THIRTY five members and four guests were present at the meeting on Tuesday, April 5. At the brief business meeting we discussed holding a celebration lunch in September for our 75th Birthday year. It was agreed to invite family and friends to join us as guests.

President Marjy Facer introduced Beth Smith who is joining a fund-raising challenge to climb the Three Peaks of Snowdon, Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike, all in 24 hours. The charity they are supporting is “The Children’s Society”. Members willingly sponsored Beth and hope she will return to give us a talk at another meeting about her experiences.

We then welcomed as our speaker Ali Keen who gave an illustrated talk on “The Life of the Penguin”.

Ali is Headkeeper of Penguins at “Birdland”, Bourton on the Water, and a local cricketer at Ashton. Through his job he has travelled to many interesting places and appeared on TV. He has also met Sir David Attenborough. Ali showed us some fascinating pictures of these creatures whom everybody seems to love.

All penguins come from the southern hemisphere and range from the giant Emperor penguin to the smallest Little Blue. Between 17 and 20 different varieties are found on the shores of Australia and South Africa as well as the Antarctic, Chile and the Falkland Islands, and even on the Galapagos islands. “Birdland” is part of a European breeding programme for the two breeds they hold, King penguins and Humboldt penguins. The chicks are hand-reared.

Although they walk in an ungainly manner on land, penguins are streamlined for swimming, and their tiny feathers are oily for waterproofing. The “Birdland” water has to be kept salty and extremely cold from an underground spring. Ali found this out to his cost when trying to coax a reluctant young penguin called Charlotte into the water for her first swim. The penguins have their own personalities including Oscar who is rather vicious and Spike who is silly – and they appear on Facebook.

Marjy Facer gave the vote of thanks to Ali for a lively and very enjoyable talk.

Refreshments were served by Marion Nelson and Doreen Parsons and the Raffle was then drawn.

The next meeting will be the AGM to be held on Tuesday, May 3 at 7.30pm, with entertainment by ‘Patchwork’ for part of the evening.

New members are always welcome to join us.

JUDITH HUNTER