Our May meeting was one of two parts. First of all Jenny told us about the ‘Bystander can be Lifesavers’ resolution which received the support of our members. We felt it was a resolution we could actually do something about either in terms of educating ourselves, raising awareness or fund raising. Definitely one for further discussion.

After the resolution discussion we cleared the floor for our introduction to tap dancing with Catherine Chivers from Manor Arts who arrived with an array of tap shoes for us to borrow. Before we knew it we were doing heel taps, shuffles and even paradiddles! Catherine was impressed with how quickly we learned the steps and how good we sounded! It was great fun and a good workout too.

For our April meeting we were privileged to have our very own Ruth Palmer give us a talk “Someone Else’s Garden” about her 18 seasons volunteering in the gardens of the National Trust site, Calke Abbey.

Ruth gave us a fascinating insight into the history of the house and the evolution of the gardens, as well as the plants grown across the seasons and her work as a volunteer. One of Ruth’s main responsibilities is harvesting flowers and preparing bouquets and posies for display across the estate, she bought us a beautiful example from her own garden which she gifted to a lucky member who had a birthday coming up!

Thank you Ruth!

In March we held our annual meeting where we re-elected Sally as our president!

The meeting combined reflecting on the past year, looking forward to a new programme of event and discovering unknown things about each other! As usual, the time went quickly and we were having so much fun that we forgot to take any photos!

We also collected Easter eggs for Forget Me Notts which were much appreciated by the charity.

In February we were delighted to welcome Ruth Watkin! Ruth is a costume maker based in Nottingham, she has been passionate about sewing since childhood and specialised in costume as part of a Theatre Design degree course. Ruth has worked for several theatres and museums, as well as private commissions and her particular interest is in historical costuming.

Ruth talked about her work including the process she goes through when making a costume and bought some examples of her work for us to take a closer look at. We were fascinated to learn about some of the things she has made – who knew that producing costumes for a film can be so complex and so many had to be produced for a single character!!

Dance sessions have always been popular at The Hive and, despite it being a very cold evening, this meeting followed the trend with 30 members and 3 visitors venturing out! We were joined by 4 members of the Bonnets & Breeches Society, in period costume, who took us back in time, to teach us about the etiquette of the dances during the Georgian, Regency and Victorian periods along with a few dances. Everyone had great fun learning the dances (or watching from the side-lines)!

We also had a food bank collection for Hope House in Beeston