Once again, we have managed to have a variety of events taking place. These have sometimes required changes at the last minute depending on the COVID infection rates locally and again we have held some meetings via Zoom and others face to face.

In January we held a “Gardners Question Time”. Our gardening group answered questions put to them by members. It was really enjoyable and we all took away new ideas and knowledge related to gardening. The panel were fantastic and totally unfazed by the questions asked

February, again via Zoom, we had a talk from Saima about embroidery. She told us about phulkari, which is a traditional Punjabi stitching technique. The examples she showed us were beautiful

March required a last minute change to our planned programme as our speaker tested positive for covid! So instead of having a speaker we did the talking ourselves by way of a Speed Chat meeting. Members moved around the room and had 5 minutes to chat before having to move onto the next person. It was brilliant. It was amazing what things we discovered about each other, even though we had been members of the group for many years!

April was Northern Powerhouse, who showed a variety of self defence techniques to the members who were able to attend.

May was our Annual General Meeting and then a talk entitled “Flat Stan”. This was about resuscitation and the use of community defibrillators

In June we had a jubilee party with competitions for the best cake or pudding and the best tiara. The entries were both amazing and delicious!

July was food elated again. Martina Karol came to talk to us about fermentation. It was fascinating and we learnt about the benefits of eating fermented foods, and also the types of foods that can be used for this. Martina gave us the recipe for doing this and many of our members will no doubt be trying this.