December meeting brought something different to a Christmas Party. We held a Folk Evening instead. Bob Kenward Trio entertained us with their folk songs during the evening which went down well. They even sang a song about the Men of Kent!

Everyone enjoyed chatting and singing with the Band, then the Xmas Buffet was served which we all tucked into. In all over 50 Members got together for this seasonal event and below are some images of the evening:

Remembrance Day

This year’s Remembrance Sunday was very special being the 100^th since Armistice in November 1918. This year twenty-nine of our Members attended Rochester Cathedral for the Service of Remembrance and Marjorie Keggans was honoured to lay our Wreath at the Cenotaph on the Branch’s behalf. After the official proceedings we made our way to The Crown Freehouse by the River Medway for lunch. This has become a regular venue for us to follow the Service of Remembrance and, despite the increase in numbers, we were able to squeeze in and have a very enjoyable lunch. Below are some images from the morning: in the Cathedral, at the Cenotaph and at lunch:

Speaker Evening - RNLI

Our Hall meeting this month was a Speaker Evening. The Gravesend RNLI came along and gave us a tremendous & very interesting insight on their activities. Everybody was totally enthralled by the excellent presentation given by Ian & Tina, pictured below, who provided an in-depth picture of their training regime, activities and structure.

It was very clear all the Members of the RNLI are totally dedicated, enthusiastic and very knowledgeable in the rescue service they provide! The Service (a 24-hour, 365-day year Service), is provided without any Government funding and is run purely from Public donations!

After the presentation we had the opportunity to present the Acorn Trophy, duly engraved with the winner’s name, John Hoare, who won the Bat & Trap competition at our Annual Garden Party in August. Pictured below is Brian, our Secretary, presenting John with the Trophy – well done John!

We held our Annual Dinner Dance at Upchurch Golf Club. There were nearly sixty of us despite several Members enjoying their Autumn Cruises away and unfortunately missed this enjoyable evening. The Mayor & Mayoress of Medway, Councillors Steve & Josie Iles, joined us for the evening as well as our County Chair and his wife, Robin & Lorna Broughton. We were also pleased to welcome members from Maidstone and Chislehurst branches. Our new County Chaplain, The Reverend Mark Hurley and his wife Barbara, came along to support us and Mark kindly said Grace to start Dinner.

This year our entertainment was again provided by “The Crooner”, Martin Farbrother, who encouraged quite a few of us on to the Dance floor! An impromptu collection was made for the DEC Appeal for the disaster in Indonesia and £140.00 was raised with the cheque being quickly dispatched to DEC. Well done to everyone for contributing to this worthy cause at such short notice!

Here are a few images from the evening, along with a copy of the letter of thanks received from the Disasters Emergency Committee:

Ron, who was about to celebrate a milestone birthday, enjoying the evening	Jack with our Friends from Maidstone	Jean & Ernie enjoying dancing

Having a natter over Dinner	From left to right: Peter, Sybil, Steve, Josie & Robin

Enjoying the dancing

Trip on the Blue Bell Line

Another brilliant day out, a long overdue trip to travel on the Blue Bell Line. Seeing and travelling on a Steam Train brought back many pleasant memories of our younger days when Steam Trains were still being used on our railways. Despite the weather being overcast we boarded the train at Sheffield Park and travelled to East Grinstead and back.

The Q Class 541 engine used on our trip

Whilst travelling on the train our Group also enjoyed being told about the history of the line by a Guide on board the Train.

Our Guide	Ernie & Jean	Diane & Jack

After our train ride our coach then took us to The Stables Tea Rooms in Heaven Farm for an excellent lunch. Food could not have been better, all freshly cooked from local produce.

Lunch at the Stables Tea Rooms

Everyone praised the lunch afterwards. We then took the coach to end the day at Pole Hill Nursery which is massive. We were able to wander around looking at all the items for sale, some even made a few purchases, as well as having a Tea/Coffee before heading home. All in all, a very enjoyable day out!

