NEWS & VIEWS

This is your page. Let us have your ideas, opinions, or criticisms.

Do you have a foolproof compost recipe or hints on raising a difficult variety?  Can you grow OUR TED?  If so let's hear all about it. Are your vine weevils bigger and better than ours?  What's your secret?                  

 Please contact rae.bliss@ntlworld.com  for your views to be published on this page

    

 

 

ALL CHANGE AT THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

At our recent A G M our secretary Ann Griffiths took a well-deserved retirement after  years of efficient service. We shall miss her guiding hand and a vote of thanks was passed for all the time she has devoted to Society organisation and members' welfare. New secretary Rae Bliss took over on the understanding that a replacement Editor might be found for the newsletter.  As with most societies today  Beds & Herts is having great difficulty in finding active committee members. At this meeting Mina Simon also stepped down due to other commitments and recent new member Chris Gilbert was elected to serve on the committee. We are grateful to Chris for his support as we are sadly in need of "muscle" in our ageing group!

Ann is off to New Zealand on December 1st for her winter hibernation. (She tells us it's a holiday but we know better.)  Ann's Mum Doll will be celebrating her 90th birthday while they are there. We wish her all the very best and hope to see her back in the kitchen at our next Display where she has become indispensible.

       

              

    Feet up time for our Secretary                                                                          

 

                                                             

     *Retiring secretary Ann Griffiths

 

EXCERPTS FROM THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY NEWSLETTER


Editorial


Your Committee has pulled out all the stops to ensure this Newsletter is one you will want to keep. (We hope.) We can all be very proud of the fact that the Beds & Herts Fuchsia Society has survived for three decades and seems, after a few recent wobbles, to be gathering strength again. The enthusiasm of the founders of our society provided the momentum which has kept things running since 1979. Enthusiasm is a thing which naturally tends to run down after a while and new blood is always needed to keep an organisation vital and effective. New members with fresh ideas are essential to the continued health of the club. Luckily we are now experiencing a slow but steady growth in membership and we hope that some of our new faces will soon have the confidence to take part in the running of the society.

Don’t think that because you are a newcomer, or are not growing top class exhibition fuchsias, that you have any less to contribute to the group. It is the views of new members, seeing us with fresh eyes, that can throw light on things which old-timers are too blinkered to see. Give us the benefit of your criticism where it is needed and advice if you think it will help. Let’s have some new ideas. In this electronic age we don’t all think or act as the original members did as they laboured over their manual typewriters. Now the committee communicates mainly by email. But growing and displaying fuchsias is much the same although administration has changed a great deal.

Read some of the news and views from those early days that Ann V has looked out for us and marvel at what went on just thirty years ago. The Society was pleased with a bank balance of £194 in those days. We manage now on around £2—3,000 which just keeps our heads above water with some in reserve for emergencies. I wonder what speakers charged then, with Leo Boullemier
visiting twice in as many months! Those were heady days and now our way of life has changed and we can’t go back, but the future can be just as rewarding. We can continue to build on the foundations that were laid for us in 1979 and on the good reputation we have throughout the area . The next decade is up to us. And when you have made your fuchsia wine ( recipe inside) you can raise your glasses with me…………...
The toast is “Beds & Herts Fuchsia Society - to the next thirty years!”
                                                                                
                                                                         

                  
         

A recipe for Fuchsia Wine
Ingredients

1 1/2 pints of ripe fuchsia berries 1 lemon
2 1/2 lbs of sugar Tokay yeast
1 lb of currants 1 gallon of boiling water
Method
Place the prepared fruit into a large container. Pour over the boiling
water. Stir and crush the fruit with a wooden spoon. Cover and leave for three days, stirring daily. Strain through muslin and squeeze gently onto the sugar, thinly peeled rind and juice of the lemon. Warm gently to a lukewarm temperature to dissolve the sugar. Stir well, then add the
previously activated yeast. Cover and leave in a warm place to ferment. When fermentation has ceased syphon off and bottle. Keep at least a year before drinking.

Fuchsia Jelly
Ingredients
1 1/2 lb of ripe fuchsia berries 3/4 lb Sugar
2 lemons 4 tablespooons water or
Method apple juice

Simmer fruit and water or juice together until tender having pressed out the juice with a wooden spoon while they were simmering. Place in a straining bag and allow to drip overnight. Don’t squeeze the bag.
Measure the juice, it should be almost a pint. If it isn’t make it up with water and the juice of two lemons. Put in a saucepan with sugar, lemons and dripped juice, just as you would for other jellies. Dissolve sugar slowly over gentle heat and then bring up to a rapid boil. When you are sure setting point has arrived, pot up into small jars, cover and store away. To test for a set drop a tablespoonful onto a saucer and put it into the refrigerator for a couple of minutes, then “push” the jelly with your finger. It should wrinkle.

 

 

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