Dear Members,
Firstly an apology for two mistakes on your so beautifully produced 2006 programme. The SHS AGM will not be on the 8th March, but in its usual position as the 2nd Tuesday in the month, this will be the 14th March 2006. The 2nd mistake is that we will be holding our 2006 Christmas party on the 12th December as usual.
An invite went out in late January to our 2 sister societies at North Crawley and Emberton, both of whom accepted the invite and sent representatives along. This resulted in a return meeting on the 26th April with "The Well & Tower'" society at Emberton and a promise of a meeting with North Crawley as soon as it can be arranged. We had 22 people at this meeting, the visitors almost outnumbering the SHS contingent. But it was a brilliant gathering with a lot of inter-activity between us all. I am sure that there was a tremendous amount of goodwill fostered between us. At the end of the evening both societies thanked us for our hospitality and promising to keep in closer contact in the future. A very worthy exercise, that as stated, SHS have been invited back for a reciprocal meeting with the Well & Towers on Wednesday 26th at Emberton, they hold their meetings in their sports pavilion. I am not sure whether numbers are limited, but if anyone would like to go to this meeting let Kay or me have your names, closer to the day.
Our new PC is up and running and now in the process of being loaded with our files, archives, filing cabinets etc. It is going to be a long, long job. But if it means that we have some semblance of order from the utter chaos that now prevails it will be a worth while exercise. Already we can see that the system is working as we are now discussing HOW the files etc should be arranged, (that's a first) , so that anyone who looks into the system can see how it works, in a logical way and more importantly can find what they are looking for. Remember this is a shared facility for all members to use appropriately not just an elite few. But the keys are to be kept by the committee.
The E-mail input has slowed down quite remarkably for this time of the year. But the majority of queries have been family orientated. This was confirmed by Andy McGrandle (Chairman of the Well & Tower) who stated that most of their queries were also family related. One of our queries was for Ronald & Sheila Price, both evacuated to Sherington during the War, and as part of the school admissions book had just been transcribed, we were able to give some details to the relatives enquiry.
As stated above I have transcribed several years of admissions to the school, but there are many more years to do. If anyone is interested in picking up this project I would be most grateful. I am not sure where the eraly admission book is but no doubt it would not take long to find it.
We have a copy of the graffiti on the outside walls of Gayhurst Church. And there is quite a lot of it. Now this is not strictly within our remit, but it is interesting to think how so much of it came to be on the walls outside of the church. The recorder of the writings and picture scratchings suggests that maybe the naughty children were sent outside to wait, during the long unending sermons of the late 1700s and 1'00s. Got bored and did this graffiti, if so nothing has changed except paint sprays make the artists just a bit more noticeable and colourful.
Following last month's three page lecture on the future of SHS I have been requested NOT to leave out the 'Clip-art' in future, I feel a few lighthearted funnies do make a document more easily readable, so I will try to keep them in, in future. (Webmaster's note: This refers to the printed Newsletter. The clipart is not included on the web pages, because of file size limitations.) We have started the process of our long term plans by writing to the Parish Council and the MK Planning Office, to make our requirements known to these two august bodies. We are still looking for the person man or woman to take on this long term project.!!!!
Our next meeting will be the AGM on the 14th March 2006, prompt start at 8pm please. It would be nice to see as many of you there as possible. There will be Wine, Cheese and nibbles afterwards, and the proceedings will not be too formal or lengthy, I promise.
Anita has decided that she has monopolised the management of the refreshments for far too long, and has now formally retired to make way for a new catering manager. Thank you Anita for several years of service. As yet we do not have a volunteer replacement, Enid and Kay are temporary assistants to each other.
N.A.