Catsfield

Race Night: Not content with holding a Boat Race a long way from any water, the Catsfield Triangle Association are holding Chas and Chris’s Race Night far from a race course! This will be on Saturday 25th March in the Village Hall. Doors open at 7pm and ‘they’re off’ at 7.30pm. There will be a licensed bar and bring your own food. Tickets cost £5 to include the first drink and are available from Scott Lavocah at [email protected] This event is to raise money for Catsfield Pre-school, Out of the Blue and Dragonflies. The Catsfield Boat Race will be held on Sunday 4th June 2017

WI: The numbers at the March meeting of the Catsfield WI were again depleted, with apologies received from many members who were unwell. However, Jerusalem was sung with enthusiasm as usual and we sat back in our seats to hear the business matters from the President, Secretary and Treasurer. We were reminded of the WI Jumble Sale on March 25th in the Village Hall at 10am and helpers are needed early to sort the jumble in preparation for the usual rush when the doors open. Please remember to bring whatever jumble you can lay your hands on and small cakes to serve with tea and coffee. Suggestions are needed at the April meeting for how we should celebrate our 100th anniversary next year, so members need to put their thinking caps on and come up with some ideas please.

Our speaker was Steve Hall who came to talk about ‘Cartooning and Animation’. Unfortunately he was having problems with his slides and had to manage without them, which he did without it spoiling his talk at all as far as his audience was concerned! He started the story of animation with the cave dwellers and wall paintings conveying movement by drawing animals with eight legs. He told how Turner in the 18th century managed to demonstrate motion in his work and in 1824, Peter Mark Roger (he of Thesaurus fame) wrote a paper on the ‘Explanation of an Optical Persistence of Vision’ explaining that the eye can retain an image for a tenth of a second enabling it to see movement in an apparently inanimate object. Steve showed us various simply made, replica objects which were created to show pictures appearing to move – a disc in 1825, a wheel with mirror slots in 1833 etc. The Lumiere brothers pioneered some of the earliest techniques from 1892, which inspired Georges Melies to produce one of the first famous cartoon films ‘Rocket to the Moon’. Other cartoons followed, ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’, Felix the Cat’ and the infamous ‘Betty Boop’ whose saucy behaviour resulted in her being censored in the US! Walt Disney appeared on the scene and in 1927 he introduced the world to Mickey Mouse and in 1937 to one of his most famous films, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was an extremely interesting talk and afterwards Steve had cartoon cards that he had drawn for sale and he also donated a cartoon to the WI for us to use as we like in the future. The raffle and tea followed.

Women’s World Day of Prayer: The service was well attended this year and even included three gentlemen in the congregation, which was good to see. Jackie had done an excellent job of organising the service as usual, which was planned by the women of the Phillipines and we were even fortunate enough to have with us our own young lady from there, Aisha who is soon to be married in St Laurence Church. David Wilson played the organ and had rearranged the music for the hymns to tunes that we all knew, which made singing a lot easier. The service this year was particularly moving and as usual it ended with the lovely words of ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord has Ended’ telling how this service and our prayers continue with the sun around the world, everyone agreed that it was the best one yet. Tea and coffee with homemade biscuits was served afterwards and it was good to gather round for a chat before we headed home with much to think about.

Coffee Morning: The fundraising Coffee Morning, Craft Sale and Cake Stall saw a steady flow of people throughout the morning and everyone enjoyed the refreshments, especially the delicious warmed sausage rolls that Sandra had brought as well as a selection of lovely homemade cakes. There was also an excellent Raffle which helped to raise the sum of £383 for St Laurence Church. The next fundraiser for your diary is the ever-popular Boot Sale at the Playing Field on 24th June.

Sport: No doubt our supporters are wondering when the footballers will be playing their final game of the season? Well, it is tomorrow away against Hollington who are always able to turn out a strong team. The likelihood is we will finish mid-table, which after struggling sometimes to field a full side, will be about right.

Meanwhile, the cricket team held their AGM and dinner at The Squirrel last Saturday and a very good meal it was, as always. Sadly, only 8 cricketers came, the remaining 10 diners included five tea ladies, four other members of the Cook family and guests. The tea ladies, who contribute much to the enjoyment of the matches and also to our funds, were each presented with a flowering plant. The bowling cup was won by Tom Bristow-Diamond with best figures of 5 for 9 and the batting cup went to Derrick Fuller with a best score of 127. Derrick was elected team secretary and captain, secretary David Taylor, treasurer Nick Gurr, President John Gowland and Chairman Mike Davey. Keith Cook was thanked for running the club, organising the fixtures and generally keeping it all going. We have a full season of fixtures to look forward to and when the conditions are right, the pitch will be prepared. Oh and one more thing, in 2016 we played 15 games and only lost 2 of them. Roll on the summer!

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