This week a few members took up Natalie Kay’s very generous offer of a visit to this gallery & a workshop in ceramics, to include, of course, refreshments & a lovely selection of Pret a Manger sandwiches for lunch! Suriya has kindly told us about their day, but this is just an idea of what they did-there was so much more than this. It started well with freshly brewed coffee & croissants, after which, Natalie gave them some detailed information about the gallery & its history & then a tour of the current exhibition. Afterwards there was a fun activity, where they did some free writing with a collage. Natalie then took them on a tour of the workshops where they saw some amazing artists at work, including Elaine Wilson, who is an author & also teaches at the university. They then got down to the serious business of actually playing with clay-which was a lot harder than they imagined! However, they all managed to produce something of which they were proud! It was a first attempt after all! Altogether it was a very interesting day & we would like to thank Natalie for her kindness in inviting us.

This month we decided on a ‘Show & Tell’ session, so we could see just exactly what our talented members are getting up to at home! What an array of crafts there was-from card making & paper-craft to good old knitting & new fangled decorative wreaths! It was lovely to see so many people who were brave enough to take part & delightful to hear about their crafts & have a chance to try out most of them too. Thank you to everybody who came along to make it such a successful & enjoyable evening. Our special guest was Natalie Kay from the Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University, who had offered us a visit & workshop at the gallery. She came to tell us about her plans for the day, for which several of us signed up. This meeting positively encouraged our favourite way of spending our meetings-chatting!  We did a lot & enjoyed it no end!