Meadowlark 2010

The main event of Saturday afternoon came towards the end of a week of successful Meadowlark events including a quiz evening, the Teddylark children's event, a darts evening, a carpet bowls evening and cribbage night.

Meadowlark Quiz Special report by Melody Gosling The Quiz was held at the Community Centre and got the week off to a good start with 12 teams competing for the coveted Meadowlark Quiz Winners glass bowl and individual trophies. The theme for this years Meadowlark was Musicals so each round started with a musical clip depicting the category for the round, these included the sports round, a round of music clips from some well known stage musicals and charades, performed by one of the quiz team members much to the amusement of all 12 teams. It was a nip and tuck affair throughout the whole evening with some very high scoring. In the end two teams finished on a score of 218 so it was down to a tie-break question to decide the winners, the first person from the two teams to answer was awarded an extra point. We are pleased to announce that The Cymbols (team members Sue Brown, Daphne Smith, Freda Parker, Doreen Van de Zande, Greame Van de Zande and Laurens Wilming) ran out as the winners. Miss Meadowlark, Mollie Betts was present at the Quiz to hand out the trophies to the winning team. The KCA would like to thank Graham Gosling and his team of helpers, Ai-Heng, Peter, Hazel and Christine for their excellent efforts in producing such a fun quiz. The Meadowlark Committee would like to thank The Kedington Community Association for their sponsorship of the quiz.

Meadowlark Darts Fours Tournament Special report by Peter Deeks Although this year was only blessed with five teams for the tournament, everyone involved had a very good night out. The teams were: The Jeffrey’s (entering for the first time), The Friendship Club, The Baldies, The Barny Legs (Last year’s winners) and The Green Army. Games were played as a league with the two top teams playing in the final. An early highlight was the Friendship Club taking two legs from the much fancied Barny Legs team; they were in fact the only legs that the club managed during the evening. Most of the games were hotly contested and of course as the evening went on the games also got much rowdier. After the round robin had ended, the top two teams were “The Baldies” and “The Jeffrey’s”. The final proved to be as hotly contested as the rest of the evening with “THE JEFFREY’S” running out as well deserved winners. The KCA said "We would like to thank all of those people who supported the evening in whatever capacity and we would especially like to thank Rachael and Richard, our hosts at the Barnardiston Arms for their hospitality and their enthusiastic support, both on the night and the period leading up to it. Apart from providing three huge plates of food, Rachael and Richard also donated the trophies for the event which meant that the £62 taken on the night was all profit to the KCA Meadowlark Week fund." Don’t forget that the darts tournament for 2011 will be at The Arms on Monday the 6th of June.

Meadowlark Crib Special report by Melody Gosling This took place at the Barni Arms. Although down on previous years there were six teams who turned up to take part in the competition. The teams played in pairs and the event was run as a round-robin with each pair playing all other teams and with every point counting. At the end of the evening there was a tie between two teams for first place with four games having been won, one game lost and no games tied. The winning team won on the greater number of points for each game played. The Risbridgers, Sue and Melody were winners with the runner-up trophy being awarded to Jess and her partner Gavin. Both Miss Meadowlark, Mollie Betts and her Escort, Ben Eames were on hand to present the trophies. A huge vote of thanks goes to Alan Collier who organised the event and to Rachel and Richard at the Barni Arms for sponsoring the event with trophies and food.

Sadly the week also saw the theft from the community centre of sound equipment that was to be used during Meadowlark. Thankfully the loan of equipment from Castle Manor School meant that Saturday morning saw master of ceremonies Steven Powter testing the sounds system on the field.

Click Here For More Pictures Of The Parade

At half past one the bands struck up at either end of the procession and the parade moved off. This year for the first time Miss Meadowlark Mollie Betts travelled behind the first of the bands in a horse drawn carriage (which later offered rides to children). She was joined in her conveyance by her attendants Amiee McGuire and Emily Vaness and for the first time by her escort Ben Eames (a role bought in to give the boys a part to play). The theme for the floats this year was Musicals. This came from the initial thought that it was the 42nd Meadowlark which lead to suggestions of 42nd Street as a theme. This was considered too narrow a theme so it was broadened out to Musicals with many groups from the village taking part and a beautiful array of floats from a wide and sometimes surprising range of musicals. The Parade also included many of the classic cars that would later be taking part in the classic car show. The procession made it's way around the village and to The Meadow where it snaked through the main arena before Miss Meadowlark declared the 42nd Meadowlark officially Open.

Around the meadow large numbers enjoyed a model air craft exhibition, a classic car display, Duel (You remember Duel from Gladiators?), Punch and Judy (Like duel but without the audience participation) and a great many traditional fête stalls.

Click here for more classic cars bikes and tractors.

The good turn out meant that this years Meadowlark raise in the region of £4,000 for the KCA.

Meadowlark week finished on Sunday afternoon with a picnic followed by Meadowlark Praise.

Article written and edited by M.P.Upton - 20/6/10
Photos and video footage by M.P.Upton - 12/6/10
Additional material by Brian Watts, Melody Gosling and Peter Deeks If you have news of interest to Kedington or a response or further information on existing articles please contact News@KedingtonNews.co.uk