Tuesday 6th April

Wow!  John Chennell certainly believes in doing things on a grand scale!!  We had a really good turnout on Tuesday evening of both members and visitors to watch John create his stunning arrangements and no-one left disappointed.

For our first demonstration of the new year, we were pleased to be visited by Sharon Badger from Market Harborough. Sharon talked about her forthcoming challenge of designing and staging an arrangement to represent Mauritius at Westminster Abbey for Commonwealth Day next week, as well as her family connections with Bedford, while creating 6 very different flower arrangements – and all this with a bandage on her arm and a dodgy microphone! Sharon didn’t let it put her off, and some photos of the arrangements she created are below.

On Saturday morning, a group of 16 of us gathered at Kempston All Saints Church hall to spend some time creating our own Christmassy arrangements under the excellent guidance of Ann Gray.  We all thoroughly enjoyed having some quality time to be creative and were able to produce some beautiful flower arrangements.  We also had time for a break during which we enjoyed a light buffet with sparkling grape juice.  It was a lovely workshop as you can see from the photos below.

On December 1st Margaret Rumens came down from her home in Solihull to entertain us with her Christmas demonstration entitled ‘Season’s Greetings’.  We had a really good turnout of both members and visitors and instead of our usual plant stall we decided to have a small ‘Bring and Buy’ sale to raise money towards the NAFAS charity of the year – Breast Cancer Care.  We also had a selection of festive fare for everyone to enjoy before watching Margeret create a selection of beautiful arrangements with apparent ease.  Some photos are below of the arrangements that approx 10 lucky ladies were able to take home with them at the end of the evening after being drawn out of the raffle.

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.