Clare came over from her home in Wyboston to give us a lovely demonstration on the theme of ‘On the Spot’.  She produced 6 varied and interesting designs – all including a different aspect of Spots!  Below are some photos from the evening.

We also had our second ‘Your Turn’ feature, – for members to bring along an arrangement that they have made themselves.  This time the theme was ‘May Time’ and although we only had 4 entries, each of them was delightful.  A couple of photos are here ~

On Tuesday 7th April we had a really lovely evening at the Addison Centre with Lee Berrill, a florist from Northampton, who created 6 beautiful and bold arrangements along the theme of ‘Let’s be Different’.  Lee used some exotic and huge flowers together with some spectacular ‘mechanics’ which were much appreciated by the large audience that turned out to see him.  All 6 arrangements featured flowers in every shade and hue of orange, but with plenty of variety in texture and design.  Some photos of the finished arrangements are below.

We also had a new feature where members were able to ‘Have a Go’ and bring along an arrangement for others to see.  The title for tonight was ‘Take 5 Flowers’ – the idea being to use just 5 flowers to create something.  We had a lot of different ideas and designs and everyone was asked to vote for their favourite by placing a coin or coins beside it.  All the money raised was for our chosen charity for 2009 which is Road Victim Trust.  A selection of the entries are shown below.

On 3rd March Jackie O’Hare travelled down from Peterborough to visit our group and entertain us by making 6 lovely flower arrangements using lots of garden foliage along the theme of ‘The Mad March Hare’.  Despite the weather being cold and wet, lots of our members came along to watch Jackie and perhaps get some inspiration from her.  A few photos from the evening are below.

Those of you who were at the Addison Centre last Tuesday evening may well have noticed a man with a video camera was also there.  He and his colleague were from local-news.tv  – a web based Bedfordshire news service.  They have made a short film about Bedford Floral Art Society which can be viewed below.  To see other events that they have covered just go to their website at www.local-news.tv

Please note that although in the video it says we meet on the first Tuesday of each month, there is no meeting in January.  February 3rd will be the next club night and will be the AGM for BFAS.  Our next floral art demonstration evening will be on March 3rd when we will be entertained by Jackie O’Hare presenting ‘The Mad March Hare’

On 2nd December we were delighted to have Jean Crane come along to the club to create some floral arrangements along the theme of ‘A Time to Rejoice’.  Despite the bitterly cold weather, a huge number of members and visitors attended and were entertained by Jean’s anecdotes of family life as well as some stunning flowers.  We also laid down a challenge to everyone present to help us raise some extra money towards this years chosen charity – The Road Victims Trust based in Kempston.  We raised £42 on the night which will be added to the money we have already raised throughout the year from sales on the Plant stall.  A few photo’s from the evening are below.

On 5th November, a group of 9 members made their way down to Broxbourne Civic Centre in Hertfordshire for the annual NAFAS Area lunch.  After coffee and browsing the various trade stalls, we entered the main hall for lunch.  However, the highlight of the day was the afternoon demonstration presented by Sandra Bailey and entitled “Warmth, richness and merriment”.

It was a really entertaining afternoon, with much laughter and some spectacular arrangements with colourful and exotic flowers.  Unfortunately no-one from the Bedford Club was lucky enough to win any of the flowers, although Pearl did come away with a tin of biscuits from a different raffle. 

The photos below do not really do justice to the flowers – but will just give you a small taste of what we saw – and maybe encourage more members to come along next year?  It really was a good day out.

On 4th November, Doug Howard came up from his home in Stotfold to create a selection of flower arrangements along the theme of “Mists and Sparkling Cobwebs”.  It was a good evening with a lot of members and visitors to the club present.  A few photos are below of the finished arrangements.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the evening with Tan Strong, but I have heard that it was a really excellent evening.  Linda R took a couple of photo’s of the designs Tan created and these are reproduced below.  If anyone else took a photo on the evening that might be suitable for our website, please let me know.  Linda Pugh 

The title didn’t really do it justice – it was an evening packed with mini-demonstrations and hands-on creative work.  Members were able to choose to watch 20 minute demonstrations of a hand tied gift wrapped bunch, an elegant corsage, some bow tying techniques, some lovely arrangements using just 3 or 5 flowers and some structure techniques all ably demonstrated by 5 of our own members whose skills made it a very informative and inspiring evening.  There was also a ‘have-a go’ table where those members who wanted to could create their own arrangement using flowers and foliage all provided by the Club.  All of the usual things were available too including tea and coffee, a raffle and book stall.  The evening sped by and feedback given on the night was very positive.

Below are some photo’s taken on the evening:

A group of Committee Members met early in the morning at the Addison Centre Car Park to set up our stall for the Fun Day.  It was chilly and the grass was damp but the weather forecasters had promised a fine and dry day.  The time flew by as we erected our gazebo, displayed our tombola prizes and put up posters and notices on the information boards.  Before we knew it the public had started to drift in and we were underway!  We had books and floristry sundry items for sale, a marble game involving an upturned plant pot and a spoon, flower arrangements (excellently made by Sandra and Jean), and the main attraction which was a locked box and a bag of keys, the idea being to pick 3 keys out of the bag and try to open the door.  Successful participants then chose a tombola ticket to determine their prize.  By lunchtime more people had turned out and the sun was shining.  The books and plant pot game were very popular and we were kept very busy counting marbles and talking to passers by.  All too soon it was 4pm and time for us to pack away.  We were all tired but pleased with the day and made over £70 profit for the club as well as raising awareness of our group and hopefully attracting one or two new people to come along on a Tuesday evening.  Below are a few photo’s from the day: