Do you happen to live in Ashburn?

Sutton on the Hill WI

SUTTON on the Hill WI has been meeting on Zoom since last May. We only missed one meeting during the pandemic, in April.

Our first few meetings were very informal, with some chat and a quiz each time.

Quite a few of our members had never used a computer and didn’t have one. But they soon realised that virtual meetings were the way forward and can now join in.

In August we were able to meet up outside for afternoon tea, each participant taking their own food, crockery and cutlery, to comply with the rules. Then from September onwards we reverted to virtual meetings again, with a virtual trip to California!

In October we travelled again, this time to Antarctica by courtesy of Eric Wolff, our president’s brother, who is a glaciologist and professor at Cambridge University, and has made a number of field trips to Antarctica.

In November we had our annual meeting, and as this was the day after Remembrance Sunday, it was followed by a slideshow of “Our Ancestors in World War II”, put together by the U3A Family History Group, which our president also runs.

Then in December we had a Christmas party, with silly games and carol singing and, of course, the compulsory mince pie!

In January the federation archive team presented their work to us in a very slick presentation, accompanied by a slideshow.

This month we went on a virtual tour of Ashbourne with Geof Cole. Did you know that a true “native” of Ashbourne will call the town “Ashburn”? And indeed its name used to be spelt like that, and even earlier it was spelt “Esseburne”, which would have been pronounced “Eshburn”.

This was one of the many interesting facts about the town that we learnt from Geof.

And now we are all keen to go on a guided tour of the town in person. But that may not be possible before 2022.

Our speakers for our next three meetings will be The Blood Bikers in March, Tony Waldron with a talk entitled “Things that Go Bang in the Night” in April, and a talk about the Bayeux Tapestry in May.

We meet on the second Monday of the month at 7.30pm, and anyone interested in joining us would be very welcome.

Please contact our secretary on 01283 732552.