Dorchester — Aug 10th 2021

This was our second physical meeting (even if in the open air) and celebrated the 500th physical meeting our Chairman Mick Burrell has attended. David and Margaret Whitton kindly hosted the occasion in their garden and house in Poundbury. Twenty three of us from all AugWessex groups came (sadly, four had to cancel for health reasons). After such a disappointing start to August weather, the sun shone on this event; clearly the Gods wanting to join in the appreciation of all Mick’s hard work in running AugWessex and its predecessor WAMUG, including many miles of driving. The buffet and soft drinks seemed to go down well, while members supplied their own wine etc.

Lionel offered a collection of historical photos and Euan set up a 27” iMac Quicktime medley loop of these WAMUG and AugWessex meetings and events which brought back memories of different meeting venues and members. A second iMac ran a loop of Andy Prendergasts’s stop motion video of Dorchester members walking back and forth through the Colliton Club’s room wall and playing other silly antics from a few years back.

Half way through the evening Tony Still spoke to thank MIck for the huge amount of energy and work he has put in to running the Club over many years since taking over the Chair in 2007, including making sure that the Club kept up its momentum through the COVID lockdown with video conferencing. Tony thanked Mick for all the support he gives members on an individual basis. As a small memento of the occasion he presented Mick with a bottle of wine and a pair of engraved Dartington wine glasses celebrating Micks’s 500 WAMUG AugWessex Meetings. Thanking the assembled party for their support and celebration, Mick assured us that he gets much pleasure from helping people, and that while the virtual sessions had been very useful he was strongly in favour of the face to face physical meetings and was looking forward to these restarting.

A happy occasion and several members suggested that we should “do something like this more often”.

Comments

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Brian Tapper said…

Sounds like a really great get-together, congratulations to Mick on his 500th meeting, also many thanks to him for all the help and support he has given to me.
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