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County Church Service

Medway Branch organised the Annual Church Service which is held at St Peter & St Paul Church Swanscombe. The Reverend Mark Hurley, who is now our County Chaplain, took the service with a congregation of around forty Members. Ray Welch, Vice Chair of Medway, presented the bough of Holm Oak and Sheila Underdown, Medway President followed Mrs P Shephard MBE DL, Vice President of the Association presented the two Readings. Our County Chair, Robin Broughton gave a current overview of the Association. After the Service, Reverend Hurley gave his Blessings and Robin presented the Bough to the Memorial.

The Blessing of the Memorial & Afternoon Tea

The Group then moved to the Village Hall where a superb Afternoon Tea, Sandwiches & Cake was laid on by the Friends of the Church.

County Bat and Trap Competition

Medway enjoyed two major events this month, the first was participating in the annual Woodgate Shield Bat & Trap competition at The Castle Inn at Oare organised by Faversham Branch. What a turnout, there were 29 Medway Members who supported this event and we managed to play three teams! We can hold our heads up high as we managed to play in the finals, losing by a short neck to the incumbents, Faversham! Well done to all our Members for their avid support. Below are the three Teams from Medway waiting to kick off their sessions:

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Medway Annual Garden Party

The second event was our Branch’s annual Garden Party at Kits Coty. This year the theme was “The Sixties” and we held our usual dress competition to see who most looked the part and the winners were presented with their prize by the representative from the Charity we are supporting the year, Porchlight. Nathan Tough gave a presentation about Porchlight, which is a Kent only charity, before presenting the winners with their prizes, photo below left showing Jean & Brian who came first in their class.

We held a raffle to raise funds for Porchlight plus one of our Members, Pam, organised a special form of a Sweepstake to supplement our Raffle. The afternoon’s fundraising was a great success and in the image below right our Treasurer, Lorna, is presenting Nathan with a cheque for £200 in aid of Porchlight.

The Members enjoyed a Buffet reminiscent of the sixties with Cheese & Pineapple Cubes on Cocktail Sticks, Trifle, Black Forest Gateau amongst other foods of the era. Our own Annual Bat & Trap Competition was also played and John, pictured below left, won after a tie break. Our County Chairman, Robin, kindly presented John with the Acorn Trophy for him to treasure for a year. Then we competed in the Kits Coty Bean Bag contest and pictured below right are the team who won, well done them!

Shirley, Michael, Marjorie and Jeanne

Finally, we had a memorabilia table to bring back memories of those days and below are some images of how we, as Members, tried to re-create how we looked way back then:

All in all, another well supported event for Medway thanks to our excellent Membership!

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The Branch travelled to Walton on Thames for a mini cruise on the River Thames and very pleasant it was too! We had a full coach and there was plenty of space for us on the boat which we had chartered. The weather was perfect, sunny and a comfortable temperature. The boat took us up towards Molesey and back which took three hours. Whilst on the boat Fish & Chips/Chicken & Chips were picked up and we were served a very tasty lunch followed by either Apple Tart or Gateau.

Below are some images of the group enjoying the very relaxing trip on the Thames:

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We had planned an evening of games for this month’s meeting, but an opportunity arose to invite a specialist from NatWest Bank who tours Groups giving a presentation on “Scams” which are the scourge of our times. She spoke for about an hour detailing the various forms that “scams” came in and advised us on how to recognise these, plus actions that should be taken to protect ourselves. It was an interesting presentation, opening our eyes to the breadth these scams took and the prevalence of this criminal activity! The message was loud and clear: “Be alert and suspicious” always!

After a short break for Tea, Coffee & biscuits one of our Members, Doug Baldock, ran a Music Quiz with a difference. We all had sheets with the “answers” already on but he then played a short clip of the music/Radio or TV theme tune for us to mark the answer sheet the order in which they were played. The era chosen was 1950’s, ’60’s & 70’s with a few earlier ones thrown in for good luck! The Quiz was not as easy as it sounds, but was excellent fun as it brought back fond memories of yesteryear, when the programmes transmitted were a joy to watch/listen to! Big thanks goes to Doug for providing such good entertainment!

