Chairman’s Report  2022

A year of rebuilding and cancellations.

Following the general disruption to our normal lifestyles by the pandemic of the previous years and the relaxing of national restrictions we were hoping to resume our normal cycle of meetings commencing in January. However, with our members’ health and safety as our primary consideration the rapidly rising local infection rates in that month led to the cancellation of that first meeting.

Our meeting of the following month saw the speaker withdraw at very short notice due to a domestic crisis.The evening was rescued by one of our vice-presidents, Colin Rose, giving a well received history of the society from its foundation in 1890. He emphasized that he was not personally present at that event.

We were unsure how many of our members would return for these initial meetings but were pleased with the encouraging numbers attending and looked to build on these in the following months.

Our usual broad spread of subjects were covered by our speakers throughout the year including insights to Stanmer Park in Brighton, the Chelsea Flower Show and Hever Castle.

We enjoyed an evening visit locally to Batemans at Burwash and a coach trip to RHS Hyde Hall that included the bonus of their Flower Show.

We had to cancel two further scheduled meetings.Our July one for Health and Safety reasons due to the excessively high summer temperatures and sadly, out of respect, our September one due to the funeral of our late Queen Elizabeth II.

Both our Spring and Summer Shows were very successful events attracting a good number of entrants and visitors.

We rounded off our year with an evening of song with a visit from the Cake & Wine Choir our Christmas social evening.

I would like to record the hard work throughout the year by the members of your committee together with those members who willingly provide additional assistance.

I will sign off as usual by saying that this is your society and if you have suggestions for improvements they will always be considered.

Cec Earl
Chairman