Exquisite embroidery on colourful costumes from south- west China gripped the attention and imagination of members at the February meeting. The Speaker, Jill Salmons, an Art Historian, who described herself as being ‘crazy about collecting costumes’ spoke vividly of her visits to south-west China and the culture and life-style of the Miao and other peoples of that area.

The colourful costumes, all authentic, and several well worn, were made mainly of linen and silk. Some of the silk was dyed indigo and then battered many times to make it look almost metallic.

Several costumes were modelled by members and many were passed round.

Jill also showed slides of other ornate costumes from similar cultures of south west China.

During the business part of the meeting president Patsy Anderson spoke of the excellent New Year Lunch held at the Wagon Wheel in Grimley.

The Annual Denman Bursary was drawn at the Lunch and was won by Jan Taylor.

Patsy gave details of the Theatre Outing to Malvern on April 23. and asked mem - bers to support a Coffee Morning for WI funds at her home on February 21. On March 18 a visit has been arranged to the Carpet Museum in Kidderminster , and on June 27 the annual summer outing will be to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. Patsy also gave details of the Forest Group Meeting on April 29 at Rock Village Hall.

Diana Hackett reported on the village hall meeting which she had attended as the WI representative.

Patsy Anderson thanked Julia Rogers and Muriel Farrer for the gift of a carafe for the Speaker’s table in memory of their sister Cynthia Jones. Patsy also thanked Margaret Shaddock for donating her WI.

Art Class Fee to Acorns Hospice. She read a letter of thanks from the Hospice.

The competition for an original photo - graph of Areley Kings was won by Jan Taylor, with Cherry Greaves second and Margaret Cook third.

The next meeting will be on March 10 at Areley Kings Village Hall at 7.30pm, when Alan Stanley will speak on the work of SARA, the Severn Area Rescue Association . For the competition mem - bers are asked to write a poem entitled ‘The river