N E W S

Please note - 

Attendees will be asked to join as full members after  2 meetings as a guest.

CHRISTMAS DINNER.  7PM for 7.30 at   Museum of East Dorset

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Don't forget it's the Pamphill Picnic Meeting next month, 7 pm for 7.30, 6th July, Pamphill Village Hall. Please confirm your attendance by paying the £5 per head  fee by BACS using the account details rcently EMailed to members.

Please bring your own wine, glasses, plus plates and cutlery, and dessert items if you like, and WWS will provide  bread, cheese, paté, salad, etc. in the Village Hall kitchen.

As Wimborne Wine Society in its present form began life in 2003, note that our September meeting will celebrate everything to do with "20" -  namely, 20-year old wine, £20 wine, vieyards founded in the same year, and so on.

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Wednesday 6th Sept with a presentation by members of the committee on the "20" theme.

Guests are welcome to come along before committing to becoming a member. Guest fee £10 a visit. Membership costs £25 annually and includes a set of wine-tasting glasses.
To register your interest in coming to the next meeting (so there is enough wine for everyone!) contact Chairman John Billington on 01202 888174

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FINANCIAL NOTE.

The current fees for the monthly tastings ((£5 per attendee per session) have led to the Society making a loss on each tasting of approx. £40 - £60 leading to the projected financial position being unsustainable. As a result the Committee met recently and decided that urgent action was required and as a result it was decided to place proposals to members attending the April meeting that the fees be raised. The Committee felt that whilst it is empowered to increase charges without reference to the membership it wanted the rationale behind the increase to be clearly understood. A proposal was made to the April tasting meeting that the cost of tastings be raised to a minimum of £8 or £10 with a guarantee of finer wines being presented. Those members attending the meeting in April overwhelmingly supported raising the tasting fee to £10 with effect from 1^st May on the basis that finer wines will be presented. The cost of the guest fees (currently £6) will be reviewed by the Committee very shortly.

URGENT

COVID-19 changes

Note that our January 2022 meeting will not now take place.

Covid restrictions regarding masks, numbers gathering, size (and ventilation) of venue, have all combined to mean that the risks associated with our meeting will be unacceptable to many members.  Accordingly our presentation on Wednesday 5th January 2022 is cancelled and the AGM is postponed until meetings are safe to resume. It is hoped that this will be in February 2022.

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"STOP PRESS"

As you may have gathered from our Chairman's recent EMail, unfortunately we are unable to continue with meetings at Wimborne Town Football Club, because after our meeting on 1st September they decided to charge us corkage of £7.50 per bottle for all wine consumed. This was never agreed in advance, and is obviously on top of what we will already have paid for our tasting wines, so we considered this to be unacceptable.  This would more than double our meeting costs and make them financially unviable. We therefore paid only the agreed room charge and discontinued our relationship. A great shame.

We have subsequently spent considerable time and effort (particularly Geoff, our chairman) trying to locate suitable alternative venues - again! - and finally decided on what is known as "CLaRC" - Community Learning and Resource Centre - located at King Street in Wimborne. This venue satisfied all our requirements:

• Located in Wimborne
• Large enough rooms available
• Available on our meeting night (First Wednesday of the month)
• Reasonable cost and no hidden charges
• Coffee/tea-making facilities available
• Nearby parking (and King St. car park is free after 6pm!)

This building was originally a school and is now, as it says, a Community Resource, administered by Dorset Community Action - who describe themselves as "a charity that exists to support charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises across the Dorset community."  As a local non-profit-making organisation, Wimborne Wine Society therefore qualifies for a beneficial rental cost - approximately half of what we would have been paying at the Allendale.

So there we have it - future meetings of WWS will be at 7.30 pm, first Wednesday of the month as usual, at

CLaRC

41-44 King St, Wimborne, Dorset. BH21 1EA.

Tel: 01202 847600.

Please note, main entrance is within the King Street Pay & Display car park.

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SUBSCRIPTION NEWS

In other news, note that now physical meetings and presentations have restarted, we will be asking members for their subscriptions. We extended membership period during the period of Covid-19 lockdowns, and have therefore had no subscription income since October/November 2019! Our new subscription year now runs from January to January, so subs will be due in January 2022.

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NOTE That on Wednesday 1st September our meeting venue will be in the Clubhouse of

WIMBORNE TOWN FOOTBALL CLUB

16 Ainsley Road, Wimborne BH21 2FU

See Programme page for meeting details

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CHANGES TO PROGRAMME - AND VENUE

Note to all members, current & potential.

Please keep watch on your EMail Inboxes for details of the WWS Programme for the rest of the year (2021).

In summary, these will cover:

• Covid-19 Regulations mean that our originally planned 'Picnic' meeting at Pamphill Village Hall - our first physical, face-to-face meeting since March 2020 -  has had to be postponed, and will now take place there on

WEDNESDAY 18th AUGUST starting at 7pm

On this occasion we will not be using their kitchen - please bring your own picnic. The £5 fee will go towards some celebratory bubbly, provided by the society.

