Members of the Rotary Club have received the sad news of the death of their former colleague and honorary member George Bennison at the age of 83 after a long illness. He was a past president of the club and was honoured for his service to the movement by his appointment as North East District Governor covering over 60 Rotary Clubs from Berwick down to Teesside. His funeral service will be held in St Michael and All Angels Parish Church where he was Treasurer of the Parochial Church Council for several years looking after the finances of the church but details are not yet available at the time of this writing. At the Rotary Club guest night dinner with wives and friends in the Chilton Country Hotel the speaker was Kirsty Hardy, Community Ranger at Elba Park with an illustrated talk about the development of the site of the former Lambton coke works which includes a heritage trail featuring memories of mining in the area and the historic discovery of a wooden wagon way truck from the 18th century and preserved for posterity. Further information from Kirsty phone 5672550.
Houghton and District Rambling Club will be walking around Lord Stones on Sunday, April 3 with leader M Brown. Details of time and meeting place from secretary John Conder phone 3856551.
Kevin Reilly and members of the Houghton Pipe Band will entertain at Houghton Older Peoples Enterprise in the Methodists Church Hall at 1.30pm on Thursday, March 31.
The Sunderland Group of the Ramblers Association will be walking around Hidden Valley at Gilling West, meeting at the church main gate at 10.30am with leader David Strong. Phone 01325 314586 or mobile 07837 171719 for details.
Member Jean Shotton gave an Easter message at Sunniside Methodists Women’s Fellowship highlighting the roles of Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdelene in the crucifixion story.