The pen is mightier than the sword ...

... so they say. However, faced with a meeting room full of confused OAPs, single mothers, assorted dancers, actors and church folk I thin I would have preferred 40 inches of cold steel to the HB pencil that I was actually equipped with. It was the AGM of the Darnall & District Community Association who are in charge of running the hall where we meet to fence once a week, and things needed to be sorted out.

The most important issue was the shortfall of £6,000 in the annual finances, which is not a healthy state of affairs when there is only £18,000 left in the kitty. However, the meeting went round and round in circles with pointless debates about the payphone in the hall, the problems with the heating, the state of the dance floor and ethnic diversity. It fell to the heroic Dave to force a proposal to the vote to have a modest one pound increase in membership fees and session fees, which was still too much for some of the older members. Amber nobly volunteered for the committee, and I've been co-opted as well, so I stopped behind for the committee meeting that followed the AGM. Fortunately, it's not too much of a commitment - it's only one meeting every two months at the moment, but at least we have a bit of a say in what goes on now, and perhaps we can find out about things like possible grants for historical societies like what we are.

There were only two real points of interest in the committee meeting - namely that bookings should go in the book on the notice board which should avoid the problem we had last year with a double booked children's party, and that nobody was really sure who to contact in case of an emergency in the hall apart from the caretaker who may or may not be on duty. Oh, and the Christmas panto is on from the 25th of November to the 1st of December which shouldn't clash with our December workshop. They still managed to drag the meeting out for nearly three quarters of an hour though ...

In other news, some men with worried expressions and clip boards have been to stare and tut at the large flood at the end of our garden, so we might see something done about it. Alicia had her RE exam this afternoon, and the first question was to define what an atheist is, so I don't think she will have had too many problems with that one ... :-)

Right, time to skedaddle to hit people with sticks for two hours ... hurrah!