And so it began ……….

Ilean and Dee volunteered to deliver our Christmas cards to save people from a lot of running around but, of course, they were helped by Lynn and others so the task was soon completed.
                  

An enormous thank you to Dain for preparing the goodie bags for us all, it was a lovely gesture and thanks to everyone who distributed them.

A big thank you to Dain for organising our Christmas meeting, and to everyone who contributed. The readings  were lovely , Rosemary prepared a very enjoyable quiz (what  a change in a quiz we can have questions we can answer)

As candles are important in our Inner Wheel special occasions, Rosemary chose to read the story of the four Advent candles – PEACE, FAITH, LOVE and HOPE

We had two surprising visitors at the meeting – Norma Shore, who now lives in Northamptonshire and You Know Who – who travelled much further that that!

Ray and Veronica drew the Christmas Cake Raffle –

Congratulations to Yvonne and Margaret Setchell for having the winning tickets and to Veronica for making two gorgeous cakes, it must have taken a lot of your time Veronica.

It was a really enjoyable meeting. Zoom certainly doesn’t replace our meetings but it’s better than nothing.

The funds from the Christmas cake raffle went to the ‘Bellamy Road Residents’ and Tenants’ Association’. They sent us some photos to show how the donations received this Christmas went to prepare a ‘Food Share’ and some Christmas treats.

When we welcomed District Chairman Margaret to our club meeting we enjoyed hearing, amongst many other things, a fascinating insight of her 20 years experience as a County Commissioner in guiding.

Our member PDC Yvonne chaired the meeting when the superb masks were displayed made by Sara Statham and the money raised was shared by three different charities.

A number of photographs were shown at the meeting including one taken at a 2002 District Meeting, of Yvonne (then District Editor), Margaret Day and Jill Bethel. In the years after this photo was taken each of the three ladies were to become District Chairman. Margaret is of course our current DC and Jill Bethel having joined Rotary, is the present Rotary District Governor.

And here are PDC Yvonne and current DC Margaret today. No-one would have guessed in 2002 that wearing masks would be an accepted every day practice. DC Margaret tells us she wears her chain of office in case of mistaken identity!

N I D A S

Veronica has made up two baby parcels for NIDAS and thought you might
like to see the contents.
Thanks to all of you who made the knitted blankets and beautiful
matinee sets and also the lovely baby grows and vests.
With donations and money from the jam sales Veronica was able to buy new towels, flannels and toiletries.
The parcels will be delivered as soon as Covid 19 restrictions permit.

Children in Need

Thanks to the sale of Sara’s masks we were able to donate £121 to this event.

Joy Bags

Kathy and Rosemary are continuing to receive items for Joy Bags and hope to be able to despatch some as soon as the Police Aid Convoy starts operating again.

Members have reacted generously to Rosemary’s ‘Smartie’ fundraiser and donations are continuing to come in.

Christmas Donation to Local Charities

We are selling raffle tickets for Veronica’s iced Christmas cake, which has become a tradition at our Christmas meeting. With the money raised, we hope to make a donation to the Bellamy Road Tenants’ & Residents’ Association.

Elizabeth Benson was very impressive, as she hosted our Zoom November Club Meeting on Remembrance Day.  We were fortunate to welcome, as our speakers, the Chairman of the Nottingham Royal British Legion, Paul Bentley and his wife Sandra, who is the Secretary.  This charity has supported the Armed Forces community since 1921.  In November every year members distribute and sell poppies to raise funds to help our Armed Forces, veterans and their families, both past and present.  This year it was quite difficult to buy poppies but £13. 326 was raised in Mansfield’s 4 Seasons Centre.

The Club was able to donate over £100 to the British Legion due to the efforts of Sara Statham making and selling poppy masks.

District Chairman Margaret was delighted to receive her mask and told us she would be wearing it when she sold poppies locally.

Yvonne Neville hosted the October meeting, when we were entertained by Margaret Day who amused us with anecdotes of her path to becoming District Chair. Her image has a yellow border as she is speaking.

ps Next to me in the photo is the plant that Rosemary gave me on your behalf in November 18 and it’s still alive and still flowering. The gift that keeps on giving.

As entertainment for our September meeting, Veronica had the idea of getting a few of our members to tell a story of some unusual or amusing incident that had happened to them in the past and everyone had to decide whether the story was true or false.

Sara gave us 3 different stories and we had to guess which one was true.

Dee described a’ brush with the law’ while on a trip to Moscow.

Well done, Veronica for chairing the meeting and for finding a way to ‘keep the ball rolling’.

Our Inner Wheel year for 2019 to 2020 has begun with a few changes to the way we’re used to doing things.

Members of all Inner Wheel clubs are finding it difficult to fill official posts for all sorts of reasons.  We have tackled this problem by using a new approach.  Ilean Lumsdon agreed to be our figurehead this year and the committee was ready and willing to  plan and organise the programme and events.

That was the plan in February but of course the committee didn’t realise that they would have a few extra little hurdles to scramble over.

And here we are, having all done a crash course in how to join a Zoom meeting, it’s suddenly become the ‘new normal’.

Elaine hosts the meetings and both the committee meetings and club meetings have been successfully accomplished.

Vivienne had the idea of ‘armchair talks’ and here is Barbara Dixon who entertained us with an account of her introduction to Australia as a ‘Ten Pound Pom’ .  We’re looking forward to the next instalment which covers the family’s time in Darwin.

Barbara says she hopes that it will inspire other members of the Club to share their stories in the same way.

District Chairman Anne Lyons took on the huge challenge of representing District 22 for the Inner Wheel Year 2019 to 2020 and we at the Inner Wheel Club of Mansfield were proud and honoured to support her in that position.

It has been a year like no other in the past and we hope no other in the future.  We congratulate DC Anne on embracing each difficult situation as it arose and utilising technology to ensure the continuity of the organisation.

Well done, District Chairman Anne.  You have done done Mansfield proud!

Who would have thought at last year’s Annual General Meeting that in a year’s time we would be holding meetings by Zoom!  I don’t think many of us had actually heard of ‘Zoom’.  I certainly hadn’t.

In spite of the unexpected situation caused by the Covid 19 Pandemic, our president rose to the occasion and dragged us all into the 21st century by hosting our very first on line meeting.  Elizabeth may have felt that her year was somewhat restricted by the lock-down but she will certainly by remembered for coping so well with the strange times we have lived through since the middle of March.  Now the precedent has been set with a committee meeting and a Club AGM, the way is clear for the future.

President Elizabeth wishes to thank the Club for the lovely bouquet of flowers that Rosemary made and presented to her on Wednesday morning.

And thanks too to Elizabeth’s husband John for setting up the meetings and making sure all the members were given instructions on how to join in.  He also took these lovely pictures of  Elizabeth and her flowers.

Our 74th  Charter Anniversary Dinner should have taken place on Wednesday 10th June this year but as with so many other functions this had to be abandoned due to Covid 19.

President Elizabeth has worked so hard both last year and this year to prepare an interesting and varied programme for us and the Charter dinner should have been a thank you from the Club for all that hard work.  As we felt that she deserved a token of our gratitude, Rosemary was commissioned to do what she does so well – and produced and delivered a beautiful bouquet.

Elizabeth said that she had a lovely surprise when she got home from shopping to find the flowers on her doorstep.  She wishes to thank the Club members and thought it would be nice if she dressed up in her finery for a photograph to mark the day.