At the AGM, retiring president Sheila Girvan handed over the chain of office to Pam Bailey.

The first meeting of the new Inner Wheel year, held at The Moat House Inn, Kings Coughton, saw Pam welcome members and speaker Sharon Hedges.

After the meal, the speaker gave a very interesting and informative talk on the Samaritan's Purse Christmas shoebox scheme

Members were told that last year, a total of 1,153,326 shoeboxes were delivered to children in 14 areas of the world, including Armenia, India, Belarus and Romania.

For these children, this is usually the only gift they ever receive for Christmas and some slides of them being received were shown.

The expressions on the children's faces spoke volumes.

Sharon also explained how Samaritan's Purse had developed a simple filtration system which provides drinkable water to families in remote areas all over the developing world.

When members are being told there is a shortage of water here, the slides shown certainly put things into perspective.

Pam introduced her provisional programme for the year.

Her charity this year is The Acorns Children's Hospice.

Events will include an outing to Beckford Silk in August, a skittles and supper evening later on in the year, interspersed with some interesting speakers.

It looks to be a busy year ahead.