April 2025 Meeting

Twenty members were treated to another pleasant and entertaining musical evening by local singer and guitarist, Paul Stanworth. Paul took us through his repertoire consisting of a medley of songs predominantly from the 1960’s to the 1980’s featuring The Beatles, Everly Brothers, John Denver, Cliff Richard, Sam Cooke, Ben E. King, van Morrison, The Dubliners and, of course, we couldn’t have a musical evening without Elvis. 

Paul was joined, once again, by Graham B. (on bass guitar) on some of the songs and the duo also became a trio with Francis also joining in on his violin. What musical talent we have in the Wine Club.

Also, well done to Debbie, for getting up and dancing!

It was a very enjoyable evening and thanks also go to Mary and Derek for another great raffle.

Our next meeting is on the 6th May and we welcome one of our own members, Francis, who will be entertaining us with a talk on wines (funnily enough!) entitled ‘Good, Better, Best’.

March 2025 Meeting

We met on Tuesday 4th March for the popular Skittles Evening with Supper, at the Royal British Legion, Limpsfield. 21 members arrived to compare their skittle skills. Names were picked randomly and 5 teams were quickly organised, namely: Pilgrim, Firebird, Dropkick, Titsey and Crumbs. Beer afficiandos will recognise the team names as local breweries. 

After 6 rounds, the eventual winner was Crumbs, comprising Janet, Mary, Pat and Francis on 140 points, and leading by 16 from Pilgrim. The winners received products from the local breweries.

The player with the highest individual cumulative score was Mary with 46, well ahead of the chasing pack. Brenda was 2nd on 36, and Janet and Francis, 3rd equal on 35. The highest score in a round was 11, achieved by Mary, Brenda and Derek L. Supper seemed to have a positive effect on performance – the average score for the 3 rounds after supper was 8% higher than before victuals.

Many thanks go to the British Legion for the welcome, venue, bar, and for a warming and plentiful supper, to Graham and Caroline who organised the scoring expertly and the prizes, and Graham B for some of the transportation.

Our next meeting is a musical evening with Paul Stanworth on 1st April. Please contact Janet Bailey (822333) for further details.

February 2025 Meeting

Our race night evening! Run by our gurus Graham and Caroline, for those unfamiliar with the process they gave us all a “bitcoin” mythical £100 each with which to bet on the races. Genuine races that had been filmed were given alternative names, such as The Bond Baddy Chase with horses called Scaramanga or Jaws, or the Fat National Challenge with horses called Beached Whale or Wobbly Bits. 

The horses were all given odds and their colours were on the printed sheets for ease of identification. Having each given Graham our placed bets we then watched the race on a screen. They had been dubbed with alternative commentary to match the fake names. The person who had the most money left after the 8 races had been run was the overall winner. It was good fun. 

At half time the raffle numbers were called out and yours truly won first prize which happened to be, of course, a bottle of wine! As a result of last month’s blurb in The Link two people joined us for the evening to suss out whether or not to become members. I hope they did! Our thanks were expressed to Graham and Caroline for their work in organising this event.

Our March meeting will be skittles and supper at the British Legion Club at Limpsfield which is always well attended. Nothing to do with wine!

January 2025 Meeting

Our wine club January meeting was a convivial dinner at The Red Lion, Bletchingley. There were supposed to be 25 of us members but winter bugs reduced us to 22. Graham and Janet Bailey must be commended for scraping themselves off their sickbeds to convey some members in their 8 seater vehicle, then coming in to wish us all a happy new year and distribute the year’s programme of activites before going home to rest while we enjoyed a very good dinner. 

We were split into three groups for dining but the chat and wine flowed easily! Graham kindly came back later to collect his passengers – what a hero! What a pity he and Janet had to miss a very pleasant evening.

The next wine club meeting will be on 4th February – our usual Race Night which is always fun. Why not join us?

December 2024 Meeting

A bumper turnout of twenty-six members, all wearing Christmas themed items of clothing, attended our Christmas Party on the 3rd December. A warming and welcome glass of mulled wine was very kindly provided by Graham which gave everyone a chance to chat. 

Background Christmas music was provided by Kent (on his blue-tooth). The buffet table was a veritable sight to behold with a cornucopia of food contributions provided by individual members from which we helped ourselves. A very big thank you to all members for providing such a wonderful array of goodies.

Then there was just time for a Christmas-themed quiz (top marks achieved by Graham and Caroline) before the raffle, which, as always, was a wonderful array of gifts superbly organised by Mary and Derek.

Look forward to catching up with everyone at our New Year Dinner on Tuesday, 14th January at the Red Lion, Bletchingley. Happy New Year to all!!

November 2024 Meeting

November was our AGM meeting and was well attended with nineteen members and three guests. A minute’s silence was held in memory of two members who had recently passed away.

Before getting down to the ‘serious’ business, as it was Bonfire Night we had our own bangers to enjoy (not the exploding sort), accompanied by mash and baked beans.

Our Chairman and Treasurer then duly presented their reports and we then moved on to the subject of electing Committee Officers. The Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer all expressed a desire to stand down. Luckily, Kent agreed (with not too much arm-twisting) to take on the Treasurer role, but as no-one else was prepared to take on the Chair and Secretary’s positions, they agreed to stand for one more year.

The Committee for 2025 is as below:

Chairman : Val Large
Secretary : Janet Bailey
Treasurer : Kent Sandiford
Committee : Heather Charman, Mary Freeman, Derek Freeman, Graham Bailey and Chris Hoskins

Liz Lake also very kindly agreed to do the monthly write-up for the Nutfield Link.

The planned programme for 2025 was discussed and agreed and we concluded with a light-hearted quiz on the subject of Bonfire Night and Guy Fawkes. Many thanks go to Mary and Derek for organising the raffle.

The Christmas Party is on the 3rd December. Mulled wine will be served before the meal, with a festive quiz to round off the evening. Details will also be available for our New Year Dinner on Tuesday, 14th January 2025.

October 2024 Meeting

Sixteen members were treated to a wonderful musical evening by local singer and guitarist, Paul Stanworth. Paul took us through 25 well-known popular songs from the 1950s to the 1980’s, from The Kinks, Buddy Holly, Simon and Garfunkel, Elvis, Billy Joel and REM, to name but a few. Between songs, Paul also entertained us with a running commentary (and jokes) detailing his time as a professional musician. 

Our very own Graham B. (on bass guitar) joined Paul on some of the songs as did many of our members giving extra vocal accompaniment. It was surprising that we all knew most of the words!!! 

Towards the end some dancing even took place. 

It was a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable evening with a request for Paul to join us at a future date. Thanks also to Mary and Derek for another great raffle.

Our next meeting on the 5th November is the ‘highly popular’ AGM. Being bonfire night, it seemed appropriate that we should put on a supper of bangers & mash. Who Knows? It could be an ‘explosive’ meeting.