Our first meeting of 2024 was on Zoom on Saturday 27th January, when our swap theme was 'Locality'. It was lovely to see the different ways in which this theme had been interpreted, with people taking a wide range of approaches to the word.
(At the time of writing, not everyone had managed to send me photos, so I'll update this page as and when they arrive!)
Margaret B took us on a fascinating tour of her home village/town of Haxby, using a flag book structure within a concertina book.
Janet B's epic Hadrian's Wall book is 2.5metres long, representing the wall snaking its way across Northern England, including 3D milecastles and a handy tourist map.
Pat D focused on the history and development of her local park, in a structure which folded out from a photo of the park gates.
Judi P's petite concertina book was placed inside a box embellished with real shells and containing calligraphed lyrics from the traditional Northumbrian song 'When the Boat Comes In' alongside a shoal of 'little fishies'.
Jo D created a hand drawn map of her house and surrounding area, which also happens to be on the site of the world's first steam-powered railway line, carrying coal from Hetton Colliery to the banks of the River Wear.
Mari H was inspired by free postcards from Australia Post designed to be sent for free to 'someone you care about'. These formed the covers, bound with ribbons and the pages contained Australian picture clues and thought-provoking questions.
Ruth R indulged her love of miniature books to create a little library of volumes, one of which contained her own paintings of Richmondshire.
Janet A created a beautiful book listing the fortresses and castles of the borderlands between Scotland and Northumbria, evoking the routes of the Border Reivers.
Karenna F's book explored the history of the area she lives in, with focus on some of the historical buildings and fascinating characters who had lived there.
Jill W had created an album of information and specially taken photographs of her home area, which she decided she'd keep as it had grown too big and heavy to post!
On the whole, we all agreed that we'd really enjoyed the research side of this theme and it was really interesting to hear about the stories we'd each uncovered.
Next meeting will be April 20th - a week earlier than usual - when our theme will be 'Heroes'.