• Replacement meeting on 7th July will be a 'Table in the Garden' Tasting (similar to last summer) where a member can host a gathering for a number of other members and guests  (within permitted guidelines) in their garden. Zoom connection can be made at 18:00 to allow us to talk to other 'host tables' about what we have all been tasting.
• Our first formal meeting will be on WEDNESDAY 1st SEPTEMBER at the new Clubhouse of Wimborne Town Football Club.  NOTE the new venue. When the Allendale Centre re-opened they allocated our usual "First Wednesday of the Month" slots to another user.  We now have a lovely new place to meet - a very attractive good-sized venue, with excellent facilities, plenty of free parking, bar, restaurant, etc.

(Take a look by clicking HERE). Details to be sent to all by our chairman in due course.

See the Programme pages and EMail communications for further details.

Peter H. 27/6/21

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NOTE -  2021 update

There is an ongoing Covid-19-restricted programme in 2021.

Meetings January-June will be 'Zoom' meetings online - see Programme page for details.

We hope to be able to have our July meeting at Pamphill Village Hall, at which members will be encouraged to bring their own picnic food. The £5 per head contribution will this year be used to purchase enough Sparkling Wine or Champagne to allow us to celebrate our first physical gathering for over a year. Details will be published on the Programme Page (and member notifications by Email), so keep watching!

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Update as at 29th November 2020:

See 'Meeting Reports' for October and November Zoom Meeting reports.

See 'Programme' for brief update on the programme for the first months of 2021.

(This page will be updated on an ongoing basis as and when we have news of how Covid-19 restrictions affect our meetings).

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Keep checking the "Home Entertainment" page for news from members!

Update on 9th September 2020 ...

See our 'Home Entertainment' page for news of two separate lockdown projects undertaken by members! 

Update - Monday 1oth August 2020

Our intrepid chairman has been searching archives for interesting snippets and has found an (undated) quiz from many years ago ... see 'Home Entertainment' page for details - follow the link from there and have a go at the quiz, see how you get on!

3rd August 2020 :

WINE STORY COMPETITION

~ WINNERS ANNOUNCED ~

SEE "HOME ENTERTAINMENT" PAGE

PLEASE NOTE

There are Covid-19-related programme changes for July & August.

See programme page for details.

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Online June meeting (Zoom-based Sauv.Blanc comparison) now available in 'Meeting Reports' page.

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NOTE     1st July Cheese & Wine evening at Pamphill now cancelled in view of continuing Covid-19 concerns.

We will consider alternatives based on Government review information is available after 4th July.

International Chardonnay Day, 21st May 2020.

See 'Home Entertainment' page for link to a Wine Society presentation.

DON'T FORGET CHRIS'S "WINE STORY" COMPETITION!  DETAILS ON THE 'HOME ENTERTAINMENT' PAGE.

SUBSCRIPTION UPDATE - 23/4/20

In the light of the disruption of the Society meetings due to Covid 19, the committee has decided to extend this subscription year by 3 months, effectively giving members 3 months free membership during the lockdown period.  This means that the next subs will be due in January 2021 instead of October 2020 and will be for the calendar year 2021. This is a permanent change and hopefully in the future will ease the burden of paying for both subscriptions and Christmas meal in the same month.

NOTE:

New tab "Home Entertainment" has been added, with wine quizzes and links to wine-related websites.

FURTHER UPDATE

as at 25th March 2020

PLEASE NOTE, In view of the continuing Coronavirus crisis and associated restrictions on public gatherings the WWS meetings for May and June 2020 will not take place.  In order to maintain a spirit of optimism we are hoping that by July some semblance of normality may have been restored so we may be able to have our annual gathering at Pamphill Village Hall, with wine, cheese, salad, and socialising - we may well have a lot of catching up to do in that respect!  We will keep the website as up-to-date as possible with any changes to this plan.

So, as it stands ... hopefully we will be able to meet at Pamphill on 1st July 2020 as published in our programme.

WWS Committee, 25/3/20

 ~ ~ ~ STOP PRESS ~ ~ ~

Coronavirus update

Regretfully, in view of the present issues regarding pandemic Covid-19, and government guidelines regarding social gatherings, we have to announce that the April 2020 meeting of the Wimborne Wine Society has been cancelled. This is a shame, as we always enjoy Michaela's informative presentations on the wines of her native Germany, and of course we will try to have her back as soon as possible in the future.

We will be notifying members by EMail accordingly, and apologise if any addresses are not up-to-date.   At present we have no plans to cancel the May 2020 meeting but of course we will keep a watching brief on the situation and advise members of any subsequent changes to our meeting programme.

Message issued by the WWS Committee, 17/3/20

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Don't forget

January 2020 meeting is on Wednesday 8th, not New Year's Day

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November 2019 Committee Meeting Minutes now available in Members-Only page.

Word Document also available on Google Drive at

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iVIy0Ktsp4CYgiOE4YulnL72G_KJSLWq

STOP PRESS  

English Oak Vineyard visit on Wed.21st August CANCELLED

Unfortunately insufficient interest has been shown in this visit and minimum number of attendees has not been reached.  Apologies to members who have already paid. Refunds by cheque or cash will be made at the next monthly meeting in September.

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DON'T FORGET THE WWS VISIT TO ENGLISH OAK VINEYARD, LYTCHETT MATRAVERS.

MEET THERE AT 11:00 ON WEDNESDAY 21ST AUGUST 2019. 

TOUR & TASTING LASTS ABOUT 45 MINUTES, TO BE FOLLOWED BY A PICNIC ON-SITE (BRING YOUR OWN).

COST £12 PER PERSON.

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