On 26th November, 11 members of BFAS went down to Broxbourne in Hertfordshire for the annual Area Lunch which this year was preceded by the AGM.  After a pleasant lunch we settled down in our seats to watch David Fawcett-Ropner create 6 beautiful arrangements under the title of ‘The Magic Of Christmas’.  They were huge and stunning arrangements and after he had finished they were raffled off in the usual Flower Club way.  Our Bedford table must have had some lucky stardust sprinkled on them as Sandra, Ann G,and Anne C all won an arrangement.  In fact Sandra won two but gave the second one to Linda R!  Penny also took home some flowers having won the table centre arrangement.  You may just be able to see Anne behind her prize in the photo below!

The 3rd November was a wet and miserable day but by the evening it had stopped raining and there was a large number of members and visitors gathered at the Addison Centre to see Gill Shanks who was visiting us from her home in Whittlesey near Peterborough.  Gill talked about a wide range of subjects that contributed to her own ‘Wonderful World’ and at the same time created some lovely arrangements with simple flowers but a very artistic eye and pleasing colours.  Some photo’s below show the results of her efforts.

On 6th October, Nick Grounds from Wisbech came along to our club to  present a new dem called ‘Mystery!’.  Nick, a horticultural auctioneer by day, kept us all amused and attentive with tales of his life whilst at the same time creating huge and beautiful arrangements with an autumnal theme.  The seemingly casual ease with which each arrangement appeared before us inspired and delighted everyone there and we were all envious of the 7 lucky ladies who went home with one of Nick’s creations as a raffle prize.  A flavour of the evening is reproduced in the photos below.

Our October meeting saw the third and final (for this year) Members Corner where our members were able to bring along an arrangement they had made themselves under the title ‘Pot of Gold’.  All of the entries were excellent and everyone in the audience was asked to place a coin or two beside their favourite designs.  The money raised from this is to go towards our chosen charity for this year ‘Road Victim Support’ , a local charity based in Kempston.  We raised over £16 yesterday and a few photos of the entries are below:

On 1st September after a busy Summer break, we had our usual ‘First Tuesday of the Month’ evening at the Addison Centre in Kempston.  Joyce Furssedonn joined us from her home town of Knebworth to entertain us by creating a selection of unusual and exciting arrangements along the theme of ‘Inspire and Enjoyed’.  Joyce talked about many different things that had inspired her or that she had enjoyed and we in turn were inspired by her beautiful creations – a selection of which can be seen below.

Ikebana Workshops

We had 2 short Ikebana workshops on Saturday 15th August at Kemspton All Saints Church Hall.  The morning  session focussed on Moribana style ikebana and the afternoon session on Nageire style.  Both were led by Ikuyo Morrison, a member of our club and also a teacher of the Sogetso School of Ikebana. Both sessions were well attended and enjoyed by all with requests for more next year. Later that day, we relaxed with a BBQ followed by games of Bingo and Beetle.

On 4th August, after several days of heavy but intermittent rain showers, a group of BFAS members turned up at a garden in Bromham for a Tea Party 1959 style. Our hostess, Margaret, had placed tables and chairs all around the garden but with just an hour to go it started to rain again! Fortunately, just as the guests started to arrive the rain stopped and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
As we settled in to admire the garden we were served with ‘real’ tea and a selection of sandwiches 1959 style including tinned ham and fish paste! This was followed by scones with jam and cream, tinned peaches with evaporated milk, trifle and victoria sandwich cakes. We had music playing in the background from the era – and cards with interesting facts from that year. For many, it brought back fond memories, although other were to young to remember (or claimed to be!) A selection of photos appear below.

On Saturday 18th July, a group of over 40 members went on a coach trip to The Ricoh Centre at Coventry to see the NAFAS National show.  There were so many beautiful arrangements to see it is almost impossible to pick out just a few photos to put here on the website, but a few are below to just give a small flavour of the event.  There were trade stalls and an opportunity to go to a dem by Irene Bowkett which many of our group took advantage of and everyone returned home tired but inspired!

On Tuesday 7th July, Kathy Brown from The Manor House in Stevington joined us to present a talk and slides entitled ‘The Edible Flower Garden’.  After an inspiring talk on the many ways to incorporate flowers into both sweet and savoury recipes, we had a break during which fancy small cakes were served.  All of them included a flower related ingredient.  We had lavender biscuits, sponge cake with essence of rose,  poppy seed cake, courgette and carrot muffins, sunflower bites and lavender flapjacks.  They were all very popular and washed down with ‘flower’ teas.  A special thank you must go to our Chairman, Linda, who spent many hours preparing the cakes and biscuits as well as to Mary who made the muffins.  After the break there was a further short talk from Kathy Brown on Clematis.

On 2nd June Gillian Poulain came up to our club in Bedford from her home in North London.  Despite having been in hospital the previous week, Gillian created 6 beautiful arrangements, each one representing a different ‘Golden Day’ from her busy life.  Some photographs from the evening are below: