25th March 2017

Norfolk and Suffolk Group can be proud of themselves following the successful hosting of the Diamond Anniversary of the Society's Annual Lecture Day.

Of the 173 attendees, 53 were local Group members, showing their support. These included the ALD committee and all the volunteers for the day.

Speakers were Matthew Biggs on 'Lessons from Great Gardeners' and Alan Gray on 'What is Hardiness?'.

During the long lunch break Norfolk Radio was broadcasting 'The Garden Party'  from an adjacent room, and members could drop in and ask questions of the panel between lunch and shopping at the plant stalls, books and raffle, plus garden ironmongery, until it was time for the AGM, during which stallholders and other non-members could drop in on them.

New Hon Treasurer and Hon Secretary and their introductory speeches made the AGM a long one.

The celebration cake was ceremoniously cut by Flora Bloom, before the cake that was cut earlier was served with tea or coffee, Then Flora, second wife of Alan Bloom, and the other founders' descendants, Penelope Hellyer and Fabian Sambrook, were presented with baskets of our Norfolk and Suffolk Heritage Plants, with their smart labels, and one of the lifelike sugar-paste hellebores taken from the cake, before inviting Alan to give his talk. Alan was also given a set of four mugs sporting hand-painted characatures of his own cats, since he had given his talk free of charge. (Matthew was given a Heritage Plant)

A number of volunteers stayed back to help clear up, for which the Catering Manager was very pleased. I explained to him that most of us were old ladies with well-trained husbands.

Chris Davies