This year’s Anniversary Meet at Great Wigsell Farm, 9th to 19th June was probably one of the hottest on record! The T.H.S Meet was rather a quiet affair with just a handful of units enjoying the exceptional early June hot and sunny weather. The Anniversary Meet weekend at the end of the THS was a different story. With the absence of a couple of prominent Units of the S.E. Region (who had chosen to hold camping meets elsewhere) we still managed to exceed last years total number of participants!
Around the first weekend of the THS, our stewards Lyn & Dave hosted a very tricky quiz style evening requiring participants to find answers to some pre-set questions BUT the answer had to start with a letter of the alphabet randomly picked from a hat??? That certainly generated some ‘interesting’ answers….
The Anniversary meet started Thursday evening with a more traditional quiz, set for us by our Vice-Chairman Harry Leach. Again some memory/brain testing questions to answer. The scores of the rounds of question could be doubled by playing the ‘team’s joker.’ The writer’s team managed to double its score of ‘zero’ when we played our joker…
Before anything could start we had to clear the freshly cut grass from the arena but then we were kept enthralled by the sports, which included the traditional Boule and Horseshoes together with the new Mulkky ‘skittles’ style game. Most entered into the games taking part in some, if not all, of the games. The heats were kicked off on Friday by Harry, then on Saturday the remaining rounds up the finals were ably administered by Tarry Axtell.
Friday Evening was “A Day at the Races” with charity horse racing - the jockeys for each of the racing ‘categories' were drawn from the audience and stewarded by Yvonne & Harry. Everyone had a chance to take part and/or bet on the outcome. During the interval SER Chairman Jenny Croney welcomed all and officially ‘Opened’ the Anniversary Meet.
Saturday afternoon (another hot one) included the complementary Ploughman’s Lunch followed by the Children’s Entertainer, who managed not only to keep the children captivated but a large number of ‘big kids’ as well.
The Chairman’s Charity (Alzheimer’s Research UK) Table Top sale was a great success with many buyers and sellers contributing their arts, crafts, produce, etc., proceeds to the charity.
The traditional Fancy Dress competition included participants of a wide age range. ‘A day at the Races’ theme
gave everyone a wide scope of subjects to choose from and everyone was a winner!! The Saturday evening
entertainment didn’t disappoint either; ‘Glitter Boots’ played all the right music for an evening of celebration
after a successful ‘day at the races’ - everyone was up dancing by the end of the evening.
Sunday opened with an ecumenical service presided over by Chris Collins and Mike Froude, once more a hot affair, with the sun beating down. The S.E. Region Annual General Meeting followed and was efficiently chaired by Jenny, with Secretary Jill George providing the administration. Included on the ‘top table’ was Phil Henson, Club Vice-Chair and National Council Representative, who remarked very favourably on the swift and thorough handling of the AGM. The open forum that followed produced lively debate, with many questions raised and answers provided by the Officers present.
