| The September Coffee Morning began
with the chairman inviting members to think seriously about who would replace
her next Spring as no one on the present committee is in a position to take
on that task.
There are many tickets left for the Art Lectures at Southampton's City Centre on Friday 26th September. These will cover the City's Art Gallery collections as well as the current contemporary exhibition. Our own photographic competition exhibiting in November will now include a special prize for an eye-catching photo not in any category. There are two new national Subject Networks, one for Bridge and the other on Finance; names and telephone numbers are available from the Secretary. Notices were given about the Walking Group, Village Visits, and a new Theatre Group which Brenda Wade (Tel:322738) will host. All the details of spaces on Salisbury U3A's courses were posted and members invited to phone the leader if they wished to apply. These will be posted again at the next Coffee Morning. The speaker was Stuart Corbett, Conservation Officer for Porton Down. At last we could see what this secret place looks like as he illustrated his talk with superb photographs of the grassland, scrub and woods as well as examples of the birds, butterflies and plants that survive in that protected site. He explained the difficulties of maintaining the grassland, of using rabbits to graze it, yet allowing the juniper trees to become established. It was intriguing to learn how large sums are spent on hiring contractors to take out the unwanted hawthorn scrub, letting in swathes of fragrant orchids and other joys not seen since our childhood before intensive agriculture spread over the land. Mary Compton thanked him for an informative talk. |
