Our December meeting saw us in festive spirits. The non alcoholic mulled wine went down a treat as did the mince pies, stollen and yule log. Christmas jumpers, sparkly tops, Santa hats and the like were much in evidence, and we enjoyed an interesting, well researched and entertaining talk by our speaker Dave Mooney. He traced the origins of Father Christmas right back to medieval times through to nineteenth and twentieth century poetry and storytelling. Along the way he enlightened us as to the significance of his pet goat and how the reindeer came into the picture and tracked the rise of his American rival Santa Claus.

We also raised £45 (by guessing the number of baubles in a vase) for Knitted Knockers UK (our fabulous October speaker!

At our November meeting we welcomed Clare O’Donnell who gave an interesting and entertaining talk all about the history of Melton Mowbray and its famous pork pie. From humble origins as the food of labourers it became popular with the aristocratic hunting fraternity. This included the Regency ‘King of theDandies’ Beau Brummell and his pals whose visits to the area made it a fashionable resort. Clare concluded with a pie raising demonstration after which we very much enjoyed tasting some genuine Melton pies.

In November the craft group also met one Saturday afternoon for our first Crafternoon where we enjoyed making rag wreaths for Christmas, The room was a ‘hive’ of activity and ‘buzzing’ with chatter. We hope to run more Crafternoons (in addition to our regular monthly Craft Group meet-ups) over the coming year! I’m personally quite impressed with how they all turned out…

We had an unfortunately very last minute change to our programme for October but we were honoured to be joined by the wonderful Margaret who spoke to us about the charity Knitted knockers UK and her work knitting knockers (i.e. breast prostheses) for women who have undergone a mastectomy or lumpectomy. Her talk was engaging and funny and you could really feel her passion for this wonderful charity.

Check out the charity at the following link: https://knittedknockersuk.com/

We also ran a raffle to raise money for Maggie’s (as we do every October), in honour of Breast Cancer Awareness month and in memory our beautiful friend Sarah.

We have also had to change out November meeting from our scheduled Christmas cookies but we have decided to keep to the ‘food theme’ by arranging a talk about Melton Mowbray Pies (with samples!)

Our September meeting was an introduction to Line Dancing led by Jo Porter who has
previously visited the Hive for a Kitchen Dancing session. It was a really fun evening and
a good workout for both body and mind!!

We also collected items for the Baby Basics and Bundles of Hope charity in Long Eaton which supports families with children under 5 across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Many thanks to our members for their generous donations which were gratefully received by the charity. Thanks also to
Mandy for delivering all the donations 🙂

We had 19 members and 3 visitors join us at The Blackshale for the August social on a warm summer evening. Everyone seemed to enjoy the opportunity to sit and chat as well as enjoying some entertaining games.

Eight members also enjoyed a lovely evening playing Adventure Golf at Trent Lock recently. The weather was perfect, the company was great and the play was ….. room for improvement shall we say!! A drink outside was the fitting conclusion to a lovely evening! (We all agreed that we should go again next summer!)