Portsmouth IVC

The Halloween Ball was very good value for money.When we arrived we were welcomed by complementary champagne and nibbles! The food was of a very high quality and table service excellent. We had 2 round tables of ten places and it was easy to socialise and have some fun chat. Many members dressed up .. several witches, a dracula, little devils, merlin, Scream, an evil “black” fairy and a Doctor Death ! A couple in another party won the best dressed couple as two from Ghost Busters with their illumiated back packs and ghost busting high tech equipment… all home made costumes… very realistic!
Some of the lady members were very lively acting the goat. At one point a couple of the ladies were causing havoc under one of the tables!
The fireworks were brilliant lasting a good 20 minutes!
After the fireworks we all danced the night away to a nice mix of music.
Definitely must go back there next year!!! Very good value for money at £38.50 a ticket.

Clive and his Killer Rabbit

Scream Being Seduced by Two Wicked Witches

Two Evil Wiches Larking Around!

Merlin Casting a Spell on the Wicked Witches

Doctor Death at Work

Alittle devil and her victim!

The Evil Witches and Doctor Death

The following people are confirmed as paid and going to the  Xmas Do at the Red Lion Hotel in Fareham.

If  any errors please contact me directly. (Andrew M)

Event details can be found on activity exchange

The following people are going,  if you think you should be on the list etc please contact me directly. (Andrew M)

Paul K ennedy,

Ed Lait,

Jo  Yeganegy

Mandy

Anna Rush

Andrew Marvill

Ann Foster *

Simone Yeatman *

Clive Arnold

Jannie Arnold

John Etheridge

Jim Nicholson

Shelagh Tasker

Maria Seaton-Fry

Pauline Morris *

Paulin *

16 people so far

Another good turn out at The Cormorant in Portchester! It helped that we had a committee meeting at the pub immediately before the club night of course

Anyway, welcome to temporary member Maria who came along to her first PIVC club night that night.

Don’t forget it is bulletin distribution next Wednesday (28th), given that the Royal Mail staff are striking this weekend there will be a backlog of post next week, so it may be an idea to pick your bulletin up at the club night rather than wait for it to arrive in the post.

A very early announcement of next year’s Fareham & Gosport Easter Folk Festival and Wickham Festival (yes it’s back at Wickham, not Stokes Bay) arrived in my inbox today:

***  Earlybird Season Tickets for 2010 Now On Sale.  Big Discounts!  See Below ***

Hello!

Firstly, a big ‘Thank You’ to everyone who attended the 2009 Stokes Bay and Gosport & Fareham Easter Festivals.  We hope you enjoyed all the great live music.

Please note we have some unclaimed lost property from Stokes Bay.  If you lost anything please email us a description and we may be able to reunite you with your property.

2010 Festival Dates & Bargain ‘Earlybird’ Tickets

By popular acclaim, our Summer Festival will be returning to Wickham in 2010.
We staged two very popular and successful festivals there in 2006 & 2007 and we’re delighted to be returning to our attractive rural site on the outskirts of the historic and picturesque village of Wickham near Fareham in the Meon Valley (the locals are delighted we’re returning as well!).

Our 2010 Festival dates are:

i)  Gosport & Fareham Easter Folk Festival – Thursday April 1 to Sunday April 4, 2010

ii)  Wickham Summer Festival – Thursday August 5 to Sunday August 8, 2010

Our new websites will be up-and-running shortly and we’ll email you again soon with news of the first artists booked but, as a ‘taster’, we can say that Kathryn Tickell; Show of Hands; Feast of Fiddles; Martin Simpson; Mawkin Causley; Isambarde and Chris Sherburn & Denny Bartley are already confirmed for Easter while Eliza Carthy; Shooglenifty; Show of Hands (again); The Peatbog Faeries and The Men They Couldn’t Hang are among the first artists pencilled-in for Wickham (with some very big names to follow).

‘Earlybird’ Season Tickets Now On Sale

By popular request we’re putting ‘earlybird’ weekend season tickets on sale now at very attractive bargain prices for those who buy before the end of October.

You can save up to £15 on an adult weekend ticket for Easter and up to £35 on an adult weekend ticket for Wickham plus, if you book for both festivals before the end of October, you can save an extra £5 on each adult ticket for both of them!

Please find a Tickets Booking Form attached.  Just download, fill it in and post it with a cheque to The Festivals Office, 51 Russell Street, Gosport, Hampshire PO12 3JD.

We always welcome your feedback on our festivals, and your suggestions for artists we should book next year, so if you’ve any ideas or comments do please email us at eastfest@talk21.com

Thank you for your support.  We hope to see you again in 2010.

Best wishes,
The Hampshire Festivals Team

There for a drink, at short notice we entered an ad hoc Team in the pub quiz. We come close to winning and would have done better if Ed could have a got a signal for his ‘phone.

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick note about Ed’s BBQ held on 4th July to celebrate Independance Day.
The day when the Americans became independant from the British (or is it the other way round).
However either way we decided to have a celebration BBQ at Ed’s house with lots of good food provided by Ed.

The event was enjoyed by all with Music, dancing and a water fight!

Then we went along to Hamble river and The Rising Sun pub to enjoy the fireworks on the riverside along with a lovely refreshing drink!

Please see the photos for yourself.

As you may know Shelagh Tasker is going to be cycling through Cambodia soon, so Ed suggested whe might want to get some practice in by coming on our regular Old Rosie Cycle ride, various emails went back and forth along the lines of:
Shelag: I haven’t got a bike.
Ed: you can go on the back of my tandem

Shelagh: I haven’t cycled that sort of distance before
Ed: You only need to do the outward half of the ride – catch the train to Swanwick, I will meet you on the tandem, you can get the Gosport ferry back home.

Now I work in Whiteley and cycle from Fareham to work, so I said to Ed “I will meet you at Swanwick station and cycle to your house with you and Shelagh”

Nothing ever goes exactly to plan, as I was cycling down the approach road to the station Ed texted me to say that Shelagh had missed her train and would be driving to his place.  Later at Ed’s, Jo phoned to say that she had a puncture.

Eventually the gang was all assembled, a spare bike was loaned to Jo and we were off!

So what’s the deal with the photo then? I hear you ask.  Well as you can see I wore my new Homer Simpson cycling jersey on the ride and it caused great hilarity when Jo spotted that it  made me look like I had a couple of boobs in a rather odd position.  Dare I wear it again on an IVC cycle ride?

Please let Ed know your menu choices for the Christmas Dinner Dance from the choices below (and your monies) by Halloween:

Starters

• Chef’s Minestrone Soup
• Country Style Pate served with toasted French bread and cranberry drizzle
• Prawn, Apple & Celery Cocktail brewed in a light mayonnaise dressing

Main Course

• Roast Breast of Turkey served with traditional accompaniments
• Roast Top Rump of Beef served with Yorkshire Pudding
• Mushroom & Stilton Stroganoff a creamy stroganoff served with a timbale of rice

Desserts

• Traditional Christmas Pudding served with brandy sauce
• Home Baked Apple Pie & vanilla custard
• Tiramisu

Freshly brewed coffee & mince pies

I popped into the travel agent on Saturday and the Holiday to Soll on 30th Jan 2010 is now full.  If anyone is interested in going later in the season, say end of Feb / beginning of March, then we need to get our skates on.

I’m open to suggestions on where to go.  I’ve been to Saalbach in Austria a couple of times and it is very good, but if people prefer France, or Italy or somewhere else in Austria that is fine by me too.