From the President

 Chers Amis,

I would like to send a big thank you to all of those who attended our Annual General Meeting at Club Sapphire on 28 September. For just a moment before the meeting was to be opened we were afraid that we might not have a quorum but 13 of our members were seated and socially distanced by the time the meeting was scheduled to begin. As promised, it was a fairly brief affair with none of the committee positions being contested and most of last year’s members being re-elected. Only Liz James who retired from the committee in mid-July to focus on her business will not be with us in the coming year. We were sorry to learn about Liz’s decision at the time as she was always an active and valuable participant in the committee’s discussions and was quick to volunteer to take on any task that needed doing. I would like to thank Liz for her commitment and her hard work towards making our Alliance a success over the last couple of years. The AGM was followed by an even briefer general meeting (as required by our Constitution) at which the Committee’s decision to declare a subscription holiday next year for existing members was endorsed by those present.

I would also like to send my thanks to John and Helen Verhelst for their efforts over the past seven months in entertaining us with regular contributions to La Mouette about their experiences as temporary residents of France. Many of us would gladly spend two years in France but for a variety of reasons are, or have been, unable to actually do it. However, by reading ‘Helen and John’s French Adventures’ we have been able to live their stay in France as if we had been there ourselves and we thank them for the vicarious experience.

Finally, I would also like to recognise the generous offer by Sally-Anne and John Cottle to host our members to a visit to their property ‘Shirley’ at Holt’s Flat (directions on how to get there are in Mike Warren’s e-mail of 6 October). Forty of us will be playing Pétanque and enjoying a BYO picnic lunch in their beautiful gardens on Friday, 30 October. Keep your fingers crossed for fine weather for the day and brush up on your best boule throwing technique.

Meilleurs voeux, Rob McCombie