Catsfield

WI Jumble Sale: The annual WI Charity Jumble Sale will be held tomorrow Saturday 16th March from 10am – 12pm in the Village Hall, entrance 50p. Jumble urgently needed please, if you have anything to donate please bring it to the hall from 8.30am on the day or alternatively you can leave it at Holly Lodge (at the back of the Village Hall car park) at any time in advance.

Team Belle: An exciting ‘Eggtastic Easter Event’ is being organised to take place in the Village Hall on 12th April from 12pm – 2pm. Join in with Arts and Crafts, Tea and Cake, Chocolate and Bottle Tombola. Face Painting, Eggxcellent Raffle, and the chance to meet and have your photo taken with the Easter Bunny. Entry will be £1 per child and adults free – including entry into the Easter Competition, with an Easter prize for every entry. Come and help raise more money for Belle.

Family Service: The service of Holy Communion will be at 9am this Sunday 17th March and will be followed at 10am by the Family Service. Please note that there will be two Family Services this month, the second one is on Mothering Sunday 31st March.

WI: There seemed to be many apologies for absence at the WI meeting last Thursday, but thankfully the Hall was as busy as usual and a most enjoyable afternoon ensued. David Wilson played the piano again for us, although he resolutely declines to stay for the meeting - I wonder why? We heard that we have joined the web revolution with an entry on the ESFWI website and hope it

encourages some interest from potential new members. Everyone is welcome to come along and find out, although it is for women only. We have yet to repel a group of men eager to join. We heard about the opportunities available to members, courses organised by headquarters, visits to Denman college, a quiz competition at Herstmonceux, the fun flower and produce show, coffee

morning and summer outing.

Then swiftly moving on, our speaker was introduced and very good she was too. Helen Stockton writes from the perspective of Rolo her border terrier and has been published monthly in local Sussex magazines. Helen and her husband were subjected to months of pestering by their family to have a dog and in the end her husband produced a Dog Business Plan, itemising the pros and cons, costs, walks etc and despite several misgivings, Rolo came into their lives. Rolo is a very comical dog with a fine sense of humour and the idiosyncrasies of family

and village life, an enormous appetite and a liking for beer. He has embraced the new technologies of a blog and now has 2,200 twitter accounts. Helen has published two books and read out some amusing pieces. Towards the end of the talk, she gave us the sad news that Rolo had recently died of old age, but his successor Teddie is already in place and we hope he will continue in Rolo’s tradition. Helen was thanked by Beryl who also introduced the winner of our handmade Easter Card competition, who was Rita Bullard. Members all enjoyed the splendid tea provided by Denise and Janet and with the raffle being not quite as manic as usual, we dispersed looking forward to our next meeting which is our 101st birthday meeting when by popular request our speaker will be Lady Crabtree, entitled “The Dowager Entertains.”

Coffee Morning: Last Saturday’s coffee morning to raise funds for St Laurence Church was a most enjoyable social event and was very well-attended. The smell of real coffee welcomed everyone through the door and there were tables filling the length of the hall filled with people chatting to friends. The raffle and the well-stocked gift/craft and cake stall all helped to raise the excellent sum of £484 for the church.

Sport: The groundsman has again been grounded, no football last week, which I suppose gives all our goalkeepers time to recover. Tomorrow we play Battle Baptists away, then we have our last home fixture and the season is almost over.

Spring: The cemetery is a mass of primroses, daffodils and purple crocus. It is well worth a little walk round, listening to the birds and at school time you can hear the children in the playground, a sound which has been heard for over a hundred years. There were no rabbits there when the groundsman walked round, unlike the Playing Field. Sorry, we are not allowed to mention the “r” word in our house.