Our Meetings

Swindon Society Meeting Review

Christmas Party 2024

Wednesday 11th December 2024


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We had another cracker of a Christmas party in December, as is our annual tradition. We were greeted at the door this year and given a raffle ticket. I managed to lose mine by the time I’d taken my coat off, but luckily found it again because it was needed to collect my prize… Or not - our table almost swept the board for raffle prizes, but I was not one of the lucky ones this year. The food and drink offering more than made up for the lack of winning a raffle prize however. Gina performed her usual wonderful job of sorting out the liquid refreshments and there was something for all tastes, whether you were indulging for the evening or not. Food-wise, this year several members were kind enough to bring some homemade snacks, and they were truly delicious. The rest of the food was organised by our committee members as always, and we did not go hungry. There were lots of delicious nibbles on offer to keep us happy while we chatted and quizzed the evening away. There were two paper quizzes to do on each table - one was to work out the television programme from the (sometimes cryptic) clues given. The other involved a multiple-choice history quiz, with some of the questions being of a local nature and some more general. I was able to answer the question about Henry VIII’s fourth wife - phew! I wasn’t so good on some of the other more local questions unfortunately, but my team members more than made up for it. We also had a short “guess the person” quiz with both Angie and John Stooke providing us with a selection of facts to try and work out the famous Swindonian. Unfortunately, Diane got a little bit over-excited and guessed the Gilbert O’Sullivan very early on in the first quiz. In the second of these mini-quizzes our team guessed Reuben George early-ish, but couldn’t be heard at the back so were unable to bask in the glory of our local knowledge! We made up for it in the raffle, with only two out of a table of six not winning a raffle prize. As ever, Diane did a brilliant job of organising it, with Jennie assisting. The evening veered slightly off-piste at the end with a surprise contribution from John Stooke of a slide show about Freddie Mercury, which rounded off the evening in an unexpectedly non-Swindon way. It was perfect though for those of us who are already big Freddie fans however, as we took the opportunity to begin the tidy-up. Many hands make light work, and that certainly was the case for everyone who lent a hand at the end of the evening - your committee and refreshments team certainly appreciated it. Whilst the committee put together another fabulous evening of entertainment for us, we could not hold a Swindon Society Christmas party without the members. So we thank everyone who came along and partook of food, drink, quizzes and the raffle and look forward to Christmas 2025. Kelly Blake - December 2024

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