This year the club held a Sunflower competition to raise funds for the Meru Project. Throughout the year the club has a produce table selling plants, jams pickles etc. with the monies raised going to this excellent project in Kenya. The competition had 3 classes, tallest plant, largest flower head and photo of wildlife enjoying the seed head.
This year the club started a 5 year project studying the plant life in 5 different locations within an area designated by the group “Plantlife”. Over the years we have to assess each area for the plants growing within it in Spring and late summer , noting any changes that may have occurred such as intensity of grazing. Unfortunately the owner of one of our chosen sites has not been co-operative and we may need to find another site. This is proving to be a very interesting survey and has brought out our inner botanists.
As we have had no President this year we held an afternoon tea party in January where everyone was asked to bring a cup and saucer which held particular significance to them. It gave the club an opportunity to chat with former members who are still in the area and enjoy keeping in touch even though they are unable to attend the normal meetings
This year 10 members attended the Conference and helped with the Stewarding. We decided on a Door to Door train ride from Pwllheli to Cardiff, not the quickest method of travel as there is a detour into Shrewsbury, but a very scenic and enjoyable journey so we arrived in Cardiff having avoided the stress of driving. As can be seen from the photo there were 3 Conference “Virgins”!
Members of the club enjoyed a brief history of the House and Garden and current plans for its development from the owner before spending some 2-3 hrs wandering around this garden in its early spring colours.The Visitor centre showing pictures of the destruction caused by the Christmas flood in 2014 were remarkable as was the amount of work that has been done to restore the garden -again! After an excellent lunch at the gardens restaurant some members went on to visit Penmon Point
This year the S I South Caernarfonshire choir again sang in 2 of the local Residential Homes. There was a Spring “Concert” of songs from the Wartime period and the inter war years together with Traditional Welsh Songs and Carol singing in the week before Christmas. The Residents enjoy these afternoons and many of them join in with the singing.
Hellen , the nursing student we have been sponsoring through her higher school education and into her nursing training in Zambia finished her first year this summer and did well in her exams. She has now started on her clinical rotations and is working in various centres doing practical subjects such as midwifery. She is still enjoying the course and hopefully will qualify in 2019. We are still holding some events to pay for her tuition fees and board and lodging. It is amazing how far money will go in rural Zambia
This year one of our members , Hilary, hosted a MacMillan Coffee Morning in her Barn. The morning was a great success and raised over £1000
We held an afternoon sewing meeting making Alzheimer’s blankets to donate to local care homes. These blankets and muffs serve a dual purpose. They provide some warmth for the elderly as they sit in their day rooms and the bits and pieces attached give them a distraction for their hands and fingers which might otherwise be causing damage to their skins through repetitive rubbing and scratching. Made of washable fleece blankets with buttons, bells zippers etc. securely attached they can be readily washed and dried for reuse by the residents.
Clwb Ni is a small local group that meets weekly to give a social life to Adults with Learning Difficulties. This group run on a shoe string budget and monies that we raise for them is usually spent on hiring a coach in order to take them to the Christmas Pantomime in Llandudno and give them a “Fish and Chip ” supper. We held a bric-a-brac stall in the local market which was generously provided with stock by members who took the opportunity to “declutter”! There was enough stock left over to warrant a trip to a Sunday Car boot sale.
