January 2022: Tap Dancing

For our first meeting of 2022 we were joined by the wonderful Jacky to dance the night away! It was joyful to see so many of you return for our January meeting, and some new faces too! Was it the “New Year, New Me” trend? getting warmed up for Strictly selection 2022? or was it the memory of how entertaining Jacky was last time? Who knows but we had an amazing night…

After a warm up (and checking out some pro footwear that some of our Sweethearts brought along) we were introduced to some easy steps that after a little (ahem!) bit of practice we performed as a whole group to deliver a full routine. The temperature may have been a low outside, but we were certainly all very toasty inside, and the layers began to shed. Thank you so much to our hostesses for the evening, the cake and tea was very much welcomed after our exertions. We are very grateful for a healthy turnout, and also for all getting involved on the night.

December 2021: Festive Sing-a-long

In December we were joined by the fantastic All Together Now community choir for a festive sing song. The choir performed new and classic Christmas carols for us to get us feeling all Christmassy. We finished singing along to a unique Yorkshire version of the twelve days of Christmas written by one of the members of the choir. The choir then joined us for some social time with plenty of mulled wine and mince pies. What a lovely end to our 2021 meetings!

November 2021: Behind the Scenes of TV Quiz Shows

For our November meeting we had our first ever ‘hybrid’ evening. Our speaker joined us remotely and was projected onto the wall of the hall for us to enjoy. We had lots of Sweethearts joining us in the hall and more tuned in online, it worked really well and allowed us to hear from a speaker who would usually be out of our reach.We were joined by Faith Powell who shared her insight into TV quiz shows. Faith got into TV quiz shows 33 years ago when her daughter was born. She was told to ‘rest when your daughter rests’ so she did, by watching quiz shows and this led to participating in them.

The first show that Faith took part in was ‘Going for Gold’. She told us all about the gruelling interview process and shared the secrets around the 5 outfits required for the 1 day of filming. She then went on to tell us about some of the 15 quiz shows she has been on, of which she has won 6! We heard about the mountains of make-up, the ‘holidays to Prague’ and the very very helpful quiz hosts (we won’t name any names).

Some of her fondest memories came from taking part in ‘Ready Steady Cook’ and all the shenanigans that took place there (including setting the tea towel on fire!). She hasn’t made tempura batter since!

Faith was a fabulous speaker, she was very engaging, got us all involved and got lots and lots of laughs. We then finished our evening with tea, cake and a fantastic quiz organised for us by our wonderful President and Secretary celebrating women in film, sport and history.