Confucious Institute Staff and students from the Confucious Institute at Bangor University entertained us with traditional Chinese dance and music and also held a workshop on the art of paper cutting. We had a wonderful evening in the company of these young people. The dancing by Yuan Liu, a student at the Beijing Dance Academy was enchanting, and this was followed by a performance by Qianyan Zhou on the ‘Erhu’, a two-stringed instrument which was truly amazing. Many thanks to Vikki and Emily, The Cricket Pavilion at Bangor Cricket Club who provided the delicious refreshments.  

A very successful charity evening in aid of Young Carers was held at the home of Jenny Watkin Jones on 23rd July in aid of Young Carers . Members and guests enjoyed a glass of wine and a lovely buffet prepared by Jenny, Vicki and Pam.  Very many thanks to Jenny for hosting this event and allowing us to enjoy the beautiful gardens and surroundings. A sum of £902.10 was raised to provide a special outing for the Young Carers in our community.

A Strawberry Tea was held at Vicki Williams’ house, Four Mile Bridge again this year in aid of Ty Gobaith and Breast Cancer Care Wales.  An amazing £3,300 was raised and many thanks to Vicki and all who helped to make it such a successful and lovely day.

Members of SI Bangor & District, together with visiting Presidents and club members enjoyed their 67th Charter Luncheon at Seiont Manor, Llanrug on Sunday 21st June.  A very warm welcome was extended to all our guests by President Anne. Our guest speaker was Mr. Ian Mackenzie, from ‘Teams for You’.

SI Bangor have been saving ‘brown money’ for a Water project for the last three years and at last had enough money to send to Cambodian Child’s Dream Organization for a well.  We recently received thanks and photos from the people who have benefited:-

Members from SI Bangor braved the winds at Llandudno prom to take part in the march for International Women’s day on March 7th.

Members of SI Bangor were joined by members from SI Anglesey, SI Dyffryn Conwy and SI Llandudno at their wine tasting friendship evening on March 3rd. Members were invited to taste six different wines and try them with different foods to discover how the wine could enhance the food or not as in some cases. During the evening cheques were presented to representatives from the Itala Foundation, Action for Children and RNLI charities, the result of fundraising events by SI Bangor.  The photograph shows Laura Williams receiving a cheque from Yi Jones who had organised an event to raise money for the charity Action for Children.

This year the members of SI Bangor decided to prepare nutritious home-made soup for the homeless of Bangor as their SOS event. Rather than a Saturday of service, different members delivered soup on three separate days during one week in order to maximise the number of people they could help. There were many different soups e.g . sweet potato/coconut and chilli, vegetable and lentil, leek and potato and butternut squash and ginger to name but a few. Donations of food from Morrison’s and Lidl were also given to help the people living at the hostel.

On December 1st a wine tasting evening was arranged by member Yi Jones in order to raise funds for the Action for Children charity. A representative from Action for Children attended the evening and told the group that the money raised would provide the young carers with respite and activities that would be beneficial towards their caring role. During the evening members sampled eight different wines with a variety of food items in order to discover how the food could influence the taste of the wine. A very interesting evening enjoyed by everyone.

The members of SI Bangor have supported the work of Teams 4U by filling 38 shoe boxes with items suitable for a boy, girl or family.  The boxes were delivered to a collection point on November 19th by member Anne Griffiths before she herself prepared to travel out to Romania on December 11th to take part in the distribution of the boxes. All the members at SI Bangor are looking forward to hearing about her trip when she returns.