OUR vice president Sue Birchall welcomed 65 members to our July meeting and introduced two visitors; Kath Fairclough (Burtonwood WI), who was our delegate at the national AGM and who gave us a brief summary of her visit, and the Rev Chris Jones, our new vicar for Newchurch and Croft, who came along for a chat and to sample some home-made cake.

Sue thanked all who helped on the tombola stall at Croft Carnival, raising £169.69 for WI funds.

Louise Geekie thanked everyone involved with the preparation and assembly of our carnival float which won the cup for the most amusing float.

Our speaker for the evening was Brian Greene, who entertained us by introducing scenes and songs from several well loved pre-1960 film and stage musicals.

He ended with Frank Sinatra singing The Lady is a Tramp from Pal Joey.

Sue thanked Brian for a wonderful show which had brought back many memories.

We all then enjoyed a refreshing cuppa and some delicious home-made cakes provided by Jan, Gill, Lynn and Norma.

Brian judged our evening bag competition and the winners were: 1 Heather Brookfield, 2 Jenny Forshaw, 3 Diane Sims.

Several dates for the diary were: September 3, centennial fair at Harrogate; September 16, birthday celebrations at our meeting; September 28, autumn group meeting at Burtonwood at 7.30pm with Rachel Smith (atlantic rower) as speaker; December 9, Christmas dinner at Statham Lodge; January 13, The Girls – a new musical based on Calendar Girls by Gary Barlow and Tim Firth at The Lowry.

Our next meeting will be on August 19 and the speakers will be Eric and Lucy Robertson on line dancing.

The competition will be an old programme from the theatre or a show.