Croydon Catenians Circle 60

Croydon Circle celebrates its 1100^th Meeting in May 2013 and has been invited to host the 6 Circle Joint meeting on the opening Friday Night of the London Conference on May 10^th 2013.

The 6 Provinces of London have each appointed a Circle to represent them at the Joint Meeting . The other Circles will be London Circle (2) from Province 2, South London Circle (10) from Province 7, West London Circle (48) from Province 8, London Charterhouse Circle (49) from Province 14, Crawley Circle (195) from Province 18 and Croydon Circle (60) will be representing Province 19.

This event will be the first official engagement of Bro. John Rayer as Grand President and it is expected to attract a large attendance from brothers in the 6 Provinces area and those attending the Conference.

To encourage London brothers to attend, the organisers of the Conference have arranged entertainment for the Ladies whilst the meeting takes place.

Don Maclean the well known comedian, entertainer and broadcaster will be regaling the ladies about his days on Crackerjack and other programmes.

On one of the few warm, dry and sunny evenings at the end of July, Croydon’s Vice President, Andrew Denore and his wife Lina entertained the Circle ladies, brothers, wives and their families to a summer barbecue in their large garden.

Almost 100 people attended a great evening of music, food and family gossip. President Richard Mills ably assisted by Andrew cooked an enormous amount of food on the barbecue. Hopefully, this will become an annual event once again.

This year’s President’s Weekend took place from the 7^th- 9^th of September at Hastings.  Altogether there were 40 brothers, their wives and circle ladies.

The hotel was a real surprise, in very fine original condition full of ornate Victorian touches and very large bedrooms with some even having spiral staircases leading down to the wardrobes.

The weekend started informally on Friday evening with some eating in the hotel and others dining in the town, with an assault on the amusement arcades and a competitive game of air hockey between two of the brothers.

The main event during the day on Saturday was a trip to Battle Abbey and the Battlefield, history, culture and a cream tea!  We all joined together for dinner in the hotel in the evening and there was still enough energy left in some to go intoHastings in search of more entertainment and even some dancing was rumoured to have taken place.

Sunday morning Mass was at St Thomas of Canterbury and Holy Redeemer Church in Hastings, a beautiful church and a vibrant parish, well worth a visit for anyone staying in Hastings.  We were invited to join Hastings Circle at their Ladies’ Lunch at the Azur Restaurant on St Leonards Seafront and the two circles enjoyed an excellent and leisurely lunch with Croydon winning more than their fair share of the prizes in the raffle held to raise funds for their President’s Charity.

The weather during the weekend was better than we dared hope, sunshine all day every day. Altogether it was a very enjoyable weekend, Mary and I would like to thank everyone who came and supported us and thanks again for the gifts presented to us both on Saturday night.

Bro. Peter Woodford, Director of Province 19, presented scrolls for 40 years continuous membership to four Croydon Brothers at the August meeting.

They were John Litchfield, Tony Melvin, Mike Thelwell and Joe Sheen.

Back row-    Circle President, Richard Mills ,  Director, Peter Woodford,

Front Row- Bros. John Litchfield, Tony Melvin,    Provincial President  David      Prebble,  Bros. Joe Sheen and Mike Thelwell

Croydon Circle President, Richard Mills presents a Bursary Fund Award of £200 to John Fisher boy,  James McDonald at the School Chapel in May 2012.

James McDonald is shown with Mr Dean (right) who has organised the trip to Ghana. Whilst there, the boys will be travelling to Ghana in June 2012 to help cocoa farmers and their children in the newly created school where they will be teaching Enterprise, ICT, Sport and Music to students of all ages.

The Catenian Bursary Fund makes many grants to young Catholics for charitable work at home and overseas.