THE president welcomed members to our April meeting and read the minutes as the secretary was unable to attend.

She referred us to the notice board and asked members to sign up to any of the invitations or activities they wished to attend.

Although not having been very successful, we had enjoyed our skittle matches and Beryl was presented with a golden ball (a melon) for being top scorer and a plant for having organised the matches.

A wet lettuce and spider was presented to Jean for achieving the lowest score.

We sang happy birthday to Janet Allbutt, Janet Murphy and Elsie Prescott who all had April birthdays.

The president then welcomed Janice Waldron who gave a most interesting talk on pearls.

She explained how oysters produced natural pearls forming layers of nacre round some small irritant that had got into their shell and also the process for cultured pearls.

We were amazed how large some could be and the different shapes and colours.

A large pearl in a necklace belonging to Elizabeth Taylor was bought by Richard Burton for $37,000 dollars and the necklace sold in 2011 for more than £7 million.

She distributed photographs for us to see during her talk and had a selection of necklaces on show of pearls in different colours and shapes.

She was thanked by Jean for her most informative and fascinating talk and members were able to look at her exhibits and discuss with her whilst delicious refreshments were provided by Kate and Leigh.

She also judged our competition for ‘a pearl of wisdom’ proclaiming Janet Murphy the winner with ‘Never go shopping on an empty stomach or with teenage children ‘cos the bill at the end will be huge’.

The raffle was then drawn and the meeting ended at about 9.30pm.

We meet again on Tuesday, May 15, at 7.30pm at Whittington Village Hall for the resolutions meeting.

New members will be welcome.