It was a rather chilly Sunday afternoon on the 19th of March when a group of Surrey Guild members met at The Sensory Gardens’ meeting hall in Normandy to attend the annual AGM for the Guild. The main reason as to why we chose a change of venue over using Compton Village Hall again was the fact of the difficulty in parking may have discouraged some of our members. So to encourage more people, a new venue with greater parking facilities was found.

Members were warmly welcomed to the meeting by Chris and Bill Knight, who had organised the venue on behalf of the committee. The AGM started at 2.30pm and Geoff Peach read the minutes of the previous AGM held on 12^th March 2016. The minutes and actions from the last meeting were duly agreed and signed as an accurate account of the meeting.

The next items on the agenda were to receive the Secretary’s and Treasurer’s reports for the year just gone.

The next item was to elect the committee for the forth coming year; Geoff, Chris, Sheila and Rosemary were duly elected as Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer respectively.

We then came to the sad part of the meeting where we had to say farewell to one of our committee members who has been an active member of the Guild for many years. Unfortunately, Brenda Girdlestone decided to retire. Brenda was presented with some lovely flowers by Geoff, our Chair. As you will see from the photo of Brenda with Geoff, Sheila and Rosemary it was a lovely way to celebrate the afternoon.

We then re-elected the other members of the committee, we welcomed two new members, Christine Stedman and Diana Terry, who are both Cookery Judges.

There were no further items to discuss and the meeting closed around 3.30pm and we all had a welcome cup of tea and some delicious homemade cakes.

The next AGM will be held on 25th March 2018 at 2.30pm. The venue is the Therapy Garden Hall, Manor Fruit Farm, Glaziers Lane, Normandy, Surrey, GU3 2DT. John Hall has been confirmed as the main guest speaker for this event. We look forward to welcoming as many members as possible.