ANN Evans welcomed members to this month's meeting and began with business matters. Transport arrangements were made for our lunch at Broadway Golf Club on the 25th and Ann encouraged members to look at the book and put their names down if they were interested in outings to Tudor House and The Hive in Worcester. A page had also been included for a morning skittles match, possibly followed by lunch, at St Ecgwins Club.

Four members have birthdays this month and they were presented with posies made by Ann (including red roses to mark St Valentine's Day). Ann said she planned to do this each month during her presidency, using seasonal flowers as the year progressed - a lovely idea and the 'birthday girls' were delighted.

It was then time for Sue Ablett to talk to us about the Waterways of Russia. Sue had studied Russian at university and had paid several visits to the country, but had not joined her husband on the10-day journey along the1100 miles of waterway from Moscow to St Petersburg. However, the itinerary he received had been extremely detailed and he had taken some excellent photographs, so Sue was well equipped to speak about it. We learnt that the trip included rivers and lakes, joined by canals, which had been constructed to link Moscow to the coast. We saw slides of both cities, showing spectacular buildings as well as some of the beautiful artworks housed in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, and a picture of Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square, where people still queue to see his embalmed body. We all enjoyed Sue's entertaining and informative talk.

Sue kindly judged this month's competition, for an item beginning with 'F', and the winner was Chris Robertson with an ornamental fish. Next month's letter is 'M', so get your thinking caps on ladies.

John Darby will tell us about the work of the Evesham Street Pastors on March 12 and in April Prime Ministers' Partners will be the subject of David Howe's talk.

We are always pleased to see visitors, so do come along to one of our meetings at the Hampton Guide and Scout Community Hall. You will be made very welcome.