May 2010

MAY MEETING REPORT

Kirton and Falkenham W.I. treated themselves to two very enjoyable lunches recently. For the first, on Thurs. 6th May, we were guests at the Bowls Club in St Edmunds Road, Felixstowe where we used their facilities to eat meals ordered from the Seaview Fishbar. We were impressed by the quality of the food and the size of portions. We had Mrs Pauline Swift to thank for arranging this. The second was a ‘soup and sweet’ lunch which we ate at the Village Hall on Thurs. 13th May. Several of the committee made soup and provided desserts while our president brought along some fruit punch. This was a very good start to our Resolutions Meeting which tends to be a bit dry.
In fact only one resolution is to be put forward to the National AGM at Cardiff this year so all we had to do was decide if we supported it or not. The wording of the resolution ran as follows:- This meeting urges Her Majesty’s Government to introduce clear and mandatory country of origin labels on all meat, poultry and fish products sold in this country. After hearing arguments for and against, the meeting decided almost unanimously to support the resolution
Because we knew this business would not take very long, we decided to invite someone, at rather short notice, to come and give us a talk. With the assistance of Mrs Maddy Rhodes we were lucky enough to obtain the services of Mrs Geraldine Patey who is well known in the area as the principal of the Linden School of Music. Besides running the choir Geraldine and Friends she also teaches pianoforte, singing and classical guitar from her house in Trimley St Mary and has been doing so for thirty years. This way of life started after she had experienced a serious illness. She emphasized the health benefits of music and told us that it was partly due to her singing that she has made such a good recovery It does not matter if you cannot sing in tune, she said, because anyone can improve with training once they have been taught the importance of posture, breathing and speaking with varied pitch. A young man who came to consult her informed her in a monotone that he had an ambition to sing like Mick Jagger. After eighteen months he was able to sing like Elvis and later progressed to the more sophisticated world of jazz.
It was now our turn to have a go. Accompanied by the keyboard lent by Martin Richmond-Hardy, and after a bit of practice, we managed to sing two sea shanties – Donkey Riding and Drunken Sailor – simultaneously. It was surprising how well the two songs went together and I think we all felt the benefits of airing our lungs.

V E Bines