Queen Bees welcome scientist

Bridestowe Queen Bees, a social group for ladies in the village and surrounding area, will be learning about the fascinating work carried out at Plymouth Marine Laboratory at their meeting in September.

The guest at the meeting, on September 21, is scientist Phil Nightingale. Previous speakers at the regular meetings, on the third Thursday of the month, have included Adrian Brooks, the vicar of Bridestowe, who gave an interesting account of his work with travellers and Kathy Curtis from the Tropic company, which produces skin products without the addition of harmful chemicals.

The Queen Bees were formed in January, after the winding up of Bridestowe’s WI group. Trish Butler, the group’s secretary, said: ‘We are a friendly group of ladies, there were about 13 or 14 originally but there are about 28 of us now — we have certainly attracted some younger ladies and hopefully we will continue to do so. We have workshops and speakers and we meet on the third Thursday of the month, currently at 8pm.’

The ladies held a very successful garden party at the vicarage in Bridestowe during June, raising approximately £500 — half the proceeds were donated to the parish council to help with its project to install night landing lights for Devon Air ambulance, with the remainder going towards ongoing running costs of the Queen Bees.

There was no meeting in August as the group embarked on a ‘round robin’ trip, travelling from Bridestowe by coach to Totnes, to Dartmouth by boat, from there to Paignton by steam train and then back to Bridestowe by coach again.

Anyone interested in joining Bridestowe Queen Bees should call chairman Diane Brooks on 01837 861580.