Volume 2 Issue 1

WEALD NEWSLETTER

SPRING 2004 From Malcolm Valentin - Commandeur Chevaliers and Chanoinesses, belated best wishes for 2005 and a welcome warmer than the weather to the Spring edition of your Newsletter. Also enclosed are details of the Fifth Chapter and Magistral Weekend to be held on May 8th/9th, and an application form with a request that you should complete and return it as soon as possible. This being a break with the ‘traditional’ time of October - and therefore not long since the last Magistral - means we are hoping that it will not affect the numbers who should attend. It all depends on you!

A message from JR

What’s Going on? Trip to France Repeating the idea for a Spring trip across the Channel for fellowship and food, it has been suggested that we visit Dieppe, since this charming French town is more convenient to the majority and can easily be explored as foot passengers - leaving cars parked in Newhaven. Despite the journey time being only some two hours by Hoverspeed Seacat, the ferry times are not convenient for a day’s excursion and it is therefore proposed to make this an overnight trip!

Members might like to know what is going on outside the English Connetablie and what decisions are being taken that may affect us. I attended the Second meeting of the International Organisation Committee (CIO) held in Lille on January 31st; the meeting produced six pages of minutes most of which are routine but the day was not without its highlights and here follow some of them:

Estimated at £30.00 per head for ferry, £20.00 for meal and £35.00 for double room; departing on Saturday April 17th at 2.00 pm and returning on Sunday April 18th to arrive back in Newhaven at 1.00 pm.

It is hoped to start a Connetablie in Brazil! Those who have attended some functions in France will remember meeting Mr & Mrs Nestor Forster, who live in a wine producing area; to find it on a map go to the bottom of Brazil and find the ‘State of Rio Grande do Sul’. This region is temperate and has little pockets of wine producers who have their own groupings locally but no overall association. Nestor hopes to start a Connetablie which, like ours, has no commercial significance but provides a meeting point for wine lovers who wish to see the status of the ‘vin vray’ upheld. We are informing Nestor of our Magistral, in the knowledge that he is in France in May and very much hope that he might attend our function.

Chapter meeting & Magistral

We are being asked to set up a website. The one we currently access at is in three languages and getting overcrowded. I have put the concept to members of the Grand Council to see if we think that the effort is merited and if we have any member (or friend!) to set it up and run it. Are there any volunteers, please?

The English Food & Wine Festival

It has been suggested that from 2005 that there should be a Chapitre International (Europeen) - if you want that in English, reverse the order of words and adjust the spelling! We have been asked to suggest a candidate to join the organising committee which will be headed by Lucian Hof, the Grand Commandeur of Mouscron in Belgium. Do we have a volunteer for this job? If so, please let me know. It will involve one or two trips to Belgium or France and, as the Chapter will almost certainly be ‘over there’, probably in Belgium, it is unlikely that we will be asked to do too much on the ground, but perhaps we can provide clerical support. John Rudolph - Grand Connetable d’Angleterre.

... If anyone is even remotely interested, then please telephone me immediately (Malcolm - 01342 850 998) in order for the committee to judge the interest and explore the details further.

Read all about it on page 2!

GARDEN PARTY Will be held on Sunday August 1st - chez the Commandeur’s residence in Hartfield. Phil and Jenny Smith have agreed to again oversee the food arrangements, from suggesting what food should be brought to running the barbecue. Please make a note in your diaries now and remember that all members and friends are more than welcome on condition that they bring their food and drink! The cost will be £6.50 per head to cover the extra costs - and we hope that the day will be as sunny and pleasant as before. More details later.

The 29th English Food & Wine Festival is scheduled to take place on the weekend of September 4th and 5th at Bentley, home to the wildfowl reserve and motor museum, at Halland, near Lewes. As many as are interested will be welcome for an ‘official’ visit on Sunday 5th September.

Further Ahead ... The move of the Weald Magistral from October to May was in order that as many as possible will be able to attend the Grand Chapitre Magistral to be held in Collonges au Mont d’ Or, in the Burgundy region, on October 16th. This promises to be a magnificent affair and you will already have seen from the letter sent out by John Rudolph that places may well be limited and early application is very necessary. More details will follow, but please let John Rudolph know by April 1st, since we intend to ‘block book’ a number of places based on the response and interest. (Editor’s note : JR is away in France throughout most of March !!)

The Fifth Weald Chapitre Magistral ... and weekend.

