Morning All

Many thanks to all members who managed, in this busy time of year, to deliver some very edible sustenance for our coffee morning at the Arts Centre yesterday! Thanks also to Freda, Robin, Sue and Rhona for giving up their time to help out in the café and behind the scenes.
We were quite busy until about 11.15 then things quietened down; still, we managed to take £85.10 (not sure where to 10p came from), to add to our ‘coffers’, which all helps to fund the club.

Notices:

Message from Barry; gardening and photography combined?
Garstang Gardening Club: the club is organising a coach trip to:
Winton Park Gardens, Kirby Stephen: The five acres of farm land have been transformed into a garden which enshrines long herbaceous borders, a rose garden, rhododendrons and azaleas, spring and autumn flowering heathers, acers, hostas, ferns, pines, clipped hornbeams, statuary, pillars, several ponds and a waterfall.
The varying aspects of the garden are linked by a series of paths which culminate with the bridge over the stream on the highest part of the garden giving spectacular views of Wild Boar Fell and Mallerstang Edge.
An added bonus is the variety of wildlife attracted. Several red squirrels have taken up permanent residence, kingfishers are occasional visitors and each year Oyster Catchers nest within the boundaries of the garden.
PLUS:
Eggleston Hall, Nursery and garden, Barnard Castle: The walled garden specialises in rare and unusual species with an emphasis on hardy herbaceous stock, which thrive in the climate of the northern dales. The surrounding wall is home to a variety of fruit trees and an alphabetical apple walk has recently been planted.
The ruins of the old village church can be visited with some fine stone carving. There is a large sales area as well as wonderful borders, glasshouses and mature trees.
The above is planned for Thursday 29^th May 2025 and is at a very competitive price of only £42.50pp including lunch.
If you are interested, please contact: Janet Sharp 01524 793225

Wednesday 18th December: Creatures and Plants of the World Cup:
Please don’t forget – this is the last date for entry.
Any real creature or plant that was alive or was once alive. No toys, sculptures, nothing artificial and no people.

Peter Frankish:
Just to remind you, this is the gentleman to whom we sent 19 Lake District landscape images, some while back, which he mounts and frames and then sells them to raise funds for St. Catherines Hospice.
Email below, which I think is self-explanatory.

Hi Mike
Our year effectively came to a successful end at Penwortham Street market last night.
We sold Stan’s big winter scene over Skiddaw and your Castlerigg Stones was the raffle prize choice from about fifty options on display.
We also delivered the second ‘View of Catbells’ last night. That makes thirteen successes so far, raising £601 for the Hospice. From a standing start that is an excellent contribution to our overall totals of over 500 pictures and over £20k for the year.
I hope you are all proud of that achievement and that we can continue to collaborate. I’m always happy to consider any thoughts you might have regarding your ongoing support.
I hope you have a really enjoyable end to the year.
Best wishes
Peter

NEW Challenge! Huge thanks here to Adrian for this idea!
It’s called ‘The Alphabet’ challenge.
The idea is to take photographs depicting all the letters of the alphabet.
You can take photographs of anything except actual letters! In theory, you could end up with 26 images!
So, for example, you could take a photograph of a farm/field gate and within that could be the letter ‘Z,’ or a picture of a hole in a hedge and this could be the letter ‘O.’ Having given you these 2 examples, you can’t use them now!
What you can’t do is take a photography of the Aldi sign and say that covers ‘A,’ ‘L,’ ‘D’ and ‘I’ – sorry!
This runs from now until the ‘show-and-tell’ which will be on the members evening on 19th November 2025, so plenty of time!

Just out of interest, we will be running more ‘shorter’ challenges in the new year to be completed for various members evenings in 2025, watch this space, as they say!

Up and coming programme of events:

Wednesday 18th December: Christmas meeting/quiz; social evening.

Wednesday 25th December: No meeting.

Wednesday 1st January: No meeting.

Wednesday 8th January: Via Zoom, Ruth Grindrod: Colour, Tones & Textures.
This presentation explores how colour, tone and texture are all interrelated in landscape photography. The talk explores how to apply the theory to practice and shows a range of her work from around the UK and further afield. This talk is more technical than the others but remains audience-friendly and caters for a wide audience.

Wednesday 15^th January: Via Zoom, Geoff Reader, ‘An Evening with Geoff.’
My first section is Sport and has wild water, canoeing and paragliders amongst 7 sports. My landscapes use light to show mountains, ruins, Autumn Scenes, Seascapes etc to their best advantage. A short Misc section breaks up the first half. I am not a Nature Photographer but to complete my portfolio I include some of my favourite images.
After the break I cover my varied ‘People’ shots with some amusing stories of how I got the shot or suffered the consequences!

That’s all for now folks and see you on Wednesday for the PPP!
Cheers

Mike