NEWSLETTER – SEPTEMBER/DECEMBER 2022                                                                    Dear Members Hope you’ve all enjoyed the summer months – even though the heat has been excessive at times! Despite the weather, the society has had an excellent season – it’s lovely to be meeting up in person and enjoying our usual events. We were able to arrange three outings this year – to Ken Black’s clematis garden in Mollington, RHS Garden Bridgewater and the Southport Flower Show, which were all very enjoyable. It was also heartening to see such a good display at our Summer Show on 13 August, when again the village hall was filled with sumptuous vegetables and flowers, not the mention the array of cakes and preserves. Programme We still have lots to look forward to. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, 7 September, when the speaker will be Jill Cawthray with a talk entitled ‘On the Shady Side’ and our competition will be a vase of foliage. At our following meeting on Wednesday, 5 October, the talk will be ‘Tulips’ by Matthew Smith and the competition is a photograph of tulips in your garden. Then on Wednesday, 2 November, we have a talk on ‘Climbers and Wall Shrubs’ by Richard Lewis, when the competition will be a photograph of a climber in your garden. Our Christmas Festivity this year is on Thursday, 15 December, when we will be entertained by ukulele band Chester Ukes, and a light supper will be served. This should be an event to look forward to. It will be a ticket only meeting and tickets will be available at our monthly meetings, starting in September. Autumn Show In the meantime, our Autumn show is on Saturday, 8 October – entries need to be sent to Peter Carman by 9.30 pm on Wednesday, 5 October. Staging will be on the Friday evening from 7.00 to 9.00 pm and on Saturday morning from 8.00 am to 10.45 am – you can find all the details in the schedule or on our website (www.uptonhorticulturalsociety.co.uk). If you’ve not entered anything before, do think about taking part – there’ll be plenty of people on hand to help out if you’ve any questions or need any advice. Our Committee We have recently welcomed Alison Gunnion and Pat Baxter to our committee, and are delighted that Pat has agreed to take on the role of membership secretary, as Debbie Corbett has stepped down from this role. Our thanks to Debbie for all her hard work over the recent years, and to Pat for taking this on. We’d also like to thank Rita Critchley, who held the post of Outings Secretary for so many years. As many of you know, Rita has now moved away from Chester to be nearer family and we wish her all the best. We are always glad of new volunteers to help spread the workload – feel free to speak to any of us on the committee if you’d like more information. And if anyone would like to volunteer for the role of Chairman, that would be much appreciated – Wendy is acting as Chairman on a temporary basis but we will need to recruit someone permanent. We hope you enjoy the rest of the season in the garden (hopefully, we’ll have a bit of rain to helNewsletter