Dining Events

As part of the Club’s social programme two types of Lunches are held.

Firstly, on a quarterly basis, reasonably priced Lunches are held after a Club meeting. These are for members and any guests who may be attending on that day at our normal meeting venue. Occasionally however they may be held at a pub not too far away from the meeting venue.

Secondly, the Club has Summer and Christmas Lunches at Hotels in the area. This year the Summer Lunch was held at the Deanwater Hotel Woodford and the Christmas event will be at Statham Lodge Lymm.

For these functions wives, partners and friends are invited to attend.

DINING SECRETARY’S REPORT FOR 2023


The Dining schedule for the year started well following our Annual General Meeting on February 23rd despite our having to accede to the ravages of food inflation by raising the meal charge to £20 per head the event was well attended.

After-Meeting lunches followed on May 11th and August 10th however after the August Lunch our caterer, Mary Owen, became unwell and reluctantly decided to stand down from the role. Concurrent with this set-back several members highlighted that the quality of the offerings hadn’t been up to the usual standard.

A process followed to examine various options open to us for the continuance of the After-Meeting Lunches at the Mere Club.  We were provided with 2 suggestions for replacement caterers by the Mere Club. These people were known to the club having provided services

to events held there in the past.  One of the caterers quoted us £30 per head for a 2 course meal which we felt was excessive and would be hard to garner the agreement of our members.  The other caterer, Mrs Gill Risley, was known to a few of the members and she agreed to provide a 2 course meal at £22.50p per head for the November 9th Lunch which we would supplement by £1.50p as a service gratuity.   As this would be the second price rise for this ‘Dining Year’ it was put to the general Probus committee to discuss as one other option might be to de-camp from the Mere Club and hold a smaller and probably cheaper gathering at a local hostelry. It was proposed that Roy Conchie would make a case for the new caterer and elevated price at the following meeting after which a consensus was positive to proceed.  This event went ahead on November 9th with 28 diners and the quality and quantity of the food was well received by the members.

Following on from this November Lunch, the caterer, Mrs Risley, intimated that the price point or offering might have to be reviewed in the New Year.

For the year 2024 we have provisional dates for the After-Meeting lunches on February 22nd following the AGM, then on May 9th, August 8th and November 14th 2024.

The Summer Lunch this year was once again held at the Deanwater Hotel near Woodford.

Prior indicators suggested that this lunch may not be as well attended as pre-Covid years and indeed that turned out to be the case as our membership number had declined. Also, several members were catching up on unspent holiday opportunities. After consulting with the Deanwater management we agreed to move our event to the smaller ‘Gold Suite’ and this turned out to be a more convivial environment.  I considered the event to be successful and well received by the members.  Unfortunately, we now believe The Deanwater has closed so we will need to discuss an alternative venue for June 2024.

The Christmas Lunch was held this year on December 5th at Knutsford Golf Club.

61 members, guests and widows attended this lunch and the new venue turned out to be excellent and was well received by all who attended.  There was a definite feeling within the room that we should use the Golf Club again next year for the Christmas Lunch and possibly the Summer Lunch as well.

Regrettably, just prior to the Christmas Lunch, we learnt of the passing of my predecessor,

Dennis Duffill who had served the club well as Dining Secretary.

Roy Conchie

Dining Secretary.

DINING SECRETARY’S REPORT FOR 2022

Following The February 2021/22 Annual General Meeting we held the first post-meeting lunch for the year which was well attended and rubber stamped members’ return to social interaction following the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.  There were just over 30 diners.

We held similar post-meeting lunches at the Mere Club after the first Thursday meetings in May and August where the attendances were slightly less at approximately 26 to 28 attendees.  Some members paid but didn’t partake and we may assume this was due to either health issues or members taking spontaneous last minute holidays to make up for lost opportunities during the previous 2 years.

Prior to the August post-meeting we had discussions with the caterer, Mary Owen, about the increasing cost of providing the lunches.  It was agreed to retain the current pricing as long as possible but adhering to a basic beef pie and avoiding enhanced meals containing more expensive items such as fish and fresh cream.

During the late Summer Mary Owen sadly lost her husband and she herself suffered a mild stroke at his funeral. These events put into jeopardy the delivery of the post-meeting lunches but thankfully Mary has shown great resilience and by the November post-meeting lunch matters seemed to have returned to normality with 28 diners partaking.

For the year 2023 we have fixed dates for the post-meeting lunches on February 23rd following the AGM then on May 11th, August 10th and November 9th 2023.

We’re grateful to Dennis Duffill for his excellent work as Dining Secretary prior to June 2022 when he decided to relinquish the position and stand down. Many Thanks Dennis!

We held 2 ‘special’ lunches during the year where we invite partners and relatives to join with us, 36 attended the very enjoyable Summer Lunch at the Deanwater Hotel on the 15th of June and once again thanks to Dennis Duffill for organising this successful event. The number of attendees this year was however markedly down over previous years and Terry Parkinson queried whether June was the correct month to hold the event as many members take holidays before the schools close for the Summer.

The popular Statham Lodge Christmas Lunch was again held this year and well attended with 52 diners which included 2 guests from Tatton Probus.  Unfortunately, Tony and Alison Booth from Knutsford Rotary couldn’t attend due to a last-minute medical appointment and  2 KRPC members forgot about the lunch and so I’m mindful to circulate an email reminder to members on the day before this event in the future.

Roy Conchie Dining Secretary

DINING SECTION REPORT 2021

We were able to hold 2 events towards the end of the year.

Firstly, we held a Club lunch at the Mere Club in November attended by 25 members.

This was followed by our traditional Christmas lunch at Statham Lodge Hotel Lymm in December. We had 46 members and guests booked for this event but sadly illness prevented 5 people from attending. 46 was a slightly disappointing number but hopefully by next year members will feel more confident about attending a largish gathering. It was a very enjoyable lunch and was well received by members and following the age old theory of if it’s not broken don’t try to fix it we have made a provisional booking for Wednesday 14 December 2022 at the same venue.

In the hope that we are able to hold a Summer lunch in 2022 we have carried forward our 2021 booking at the Deanwater Hotel Dean Row Wilmslow to Wednesday 15 June.

We anticipate holding 4 of the normal Club lunches at the Mere Club in 2022, starting with one on the occasion of the Club AGM towards the end of February.

Terry Parkinson – Dining Secretary