VICE-president Beryl Parsons welcomed members to the September meeting.

Names were taken for the Alvechurch group meeting when Tricia Stewart, one of the original Calendar Girls will speak.

The speaker was Sue Sollis, who founded an independent charity, The Tracy Sollis Leukaemia Trust, following the death of her 15-year-old daughter from the disease in 1995.

The charity aims to raise money to help fund research.

Sue spoke enthusiastically about one of her fund-raising efforts in which she travelled alone by moped from Land's End to John O'Groats, covering - with several unplanned diversions along the way - almost 1,400 miles.

She sped 50 miles every morning on her tiny vehicle and every afternoon, by prior arrangement, collected at all the local Tesco stores. The journey took three weeks, she raised £5,000 en route and met many friendly and helpful people, especially fellow motorcyclists.

The next meeting will be the AGM on October 22 at 2pm.