THE Upwey and Broadwey Horticultural Society opened the new year with an experiment which proved to be successful and repeatable.

Where usually the society keeps its head down in January, the committee decided to invite members to take part in an any questions evening with Brian Marsh, Peter Read and Bob Symes, all very experienced gardeners, on the panel.

The questions came thick and fast on a wide variety of subjects from pruning roses, propagating dahlias, choosing the right sort of potatoes and, particularly interestingly, how to encourage children to grow their own in the vegetable garden – the answer there was anything, particularly salad plants, that grows fast, and a few flowers in amongst them.

At the next meeting on Thursday, February 4, the speaker will be Caradoc Doy who will be talking about plant hunters. Just where did those exotic plants come from and how were they found and brought back to Britain? No doubt there’ll be some answers to those questions.

New members are always welcome.

The society meets on the first Thursday of every month at St Nicholas Primary School, 7.30pm.

Please contact the secretary Mrs Seal 01305 816915

THE CONGREGATION at St Laurence Church will be very pleased to hear that the new boiler is being installed this week, hopefully up and running on Sunday.

Green and efficient and a lot cheaper to run, the better heating may mean that we don’t have to set out as to the arctic on Sunday mornings.

Work on the windows progresses slowly.

UPWEY OLD School Village Hall is flexing its muscles again ready for lots of activities this year.

Amongst these will be the rebirth of Upwey Films now that there’s a new projector and screen and the idea is to show independently produced films, often somewhat different from those on general release, and an advantage is that they may not need anything more than a simple licence, or even none at all.

To find out dates, not decided at the time of writing, and titles, contact Bill Crumbleholme on 01305 812030 or check out the website bill@upweypotters.com.

SOME NEW ventures are starting at the Old School now:

Annalisa Renee has just started classes in sculpture on Wednesday mornings and oil painting on Monday afternoons.

For information, contact her on 01297 489620.

Jay Eastwood has converted the old chair store in one of the outhouses into a dark room and he will be running classes covering all aspects of photography.

Phone him for details on 01305 815261, or e-mail jayphotofinish@aol.com