Our meetings are held in St Luke's Church Hall on the 4th Tuesday of each month at 7:30 pm except in December.
Details of our Meetings for 2014
28th JanuarySpeaker - Tess Medina Rios 'Local Girl Who Ran Away To The Circus'
Competition - Decorated Paper Plate Tess is well known around the village for her dance sessions and also her work at the, now departed, Wine Bar. She enthralled us on how she started her career in dance which then led to joining the circus and travelling all over the world. She then gave us a demonstration on one of her circus acts, plate spinning. A few of us were willing to have a go, some managed to at least keep the plate in the air for a little while, whilst others failed miserably, the President included. 25th February Speaker - Lesley Spellman 'The Clutter Fairy' Competition - Cleaning Gadget You Can't Live Without Being the beginning of Spring it seemed the ideal time for us to be advised on how to de-clutter our homes and lives. She had quite a few good ideas and it made us all think about what rooms we had at home just itching to be sorted out. Some of the members admitted they've ve seen since have said they've made a start. Well done. 25th March Birthday Party with entertainment and Hot Pot Supper We had a fantastic hot pot supper with lovely crispy crust, accompanied with red cabbage and beetroot. Beech Tree Catering did us proud once again and we enjoyed either their special Trifle or Raspberry Pavlova. To finish we were treated to birthday cake baked by our very own 'MasterChef' Ann. Throughout the evening we were entertained by two local young girls, Eirlys and Georgina, who sang and played keyboards. A great time was had by all. 22nd April Speaker - Gordon Atkinson 'Red Mango Jam Tomorrow' Competition - Group - A Piece of Royal Memorabilia Gordon explained that in the cooler air of the shade of a mango tree, a tiny, fragile idea pushed out of the duty earth. It was the idea to build a small school in a rural area, 30 miles north of Mombasa in Kenya. To give children the chance of education - education that can transform their future. To give them the chance to learn and laugh and play and grow. To give them the chance of a future. In 2013 he saw at first hand both the progress being made and the ongoing need for support. One new classroom has been built by the local mining company and is in full use. The block-making machine donated by a young couple from Liverpool is also being used by the community to make more blocks. Despite many children being able to attend only half a day because of classroom shortages the start of year examinations produced god results. A thought provoking talk. 27th May Resolutions Meeting and Members' Evening After the business of voting on this year's Resolution we had a lovely time with a picture quiz followed by cheese and wine (The cheese being provided by Mandeville's in the village) everyone had a great time and we decided we'd have to do it again soon. 24th June Speaker - Tessa Wiskcard 'Where There's A Will There's a Way' Competition - Flowers In A Jam Jar Tessa and her colleague, Vicki Acres, from Jobling Gowler Solicitors in Macclesfield explained the risks of not having a Lasting Power of Attorney and also making a Will gave you control over what happens to your assets and possessions when you die. Not a cheery topic of talk but one our ladies found interesting and it made them think of things that could happen when you didn't make a Will which could lead to all sorts of complications, whatever the size of your estate which can be costly and stressful to resolve. 22nd July Speaker - Gill Adlington 'Painting for Everyone' Competition - Your Painting Gill showed us how easy it is to paint and showed us in stages how to make a lovely landscape picture. She donated it to raffle at our Christmas Party 26th August Speaker - David Cowgill 'Holmes Chapel - Growth of a Village' Competition - Holmes Chapel Memorabilia David talked about his family and their links with Holmes Chapel and his time on the Council. He explained, with photos, how the village had changed over the years, it brought back a lot of memories for those members who had lived in the village for most of their lives. Even those who have only been here for a relatively short time had seen so many changes to the size of the village. 23rd September Speaker -Keith Birkett 'History of Roberts Bakery' Competition - Group tba The company we know today as Frank Roberts and Sons, started in much humbler surroundings in 1887 when Robert Roberts – Frank’s father – opened his own corner shop, selling and delivery groceries, including bread, to the local community in Castle, Northwich. After the war bread baking had become a fully fledged industry with the plant bakeries of Manchester and Liverpool piling the pressure onto smaller cottage industries. Frank Roberts was determined that the company wouldn’t fall by the wayside and in 1952 the company moved to its current site and constructed a new purpose-built bakery, the ‘Red Rose Bakery’, on farm land in Rudheath, Northwich. This new bakery was ideally situated for the major roads in the county and, when it was built 11 years later, the M6 motorway. The new bakery could bake around 600 loaves of bread an hour and employed 12 bakers. Today Frank Roberts and Sons continues to go from strength to strength with its mix of branded retail bread, own label and foodservice customers. Roberts Bakery continues to expand – the iconic cooling towers at the front of the bakery were built in the year 2000 – and bread production now runs at 13,000 loaves an hour or 1.6 million a week, while bread rolls are baked at a rate of 1.7 million a week. The bakery at Rudheath embarked on its largest ever investment with a major site development programme. The ambitious £8.5 million programme, completed in Summer 2011, provided the company with a new dispatch facility and more than 3000m2 of extra floor space. Keith brought us up-to-date with current projects and handed out samples to our members, which were gratefully received. 28th October Speaker - Nick Bianchi 'The Origins Of Arighi Bianchi' Competition - An Item of Silk Nick, his father and cousin, all explained how Arighi Bianchi came into being - Arighi Bianchi is a fourth-generation family-owned business. Today, the immediate descendants of Antonio Bianchi hold the reins at the store. What this means is that the principles, ethics and standards first established by both Antonios in the mid-nineteenth century are still adhered to even today. They are a unique, fourth generation family business that is housed in a magnificent Grade 2* listed building deigned in homage to the focus Crystal Palace, located on the historic Silk Road in Macclesfield. Arighi Bianchi has been part of the furniture in Britain, quite literally, for over 150 years. In fact, it’s fair to say that their store has become a great British institution, famous for its unique building, high-quality products, levels of service that belong to a gentler, more genteel era and family ownership that continues to this day. And they have their roots firmly planted in the North West. The North West of Italy, that is. Because this great British furnishing institution didn’t begin life in furnishing or in Britain, but in Italy and in silk. WHY MACCLESFIELD? Because Macclesfield was in those days itself a poor town of silk weavers so, even though Antonio was in a foreign country, he must have felt himself to be in a community not dissimilar to the one he’d left. And with an in-built sense of adventure and entrepreneurialism, it was perhaps only natural for him to set up in business in the town selling the latest ‘necessities’ – barometers and clocks. Nick concluded his talk with a Q&A session and gave each member a goodie bag which contained a bag, jar of jam and some fudge, along with a brochure. 25th November AGM and Members' Evening 2nd December Christmas Party Updated 18th November 2014 |