Finstall and Cofton Hackett WI

President Val Wheeler welcomed members and one visitor, Margaret, to our March meeting and Jerusalem was sung. She announced the sad news that Rene, a member for many years, has died. We wished Happy Birthday to Pat Wilkes and Trish. Our next coffee morning will be at Rowberry's on 15th March with an option to stay for lunch. We have had a thank you letter for the donation to Hazel's chosen charity, Friends of St Godwald's Church. We will be discussing the two chosen Resolutions at the May meeting. We've received an invitation for a Skittles Evening organised by Frankley WI on June 20 and also to a Coffee Morning organised by Mary Davies on April 24 both at Catshill Social Club. Several of our members are going to the Spring Meeting at the Artrix on April 24 and interest was shown in a visit to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea on May 2. Val then introduced the speaker, Peter Preece, whose talk was titled “Every Picture Tells a Story”. He is an expert wild life photographer and showed us some amazing photographs of birds, butterflies, foxes, squirrels and many other wild animals including wolves in Northern Spain and has spent hours in hides waiting for just the right photograph. He is especially interested in Kingfishers and showed us some of his prize winning photos of them. Many of his photos have won prizes and competitions and have appeared in magazines, calendars and posters including the Country File Calendar. Jessica thanked Peter for a fascinating talk. The competition, “A Wild Life Photograph”, was won by Sue with Nova second and Deana third and the raffle was won by Jill. The next meeting on April 3 will be our 80th Birthday Party. We meet at 2pm in Finstall Village Hall and new members are warmly welcomed.