A group of around 20 of us met at the Church Hall on Goldington Road early last Saturday for a full day workshop led by John Chennell.  The theme of the day was ‘extending the size’ which meant making a structure to add in to an arrangement to make look bigger than it really is!  We all turned up with various types of twigs and sticks and spent the morning wiring, glueing and tying them together.  Some of us (especially me!) had more glue on us than on our creation!  However, after lunch we began adding the flowers and by late afternoon everyone had an arrangement to be proud of.  It was quite a challenging day, but I think everyone attending learnt something and went away happy.  A few photos from the day are below.

After a week of glorious sunshine, it was back to dull and grey by the time Anna Stevens from Oxford cane to visit us.  However, she soon added lots of colour to our evening with her beautiful flower arrangements.  There was one in almost every colour and by the end of the evening the stage looked stunning.   However, it was not just her flowers that had our attention, but her wonderful selection of mechanics and containers, most of which she had made herself  using everything from wood bark towool to wire .  Anna has a strong background in Art, and this really shone through her work.  She talked about space and texture and visual balance as well as her life in Oxford and I think I speak for all of us when I say we went away inspired and hope that she will re-visit us in the not-too-distant future.

For our first demonstation of this year, we invited Mary Griffiths from Mildenhall to visit us.  Mary created 6 lovely arrangements most of which used garden foliage that Mary had gathered from various gardens of her friends but the final one used bought ferns and ruscus that she put together with some beautiful whilte lilies  to make a real impact.  She talked about her memories of her earlier life in Jersey and how she ‘got into’ flower arranging.   The evening sped by and got our year off to an excellent start.