

The June meeting was taken on a study of Nature depicted in various media by Mr Simon Trapnell, the director of Nature in Art at Walworth Hall, Gloucester.

Most of the breath taking illustrations he used by famous and lesser known artists can be viewed at Nature in Art.

July came along with an impromptu group called Gusto led by Mervyn cave on piano and John Cook on guitar with four other talented musicians they entertained and conducted an afternoon sing along of popular songs.

It was greatly enjoyed and there were demands for a return visit in 2017.