May Open Meeting
In 2012 our club decided to depart from their usual one open meeting per year and to have a second one in May. A wonderful opportunity to see a national demonstrator not using loads of Christmas glitter and sparkle as is usual in our November open meetings. We booked Nick Grounds who comes from Cambridge - a distance of some 206 miles but which we hoped would be devoid of some of the hazards of winter meetings such as fog, ice and snow.
Nick had said he would be with us about 3:30pm for a 7:30pm start and a team were waiting to help him unload. We waited and we waited but no Nick. At about 4:30 we decided to call him only to discover that the club chairman and treasurer managed to have mobiles with no signal (despite Shaftesbury's position on the top of a hill) and a flat battery respectively! When we finally got through he informed us that he had already been stuck in one horrendous traffic jam and was currently in a second one at Oxford but that his estimated arrival time was 6:15pm. We reckoned that this was a bit optimistic on his part but did not argue! We took an executive decision that if he wasn't there by that time we would change the plan and serve the bubbly (included in the ticket price) before rather than after the demonstration and then we would be able to start late if necessary. In the event he arrived at 6:30 and we started only 15 late at 7:45pm. In that hour and a quarter he managed to unload, sort himself out, do one huge placement which was part of the final design and don his trademark apron.
The title of his demonstration was 'Inflorescence' which he explained was what the central part of an anthurium is called. We suspected that not many of his audience knew that before that evening. His six designs were fantastic, each one different in colour and shape with some super containers. The arrangements were all large, very suitable for a theatre stage but definitely not for the raffle prize winner who had come on her bike! Our treasurer was lucky enough to win one of the final placements and had to flatten the back seats of her car and temporarily remove the tallest flowers in order to get it in. The committee were delighted that what could have been a disaster turned into such a successful evening.
Nick had said he would be with us about 3:30pm for a 7:30pm start and a team were waiting to help him unload. We waited and we waited but no Nick. At about 4:30 we decided to call him only to discover that the club chairman and treasurer managed to have mobiles with no signal (despite Shaftesbury's position on the top of a hill) and a flat battery respectively! When we finally got through he informed us that he had already been stuck in one horrendous traffic jam and was currently in a second one at Oxford but that his estimated arrival time was 6:15pm. We reckoned that this was a bit optimistic on his part but did not argue! We took an executive decision that if he wasn't there by that time we would change the plan and serve the bubbly (included in the ticket price) before rather than after the demonstration and then we would be able to start late if necessary. In the event he arrived at 6:30 and we started only 15 late at 7:45pm. In that hour and a quarter he managed to unload, sort himself out, do one huge placement which was part of the final design and don his trademark apron.
The title of his demonstration was 'Inflorescence' which he explained was what the central part of an anthurium is called. We suspected that not many of his audience knew that before that evening. His six designs were fantastic, each one different in colour and shape with some super containers. The arrangements were all large, very suitable for a theatre stage but definitely not for the raffle prize winner who had come on her bike! Our treasurer was lucky enough to win one of the final placements and had to flatten the back seats of her car and temporarily remove the tallest flowers in order to get it in. The committee were delighted that what could have been a disaster turned into such a successful evening.
November Open Meeting
On 17 November we enjoyed our Open Meeting in the Shaftesbury Arts Centre with a lovely demonstration by Pat Dibben, a NAFAS National Demonstrator who came from Hillingdon, entitled 'Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh'. At the end of the evening the stage was filled with beautiful arrangements which reflected her theme.