Page 6 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2022/23

Lady Chair’s Report
SANDRA HALL FNVS, NATIONAL LADY CHAIR
Happy New Year to you all. Hope you had a relaxing, enjoyable Christmas, family time.
Since my report in the last edition of
SV there has been a very busy Show season with more and more Shows back,
I attended the Shrewsbury Flower Show, the first one in three years (owing to Covid) with the Midlands Branch, a local show
to me, then Mark and I went to the Welsh Branch championships at Wrexham and met up with the Welsh boys and girls. Their entries were down compared to pre-covid, but nevertheless a good quality show and good to get back on track. I didn’t get to the Scottish or Northern Branch shows, sorry guys!! I’m gradually getting back into travelling and Mark into the showing again.
The National Championships were back on their five-year cycle, this year being hosted by the Midlands Branch within
the Malvern Autumn Show at the end of September. There was a fantastic number of high-quality entries. Please have a
look at some of the general show photos within this SV edition and on flicker, via
our NVS website Library section. Class
26, ‘The Chairman’s Challenge Shield
was red onions, seed ‘37-222’ kindly
given to our members from one of our partners Medwyns of Anglesey, was well supported with 20 exhibits staged. For your information, this has now been named as “Red Rover” if you are looking for it in Medwyn’s catalogue.
The National AGM was held on the Friday afternoon, the first day of the Malvern Autumn Show where we said thanks to two long serving Trustees, Ian Stocks and Gareth Cameron as they had stood down. Raymond Higgins was voted in as Vice-Chair, which provides great continuity with our plans and progress.
After the AGM was the presentation of trophies and the NVS awards presented by our President Medwyn Williams I was so pleased to see Gold Medals being awarded to Ian Stocks, Gareth Cameron
and Fiona Shenfield and a silver medal to my friend and colleague Jean Forrester congratulations. Congratulations and thankyou to all our Fellowship recipients too, ALL, so well deserved!!!
After a quick wash and brush up we were back in the same room for a social gathering the first time we had been able to really get together, about 80 people turned up for a superb two course meal and entertainment, the bottle bar let us down a little as it ran out of some bottled beers, the usual dance brigade was up on the dance floor and got everyone else going. A good night was had by all.
A big thank you must go to the Midlands Branch for putting on not only a superb show but sourcing a good venue for the AGM and hosting the social evening
The following week saw the Welsh Branch and the Irish DA hold a judge’s exam. A big thank you for all candidates who stepped forward and congratulations to all our new judges, I wish you lots of judging engagements in the
future.
a heart attack and just to thank Fiona Shenfield who has picked up the reigns on Membership related activities whilst Norman recovers.
The work with our sponsors and partners continues, you our members continuing to receive packets of seeds and participate
in seed trials. For your information, the Falco Turnip, from D.T.Brown, will be the Chairmans Challenge Class for 2023 at
the National Championships and will
be in this edition of the SV Magazine in time for you to have ready for September. I want to thank Gareth Cameron for getting us to where we are today with our partners and I look forward to continued developments under the guidance of our new Sponsorship manager, Chris Spree.
Now the show season is over I would say it was time to take a deep breath, chill and relax, but that is not the case, it starts all over again planning for next year, garden design and seed ordering. My garlic, overwintering peas and broad beans are
Since the AGM I am
happy to announce the
vacant positions of assistant
secretary and sponsorship
manager have now been
filled, so thank you to
Michelle Nixon and Chris
Spree having been co-opted
at two Trustee meetings,
welcome aboard. All the
new faces can be spotted
on page 3. With new people
on board come new ideas, suggestions and the Trustees board will continue to move the Society forward. We still have one post to fill and that’s the title of Webmaster which we will re-visit shortly.
Whilst on the topic of our Trustees, I would just like to send my best wishes to our Membership Registrar and Southern branch Chair, Norman Dickinson who is steadily recovering after having suffered
Congratulations to all our new judges, I wish you lots of judging engagements in the future
already in, and I am still picking runner beans.
While last summer
saw the return of a lot more shows the long, hot summer, although very nice caused us gardener ’s great difficulty, especially with some veg types (we are never happy with the weather!) hopefully this year the weather will be kinder to us.
Looking forward; we have been planning more Zoom talks
for the cold, dark nights. The past zoom talks are now available to view on the website under Library – zoom talks. Also available are our DVDs which have now been digitalized and are available for our members to view following the same route on the website. Also keep an eye on our Facebook page and members group for additional information between Magazines.
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6 Simply Vegetables