Ladies Saturday Morning Group, report for September/October/November

After a short break in August, Saturday meetings began again in September.

Our first speaker was Patrick Cooke who is an organ grinder from Crich in Derbyshire. He explained the origins of the organs, the way they work and how much his family is involved. As a family they now own 5 organs and enjoy meeting and entertaining the public. Patrick told us how the music is punched onto cards and fed into the organ as it used to be with the original computers! but it is a highly skilled craft and only a few in this country have the know how!

Patrick treated us to some lovely music and also played old songs which we were able to join in with, Jealousy, Singing in the rain, & Down at the Old Bull & Bush to name but a few.

This was a very enjoyable Saturday morning!

In October we delved into a more serious topic. “The Life of a Paramedic” by Alan Marwood who is the Operations Manager for the East Midlands.

All paramedics are accountable for their actions and have to be on a professional register, consequently there is a 2year training programme, not only learning medical skills but how to deal with the public at large. In the East Midlands there are associate cars often within the community who can get to patients in a much shorter time than ambulances thus increasing the chances of better outcome! Many questions were asked as you may imagine. We all felt very grateful to this group of professionals, who we may need at some time in our lives!

November brought the Holidays!

Tony Laver of Laver Holidays (which is a locally based business) gave us a very interesting talk on how their coach holidays had developed. It is a family owned business, Tony deals with British holidays & Martin his son with Foreign holidays. Not only do they do coach holidays but also have gone into the cruise market, & provide door to door service (which is a good idea if you have got a very heavy case!). A relatively new venture has been the development of providing apartments in Spain which can be booked through them in the same way as any of their holidays. Tony , besides entertaining us with some anecdotes, did stress that when buying a holiday(whoever with) READ THE SMALL PRINT in the contracts , & when on holiday if there is a problem get it put right at the time, not when you get home! So, remember when you take a holiday!

Ashmores again, but this time for our Christmas outing, we decided not to go so far afield this time! Sixty or so members, partners and friends joined in a very pleasant lunchtime gathering. As usual there was an excellent menu, not only traditional but also some exciting choices Avryl Whitehead again gave up a leisurely lunch to do the raffle, and there were some lovely prizes!

Dates for the first three months- 2010 are as follows

Saturday January 9th A child’s war- The German Occupation of Guernsey Speaker: Peter La Prevost

Saturday February 13th
Naturally Tip to Toe Therapy- Reflexology Speaker: Julie Fulton

Saturday March 13th A.G.M. Life of an Auctioneer Speaker: Charles Hanson

A warm welcome awaits all existing and potential new members. For further information contact Chairman Aileen Wright 01159283891 or ekim01@ntlworld.com