NEW MEMBERS are more than welcome

Hopefully everyone will now be well aware that the date of the Fifth Weald Magistral is fixed for May 8th, since John Rudolph, our Grand Connetable, would not have been able to attend the event had it been held a week later. As soon as this hiccup was realised, all those who possess e-mail addresses were contacted - and John also made note of it in his New Year letter. Our apologies for possibly having confused some people.

‘ Just like me, wine improves with age - the older I get the more I like it!’

Having the Magistral only some six months after the last one will at first seem a little strange, but it has opened a new realm of possibilities for the weekend as a whole, since not a lot goes on in October as winter approaches. Once again we are returning to the same hotel and the same folk singers will be repeating their brand of entertainment; despite an exhaustive search of any venue within a large radius of the centre of the Wealden area nowhere else has matched the value for money and excellent facilities that have been found at the Hickstead Hotel. The cost of the Magistral has risen by a mere £1.00 and still represents remarkable value for an all-inclusive evening, whilst the room rate is the same as last year. Mistakes made last time have been noted, but any constructive criticism is still welcome!

but there are more subtle ways of persuading them .......

Perhaps to sharpen their linguistic skills but certainly to further the entente cordiale, Phil and Jenny Smith plan to attend the Chapter Meeting of the Commanderie of Paris - Ile de France on March 27th. They would be delighted if anyone else wished to accompany them

Subscriptions.. .. are now due - and the cost has not risen!

The Brighton Festival is being run during the first two weeks of May and, on the Saturday afternoon before the Magistral, the plan is to go and see what is ‘happening’. The organisers of the Festival are extraordinarily vague at this stage about what events will be taking place, so more details will follow, but for those who are curious, check the website at ‘[email protected]’. We plan to either hire a coach or taxi to run from the hotel to the city centre or arrange bookings on the ‘Speedlink’ bus that stops at the Hickstead junction on the A23. Numbers, once known, will determine which is best but to drive and hope to park is a no-no! Early May also sees Leonardslee gardens at their very best - see picture! There will be nowhere near enough time to explore the whole 740 acres, seven lakes, bonsai bits, motor museum and a ‘Behind the Doll’s House’ exhibition but - also praying for good weather - enough to whet the appetite in a more than literal sense before driving on to the Mannings Heath Golf Clubhouse for lunch. Here again, excellent value-for-money will be found provided enough people attend. By moving our main event to May so as not to clash with Chapter Meetings anywhere else we hope to welcome back many if not all of our French friends as well as attracting a large contingent from Belgium. If things go well, then our main Chapitre Magistral meeting will continue to be held at this time of year. From a personal point of view I am worried about attracting the numbers to cover the projected costs, so it would be a huge relief to know that the change will prove convenient to everyone. It all depends on the members making sure that they attend and bringing guests, not to mention new blood! Accompanying the Newsletter is an information sheet giving more precise details of the weekend and an application form for the events taking place. Please return this to me as soon as possible so that a programme can be finalised, since a rough idea of numbers is needed to reserve places for the various events.

To save having to ‘chase’ those who have forgotten, please send your annual subscriptions to the Grand Argentier, Mary Kelly. Still £10.00 per member or £15.00 per couple Includes a free Quarterly Newsletter!!

St Bacchus meets Mrs Bacchus With Basil Rushton announcing his intention to resign as Argentier from the end of December 2003, it meant a closure of the St Bacchus account in Hove and the opening of an account in Dorking. I admit to making one mistake early on, in not realising that the correct building society did have a local branch. However, 9/11 and all that meant that two people walking into a bank or building society with a substantial cheque and wishing to open an account in the name of ‘Chevaliers de St Bacchus’ were not given an easy time as money laundering is apparently rife! and the Commandeur then had to write letters to prove that everything was ‘above board’. Salvation was eventually at hand at a branch of the correct building society where, on a busy Saturday, they were prepared to open an account. Imagine our astonishment as we handed over the forms to the manageress when her immediate response was “But that’s my surname!” Bacchus is also a South American surname and her interest was then stimulated when we explained the structure of the order. We shall be pursuing this contact - so watch this space!! Jenny Smith

What causes heart attacks? The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans and, although the French eat a lot of fat, they too suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans, yet whilst the Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine, they still suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. The moral is to eat and drink what you like - it’s just speaking English that kills you!

Par Saint Bacchus, Aymons Nous!