President Betty Moxon welcomed members to a packed Village Hall for the July meeting and reported that the Charity Open Gardens' Day the previous Sunday was a resounding success attended by a large number of people. Betty thanked the 6 members who had opened their gardens for their hard work, and each was given a small gift.

The members were reminded that a Jacket Potato Lunch was being held in a member's garden the following Tuesday, and the coach was full for the summer outing to Parham House at the end of July.

The speaker this month was Mr John Smith who gave a very interesting and informative talk "Flora Thompson - beyond Candleford Green". Flora Thompson was born in 1876 in Oxfordshire and came from a poor social background.  She became Assistant Postmistress at Grayshott post office when she was 18 where she met her future husband, a post office clerk, who came from Aldershot.  They then moved firstly to Bournemouth, then Liphook and finally to Dartmouth. Flora supplemented their meagre income with journalism and is remembered for her autobiographical trilogy "Lark Rise to Candleford" (seen recently on television), "Over to Candleford" and "Candleford Green", all written when she was over 60.  These works evoke through the childhood memories and youth of a third person "Laura" and Mr Smith suggested Flora was in fact "Laura".  Mr Smith was given a well deserved show of appreciation for his talk.     

The next meeting will be on 4^th  September when the speaker will be Pam Goodall talking about "Riding it out - solo bike ride around the world at 60 years".

"Oliver!" was the audience choice for the July film showing for Elstead Cinema. The film, a musical, centred on life and iniquity of London in the eighteen century and was selected by a previous audience survey.

St James' school children were approached to make posters, and in spite of being busy with their own school play "Splash", they still managed to produce some excellent posters for our film. They were displayed at the front of the Village Hall, so everyone passing would see them. The audience on the night were asked to judge the children's posters, and the winner was Mintra Chanthalangsy Age 10 Who will receive two free tickets to a film of their choice.

We are having a short break in August.  Tickets will be on sale at the Spar and Batchelors Newsagents on Friday 29^th  August for September's film.  Watch this space for advertising for our next film.