THE president, Sue Horsfall opened the meeting by thanking everyone for coming and explained the fire regulations.

The format of the meeting has been changed this month so Sue introduced Brian Partridge the speaker for the evening Brian was a linesman and umpire at Wimbledon between 1992 and 2002.

During this time he spent a total of 542 days on court, umpired 533 matches and was a linesman for 116 days.

In June 1992 he made his debut on Court 4 for a singles match and later that day covered a match involving Patrick McEnroe, John’s brother.

He continued to tell us about his experiences as a line judge and umpire, in particular, at Wimbledon.

He told us amongst many tales the fact that umpires were not allowed to leave their chairs until the end of a match no matter how many times the linesmen were changed, some of the used balls were cut in half and used as nesting boxes for harvest mice and the fabric for covering the tennis balls was made in Stroud.

Brian brought along various items of clothing including a blazer and tie which he wore in 2012, a Wimbledon badge and even the tie holding his glasses.

The talk ended with a competition on a Wimbledon theme and one lucky winner won a Wimbledon pen.

After a robust question time Margaret Powell thanked Brian for coming and giving such an interesting talk.

Continuing on the Wimbledon theme strawberries and lemonade was served.

The usual business of the meeting took place by Julie passing on information of various events taking place including a walk on the August 14, meeting at the Anchor Pub Oldbury with lunch afterwards.

The president, Sue Horsfall reported £650 will be given to a representative of South Glos Young Carers charity in September. Our chosen charity for 2018 will be BUST.

She reported that several committee members are standing down at the next AGM in October and asked for people to come forward to enable the group to continue to be as successful as it has been.

Maureen then asked for helpers for the group meeting on October 5, tickets are on sale at £8 per person.

The theme will be black and white with a touch of red.

The entertainment will be Ukulele Jam.

The raffle took place with several members winning prizes.

If you would like to join our friendly group we meet on the third Tuesday of every month at the Methodist Church Hall and our next meeting is on Tuesday, September 19 at 7.30pm showing a film from our local cinema club.