November 11th
Another very successful junk sale was held on November 11th at Berriew. We welcomed about 27 members and guests, with our usual auctioneer Glyn (GW0JAI) in good voice. Mike (GW4IIQP) did a lot of running about and the wonderful display of goodies soon disappeared to willing buyers.
Jean ran the raffle and £60 was donated to the Multiple Sclerosis Charity. Thanks everyone for your generosity.
Tea and biscuits were served with finesse at half time (well actually those who had coffee had to DIY) and by the end of the sale there were very few items not sold. A grand total of £157.60 was made to swell our coffers. A fun afternoon.
October 4th
What a treat was in store for us all on Thursday October 4th when Rob Williams and Joanna Campling gave us a fascinating insight into Magic Lanterns.
Jo started the ball rolling with a history of Magic Lanterns which amazingly were around in the early 1600s. At that time they were lit with candlelight but they modernised with time. In the late 1800s operators sometimes burned lime to get the required light and this gave birth to the phrase “to be in the limelight”.
Jo and Rob had become interested when Jo, on investigating her family history, discovered that her ancestors had been very involved with these lovely machines. So their hobby has grown and they tell us they have upwards of 600 slides.
Rob then showed us several different types of slides some animals, some telling stories, others taking us on a cross country tour. To introduce the tour the Victorians would start with a slide of a stage coach to make you think you were on a journey and Rob did the same. We also had the commercial breaks that would have been around at the time. The corsets amused us a lot.
There were also some marvellous slides with were animated.
Some slides had been highlighted after processing which is a difficult, time consuming job and Rob showed us one he had made. The coloured slides were in such vivid colours we were amazed at how well they had stood the test of time. The slide show continued after a tea break and we were shown some rather weird and wonderful sets of slides, nursery rhymes and some strange ones that looked rather like an asylum.
Also on view were three beautiful lanterns, lots of slides and memorabilia connected with the hobby.
We none of us wanted the show to close but of course it had to. Dave thanked Rob and Jo and we demanded a return visit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
September 6th
About a dozen members convened for a "film" night, with productions on DVD covering the Irish DXpedition to the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse in 1991, and then the Red Arrows aerobatic team when they participated in the 200th anniversary of manned flight at Andrews AFB, Virginia, in 1983. Many thanks to Dave, GW4NQJ, for arranging for the loan of the films and providing and operating the equipment.
July 5th
Approximately 20 members attended the summer junk sale at Berriew on Thursday July 5th and were pleased to see a good length of tables piled with goodies. Where does it all come from?
Glyn was the auctioneer as usual, with Mike (GW4IQP) working well as his runner. A large amount of equipment was sold first from a retiring amateur with 10% of the takings to the club. Following on, the rest of the tables were slowly cleared and Glyn worked well. By tea break a lot of the stuff had found new homes.
Well refreshed, thanks to the ladies, we then held a raffle with the £40 proceeds being donated to the Renal Unit at Welshpool Hospital.
We happily continued to part with our cash until the last item went under the hammer.
Bill and Dave very ably kept a tally and everyone had soon paid and the room cleared.
It would be appreciated next time if everyone would take home any of their unsold items.
The grand total raised for the club was £133.40 – thanks to all for a fun evening.
The next junk sale will be at our November meeting so anything you regret buying or cannot get to work why not put it to one side and bring it back then.
====================================
March 2nd
PARC celebrated St.David's Day with a dinner at the Bradford Arms in Llanymynech. A party of twelve enjoyed a very nice meal. Mike Smith gave a vote of thanks to Chris Cole for organising it.
====================================
February 2nd
The February meeting of the club was held on Thursday Feb 2nd. It was a very cold evening, however 14 members braved the conditions to listen to a rather unusual talk by Clive G3WEQ. Clive ventured farther than us coming from Abergele with his talk called The War after Tomorrow.
He rather alarmed me with his opening words about giving us nightmares, however it wasn’t quite as bad as I had imagined. He went through the development of warfare from early clubs and brought us up to date with stories of robots fighting robots. It would appear the biggest problem is how to identify your robot enemy. He ended with a real photo of metacloth which makes us invisible. Scary thought. Does it stop me talking too???
Andrew thanked Clive and we had our usual tea, coffee and biscuits served with flair by the XYLs. It was a good evening and nice to welcome Peter G4 SGQ.
====================================
January 5th
Present: Pats x 2, Dave (who does SOTA), Mike & Judy, Dave & Maureen, Dave & Jean, Terry & Karen, Hugh, Mike and his son Piers.
Mike spoke on the work on being a warden in various Country Parks, their trials & tribulations including taking members of the public around the parks and the problems with large numbers particularly when he needed to explain things.
Piers was “geared up” with various implements used by the wardens: binoculars, saws etc. plus a handheld radio which apparently was as not that useable.
After the talk, Mike answered a lot of questions from the audience and indicated that if the interest was there, he would be very happy to take PARC members on some walks.