42 members, in a variety of wigs and waistcoats, attended our AGM in March when we appointed a new President, Gen Fretwell, from the re-elected committee. Gen takes over from Julia Dymond who had a very “enjoyable year” despite her original misgivings. Once the business side of the evening, which included reports from both the President and Treasurer, had been conducted, we then had a lovely supper of shepherd’s pie followed by a choice of sumptuous deserts made by various members of our very talented committee. The evening was rounded off with a Quiz.
Our next meeting is at 7.30pm on May 24th when Jane Malyon is going to talk to us about “Adopting an Attitude.” Membership again is full but visitors are very welcome at a cost of £3.50.
If you would like any further information about P.A.W.S. please ring any of us on any of the following numbers. Alice 01206 735510, Jane 01206 735004, Julia 01206 735053 or Sue 01206 735212.
38 members and 10 visitors attended our meeting in February when we welcomed back 
40 members and a number of visitors attended our meeting in January when June Crisfield Chapman came along to talk to us about “Wild Plants, Myths, Magic and Medicines.” June is actually an Artist/Painter, who through her love of nature which started at an early age in Scotland where she was bought up, has created an extensive range of wood engravings which she has exhibited at the National Theatre amongst other galleries. She also wrote for the Countryman magazine for 11 years. She showed us a slide show of numerous engravings of flowers and flora and explained where some of the myths had started. It was a most interesting evening.
Nearly 40 of us attended our Christmas Dinner at the 
About 30 members and visitors attended our October meeting when Mr. Patrick Forsythe came along to tell us about getting “Travel Books Published”. Patrick had worked in Management Training and successfully written a training book and then joined a writing group before having two travel books published. The first “First Class at Last” comparing budget travel with first class travel to Asia and the second “A land like none you know” all about Burma. He told us that having had the idea for the first book he sent the draft idea to several publishing companies and got rejected. He persisted and finally when following them up, one of them asked him to resubmit his ideas, he got an email saying “a contract was on its way”. He then had the problem of funding his trip so he contacted various airlines, hotels etc. who agreed to fund him in return for a write up. He read out a number of paragraphs from his books which were highly amusing and very entertaining. We also had a Silent Auction which once again proved highly successful raising £87.50 for our funds, which was a fantastic effort.
There was no meeting in August but there was a trip organised and reported by Pam Foakes as follows:
40 members and several visitors, including a group from Layer Ladies, joined us for our Salsa night at our July meeting on the 27th. Mojito’s and a light themed supper were enjoyed, together with a quiz based on South American Flags before Mark Moore explained a little about the history of Salsa music. As a fusion of traditional African and Cuban and other Latin-American rhythms it travelled from the islands (