Another great trip our Branch enjoyed! Nearly fifty of us travelled by coach to Hassocks for a superb lunch in the Thatched Inn. The decibel level in the Restaurant was huge with everyone busy chatting to their friends and catching up on the latest news before lunch was served as can be seen in the image below:

Lunch completed we then journeyed on to Brighton to experience BA’s i360. Our Group boarded for our flight which gave us spectacular views over Brighton and out over the Channel.

 Waiting for our turn on the i360 and some of our Members seated on board just before the Flight and below is a view across Brighton to the South Downs.

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April brought something different for us. We held a Beetle Drive and which all fifty of us thoroughly enjoyed. We ran six rounds and broke for Tea & Coffee then went on to finish a further six. There were teams of two playing against another two and the winners of each round moved onto the next table, so every round different Members were playing against new Competitors. At the end, the totals of each Team were totalled up and the winners, John & Christine had the highest score, and each won a £10.00 Garden Centre voucher. Pictured below in the two images are John & Christine receiving their prizes from Brian who ran the Beetle Drive.

We ended the evening with another brilliant Raffle with thanks to those who supported this.

AGM time again and the 50 Members attending the meeting were presented with the reports from the President, Chairman and Treasurer for the previous year’s activity. The reports were all positive, which were on activities, Branch Membership and Branch Funds. Also announced was the launch of the Medway Branch website, amkkm-medway.org.uk, which was designed and created by one of our Members, Tim, who also has volunteered to manage the site on our behalf.

Members of the Committee, from left to right, Sybil, Ray, Sheila, Peter, Brian & Lorna. Jack was unable to attend the meeting.

Our County Chairman, David, also attended with his wife Sharon and gave a short presentation to update all our Members on the improvements which have been made at County level. The existing Committee were re-elected unanimously for a further year.

After the AGM Claire, from the Charity Medical Detection Dogs, gave a very interesting talk about the work and achievements of this charity, which is the one we supported last year. Peter then presented her with a cheque for £375.00 from the Branch which had been collected over the year.

The evening was concluded with a Cheese & Wine supper followed by the raffle.

Duck Races

Sixty of us including Members from Maidstone & Chislehurst had a thoroughly enjoyable night trying to back the winning Duck. Some were very successful and some not so, but all thought the evening was a great laugh! At the interval we tucked into Fish & Chips supplied from our local Chippie which went down a treat!

Below are images from left to right showing Sybil & Lorna running the Tote (very efficiently too!), Brian taking around the Dice for everybody to participate in moving the Ducks & finally Ray who actually moved each of the Ducks according to what was shown on the Dice after each roll. Ray also went around prior to each race and sold each of the Ducks to our Members who became the "Duck Owner" for that particular race and if their Duck won they too won a prize!

New Year's Lunch

Our 2018 Programme started with lunch at Upchurch Golf Club. We all love going to this venue as they offer excellent food coupled with superb Waitress service at affordable prices. In all 61 of us, all Members from our Branch, joined the lunch and from the sound of all the chatting there was a lot of catching up going on from our last get together in December. Our Raffle also set the scene for this year by generating £156.00 and big thanks goes to Sheila Underdown (image below left selling tickets to Carol), our President, who did a sterling job of selling to our Members!

Also, it’s a “thanks” to Ray Welch, our Vice Chair, for calling the Raffle and making it an entertaining event in its own right! We also had the pleasure of welcoming new Members, Hilda & Roger Mitchell, plus John Hoad who has transferred from Sittingbourne Branch. Catching up with most of our Members, as you can see from the image above right, our Treasurer, Lorna, was busy collecting Annual Subs prior to the lunch!

Our New Year lunch is quite an informal affair which sets us up for an interesting and exciting programme for 2018 with the next meeting booked on Valentine’s Day 14^th February where we will be holding our popular Annual Duck Race.