Wales and West Federation of Winemaking Circles

Transcription

1 Wales and West Federation of Winemaking Circles Newsletter May 2014 From the Editor s Demijohn For those of you who were expecting your Newsletter in April, my apologies but I have held it back because on 4 th May the Wales and West committee had a meeting where a few more i s were dotted and t s were crossed, so that you would get the most up-to-date information about this year s Festival. Most of the contributions to this Newsletter come from a few circles such as Andover, Bath, Timsbury or the circles in the North Gloucestershire area. But what about the rest of you? What is happening in Aberdare, Kingswinford, Longford Green and all the other 30-odd members of the Federation? It would be nice to hear from you. Some circles organise days out for their members and social secretaries are often looking for new places to go. Is there a vineyard or somewhere in your area that would be of interest to wine circle members? If so, let everyone know through the Newsletter In this Newsletter you will find: More about the 2014 Wales and West Festival; Reports on two winemakers weekend trips to the seaside; News from Bath, Brockworth and The Reddings Wine Circles. 1

2 News from the Federation Festival 2014 It is almost upon us. The committee visited the TLH Leisure resort in April and had a meeting with members of the TLH management. This was followed by a Wales and West committee meeting on 4 th May. Here is the latest information from those meetings. Information Stand The Information Stand will be located in the corridor behind the Reception Desk at the Belgrave Road entrance to the Victoria Hotel Entertainment As you will appreciate, we do not have exclusive occupation of the TLH complex and while we do have two public rooms reserved for our own use, we also have access to the Starlight Lounge and Albert s Bar and to the entertainment that is being provided there. But I must emphasise that it is a condition of our contract with TLH that the only public rooms where we can drink our home made wines and beers are the Richmond Lounge and the Warwick Ballroom. You can of course drink your homebrew in your bedrooms. As I have just mentioned, we are able to visit the other public rooms in the complex and watch the entertainment provided there, but there will also be entertainment in the Richmond Lounge and the Warwick Ballroom. The choice will be yours. A leaflet giving details of all the entertainment throughout the complex will be included in your Welcome Pack 2

3 Trade Stands Of our usual trade stands, only the homebrew suppliers BalliHoo will be attending but the TLH management have told us that they will be asking some local traders to come along as well. The trade stands will be in a room close to the Victoria Hotel reception area. Bookings Bookings have passed the 300 mark and there are still a few weeks to go before the event, so it s not too late to get your booking in. Show Entries About 1000 entries for the show have been received so far. We appreciate that many of you delay entering until after the National Show and Bridget has gracefully extended the deadline for entries for our Show until 31 st May. The show will be held mainly in the Warwick Ballroom in the Victoria Hotel. Depending on the numbers of entries, the wine and beer classes will be shown in the Warwick Ballroom and if this room is not big enough for all of them, the remainder will be shown in the Richmond Lounge, again in the Victoria Hotel. The cookery and art classes will be shown in the Richmond Lounge. Note: Bottle entry has changed. Bottle Entry and Collection Entries for the wine and beer classes can be taken to the Warwick Ballroom between 3.00 pm and 6.00 pm on Friday afternoon and between 8.00 pm and 9.00 pm on Friday evening. Please do not take cookery or art entries to the Warwick Ballroom on Friday. 3

4 Entries for the cookery and art classes and any last minute entries for the wine and beer classes can be taken to the Warwick Ballroom, or the Richmond Lounge as appropriate, between 7.00 am and 8.00 am on Saturday morning. Judging will start at 9.30 am in both rooms. Bottle Collection Entries for all classes can be collected between 3.00 pm and 4.00 pm on Saturday afternoon. Any entries not collected by 4.00 pm will be taken to the Information Stand for safe keeping. Tastings As usual there will be wine and beer tastings during the weekend and there will be a Sparkling Wine Reception on the Saturday evening before the Gala Dinner. Tombola The Tombola stall will be located with the trade stands. All contributions to the Tombola stall will be gratefully accepted. Short Mat Bowling Although this is not part of the Festival, the TLH resort is one of the main venues for Short Mat Bowling competitions in the South West of England. In connection with this, Chris Jones, the Chairman of the Middlesex Federation, has sent the following: Hi All, My name is Chris Jones, the Chairman of the Middlesex Federation and a supporter of the Wales and West Festival since 1994 (Brean Sands). We have followed you to all your venues. TLH looks very interesting. Looking at their website I noticed that they had an indoor bowls arena. As a keen indoor bowler, I contacted them to see if I could play during the weekend. They have a bowls group booked for that weekend but they are happy to fit us in when the group are not playing. The cost is 1 for a 2-4

5 hour session. If you are interested, please bring your own woods (and shoes of course) and perhaps we can have a friendly Roll-up during the weekend. Chris also suggests that the committee could arrange a time, but it might be better if anyone who is interested can contact Chris during the weekend. Circle Insurance One circle had raised a concern that their activities might not be insured as the Festival is not being held until June and circles normally pay their contribution to the insurance premium after the AGM. John Coleman, the Federation s Treasurer, says that there is no need to worry about this as he will be paying the full premium when it falls due and will collect circles contributions later as normal. Open Forum and Annual General Meeting The Open Forum will be held in the Richmond Lounge at 9.30 am on Monday 23 rd June This will be followed immediately by the Annual General Meeting of the Wales and West Federation. Member Circle Contacts The Reddings Wine Circle Will circle secretaries please note that all correspondence with The Reddings Wine Circle should be sent to John Howse until further notice. John s address is: Mr J. Howse 21 Springfield Close The Reddings Cheltenham GL51 6SE 5

6 Bath Wine Circle Wales and West Newsletter May 2014 News from the Circles Bath Wine Circle held their Annual General Meeting 28 th March Vera Iles was elected as Chairman for the forthcoming year with Doug Webber as Vice-Chairman. Pat Beswick is the new President with Helen Ashton as Vice-President. Helen Ashton and Don Smith were re-elected as Secretary and Treasurer respectively. This year s Charity will be the N.S.P.C.C. as nominated by Stan Matthews. Brockworth Wine Circle Brockworth Wine Circle hosted the Spencer Walton Trophy competition on Friday 21 st March. This hotly contested competition was well supported by Gloucestershire Clubs. More than 50 people enjoyed a convivial evening interspersed with entertaining quizzes, an excellent supper and the ubiquitous raffle. The competition was judged by Matt Hatton, from POPS Homebrew in Cheltenham. The competition for a social red wine was won by Cyril Young of Stroud Wine Circle, closely followed by Fred Parker of Hucclecote Original Wine Circle and Richard Carter of Cheltenham Amateur Winemakers. The Spencer Walton Salver was presented by Peter Webb, President of Brockworth Wine Circle. Next year s competition will be for medium rosé wine and will be held on Friday 27 th March 2015 at St. Patrick s, Brockworth. 6

7 The Reddings Wine Circle Angela Brint Winemakers in the North Gloucestershire area were saddened to hear of the sudden death of Angela (Angie) Brint of The Reddings Wine Circle. Angie had been the circle secretary for many years and with her husband Eric was a staunch supporter of amateur winemaking in North Gloucestershire. If a circle was having a dance or any other social event, you could almost guarantee that Eric and Angie would be there. Angie was a regular entrant in both the wine and the cookery classes at the Wales and West Festival and usually went home with at least one place card to show for her efforts. She was very proud to have won the Novice of the Year trophy in Angie was a lovely, friendly person who will be missed by everyone who knew her and our sympathies are with Eric and his family for their loss. Winemakers by the Seaside Early Spring is the time when the winemakers of North Gloucestershire and Herefordshire enjoy a couple of weekends by the seaside. This year the venues were in Weston-super-Mare and Paignton and both provided half board accommodation with professional entertainment every evening and the privilege of consuming your homebrew in the restaurant and the public rooms although drinks could be bought from the bars as well. 7

8 Winemakers Winter Break The first of these weekends was the Winemakers Winter Break organised by John and Caroline Blackwell in late February. This year there was a change of venue from the Kistor Hotel in Torquay to the New Ocean Hotel in Weston-super-Mare. About 80 winemakers made the trip to Weston and enjoyed all the usual things that winemakers enjoy when they go away for the weekend. Although it was so early in the season, the Grand Pier was open and a bonus on the Saturday evening was a firework display that could be seen from the hotel. Because it was a new venue, there were a few teething troubles but no doubt these will be sorted out before next year s trip. As always, thanks to John and Caroline for organising this Winter Break. Torbay Tipplers Fast forward six weeks to mid April and it s time for the Torbay Tipplers weekend organised by John and Jan Coleman from Stroud Wine Circle. This is held at the Palace Hotel on the Esplanade at Paignton and this year there were over 90 winemakers taking advantage of a weekend of generally fine weather. As usual, John Howse of The Reddings Wine Circle ran a book on the Grand National, and (surprise, surprise,) City of Gloucester Amateur Winemakers won most of the prizes in the raffle. John and Jan deserve our thanks for organising the trip and have already sent out invitations for next year. 8

9 Well that is it for this issue. I hope you have found something to interest you, maybe even to inspire you to tell the rest of the Federation about the events in your circle. Don t forget I can accept digital photos of the goings-on in your circle by . Please send them, in JPEG format, to the address below. My thanks for their contributions to: Doug Webber of Bath Bill Berrecloth of Brockworth John Howse of The Reddings The next issue of the Newsletter is due in July Please send your news to me: Trevor Nicholson Sunnycroft Symonds Yat West Ross-on-Wye Herefordshire HR9 6BJ trev.nick@virgin.net 9