MARCH REPORT
At our recent committee meetings we have been busy planning activities for the coming year. Several of us went to the Federation AGM at Trinity Park on the 8th of March with our president Iris Hitchen acting as delegate. Then on April the 12th we will be attending the Annual Group Meeting at Walton Trades and Labour Club, the Group consisting, besides Kirton and Falkenham, of Felixstowe Morning, West End, Brackenbury and Trimley W.I.s. It is our turn to set the competition this year and as the speaker will be talking about Emily Pankhurst we thought we would go along with the suffragette theme. The challenge will be to create a facsimile front-page report of the suffragettes’ burning of the Bath Hotel in Felixstowe but to design it in the style of a modern day red-topped newspaper.
We are having a fish and chip lunch on the 5th of May using the premises of the Felixstowe and Suffolk Bowls Club with possibly a match to watch in prospect. There is also going to be a Strawberry Tea in our President’s garden on July 21st. Hopefully the weather will be kind. Our August outing will take us to the Mechanical Music Museum at Cotton and will include a recital on the Mighty Wurlitzer. Then in October we will be celebrating our birthday. We are planning something special this year as we will be 90 years young. At our November meeting, which is also our AGM, we are hoping to invite the Ipswich pottery All Fired Up to come and show us how to decorate our own pots. So as you can see we are looking forwards to quite an event filled year. If any of the activities sound to your taste why not join us.
At our March meeting our speaker was Mrs Tyson who talked to us about Walking High in Switzerland with a digression on Alpine Flowers. She told us that walks can be arranged for any level of ability ranging from routes across meadows between villages to treks above the snow-line. She and her husband walked close to the north faces of both the Jungfrau and the Eiger which hold snow well into the summer months with the consequent threat of avalanches. The high points on a walk are usually marked by crosses and it is a tradition to shake hands with the rest of the party when these are reached. Mountaineer’s huts are to be found on the higher slopes providing shelter all year round and they never turn people away. When Mrs Tyson stayed in one of these she found her nights were accompanied by the sound of the rustling of plastic bags. It was in these that travellers kept their clothes dry and somebody was always in the process of either going to bed or getting up, many climbers starting out long before dawn when the snow would be frozen hard and therefore easier to negotiate. You pass different flower zones as you climb upwards, each with its own particular flora. She showed us a series of slides taking us through the various levels ending at the highest where all the flowers are white. Alpine buttercups have been found on the summit of Findhorn at 15,500 feet, the highest point at which a flowering plant had ever been discovered.
V. E. Bines
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