The IBM Retired Employee Club (South Hants)
www.shrets.co.uk

The IBM Retired Employee Club
(South Hants) Newsletter

July/August 2011

**Phone Calls: Can we please ask members not to ring the committee at weekends or at unsociable hours and not to leave voicemail messages.

Trip Cheques: Can we please remind you that cheques for trips should only come from, and be signed by, the IBM member

** Chatsworth Reminder: Nearly time to send Ann your final payment.

Forthcoming trips

London Day Out

This is our normal London trip with the coach dropping off and also picking up in Park Lane. The return is timed at 1830 which will hopefully give time for people to attend a matinee at the theatre if they so wish.

The committee is trying to arrange a comfort and tea stop at Guildford on the way up.

The Heavenly High Weald (City and Village Tour)- 8th September

By popular request, a second trip to the Heavenly High Weald:

This is quite simply an old fashioned great day out enjoying the simple and timeless beauty of England. Browse the quaint shopping streets of Cranbrook and Royal Tunbridge Wells, enjoy one of England’s finest landscapes from high in your coach and sit together as a group for morning coffee and biscuits and lunch included in the tour fee in a really beautifully refurbished country pub. We will meet our guide in Benenden for morning coffee and biscuits at 10-30am.
Country driving is always an enjoyable pursuit and, from your elevated position in the coach, this drive is stunning. The High Weald remains much the same as it was in the mediaeval period, with its distinctive landscape of woodland and rolling hills. We’ll stop to stretch our legs in Cranbrook, the Capital of the Weald, a pretty and compact mediaeval market town.
The church contains the prototype of the clock for London’s Big Ben and the town is oddly associated with a very famous Yorkshire song!
We return to Benenden for a roast of the day lunch. The pub offers a set main course meal, with one choice for the whole group apart from special diets or vegetarians. If you do require either a special diet or Vegetarian meal then please tick the appropriate box on the booking form. Individuals can, if they want, buy bar drinks, hot drinks and desserts – treacle tart and spotted dick are two of the traditional desserts usually on offer.
Royal Tunbridge Wells lies at the heart of the unspoilt beauty of the Weald and has been attracting visitors for 400 years, ever since the chance discovery of the Chalybeate Spring by a young nobleman in 1606. Its reputation as the place to see and be seen amongst royalty and the aristocracy, which took off in the Georgian period, makes the history of Tunbridge Wells one of the most colourful in England. We’ll take you for a tour along the Pantiles and show you the best spots to settle for a cup of tea before heading home at 4.45pm