This section, much thinner this year, as Ken has dropped all his commitments because, fortunately, younger people have been moving into positions in his favourite campaigns & in Avis' case, becasue everyone with a cause or think they have a cause, in Islington, want her to run it or sort out the problem, when they would be quite capable of doing it themselves.

The theatre of course, needs an entertainment & booze licence & one was applied for. This was a golden opportunity for the nay-sayers & trouble-makers (of whom, Avis has had her fill) to have a go. However, Avis helped brief the licencing solicitor, Guy Bishop & although the licencing meeting in May, went on for an interminable three hours in the Town Hall, a sensible licence was achieved & the highly paid barrister for the theatre said that Avis' speech swung it & they had not needed to pay him! We were also much helped by Cllr. Barry Edwards (Lab) asking the right sort of probing questions that were very helpful. Thanks, Barry.

...or rather "Young at Heart" was turned by the City of London into a membership organisation with a subscription, allegedly to weed out the unserious but this breaches the convention (believed in by older people) that things given should not subsequently be charged for. However, there was a tremendous dinner, free to members, in the Crypt of the Guiidhall on November 1st & the membership fee hardly paid for the food & booze, let alone the staff. Meanwhile, Ken has persisted with his pedometer & sends his pace reports in monthly. On the first day of his Alpine trip, he clocked up over 47k paces, which is rather too much.

At the Xmas Party 2007, Ken presented the sad story of the composer Don Gillis' reputation with an excerpt from his jokey Symphony 5 1/2, all that is left of it. Avis gave her talk on "Van Gogh & Gauguin - the roots of 20th Century Art" but Ken only gave a talk on Mahler this year but members want more talks & he has plenty. The Sadlers Wells management want the club to only have items associated with the theatre programme but the members want a wider diet. Renée Sinclair threw a party for her 100th birthday, which was held in the theatre bar.