Festivity, Publicity, Conviviality, & Christmas Afternoon Tea
East India Club, St. James’ Square, & Haymarket Hotel, Piccadilly, London
Sunday 27th November 2016
Time flies & another year has rolled on by! 2016 saw the Aroma Supergroup meeting up at the East India Club on a regular basis to update & inform with another list of impressive speakers & fascinating talks. We also managed to time our summer trip to perfection on one of the one of the hottest days of the year, welcome back member Rie from Paris to London, meet some of our newest (& youngest) members & all before cramming in our annual Christmas Afternoon Tea – yum!
The Aroma Supergroup Christmas meeting! 🙂
Summary of the Year – 2016
Fortunately for a year which has become notorious for some negative events, the Aroma Supergroup has had a wonderful time, which I will quickly recap below.
We are so fortunate that all our meetings are held at the prestigious East India Club
Speakers & Talks
January – Gail Newton (acupuncturist & Chinese Herbal medicine practitioner)
Gail gave us a fascinating lecture all about Chinese herbal medicine – it’s origins, history, brief idea of how it works & interacts with other therapies such as acupuncture. She also brought us lots of lovely herbs & roots to smell, touch & even taste 🙂
April – Dalia Moari (NHS & private dietitian)
Dalia spoke to us about just about everything diet-related under the Sun as we had many questions! This was my personal favourite amongst the lectures & covered the difference between dietitian (qualification over 5 years) & nutritionist (no qualification required), probiotics/supplements vs. natural food sources, (including Bio-Kult probiotics whch I have used & now recommended to many of my clients to great effect) and had discussion around various other food issues including:
- IBS
- Nutrition for families, children & babies
- Food intolerances & allergies
- ‘Free-From’ ranges
June – Chelsea Physic Garden Summer Trip
Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) from the Chelsea Physic Garden
We had a special group trip to the Chelsea Physic Garden & managed to pick the best weather of the year so far! We were given a great tour of the beautiful, interesting & well-packed little gardens hidden away in the heart of London’s South Bank. See the blog for details: CPG Visit Blog
September – Supergroup Matters
No speaker but a brilliant meeting for general group issues: we had a good catch-up with everyone’s news, discussed child-friendly meeting arrangements, general communications, home-made wet wipes & also sorted out next year’s meeting dates (given below) as well as takings suggestions for future speakers. In particular we welcomed back our lovely Rie, who had recently moved back to the UK after a whole 3 years based in Paris & many additional qualifications.
Proposed 2017 Dates & Talks:
- 22nd January – tutor extraordinaire Victoria Plum will be updating us on Aromatherapy
- 23rd April – mindfulness
- 18th June – trip/event – TBC
- 24th September – our very own Jackie & Louise will be discussing their work as reflexologists – from birth (Jackie) to end of life care (Louise) – we’re so lucky to have such talented members to draw upon for knowledge
- 26th November – Product-making Christmas meeting & afternoon tea (see below)
EIC’s beautifully-appointed Christmas Tree
November – Christmas Meeting & Sian O’Flynn (Aromatherapist, Holistic & Clinical Massage Therapist)
So close to Christmas many potential speakers were busy so I was asked if I could talk about Social Media & in particular Facebook posting/boosting & Mailchimp email campaigns
Our very own Victoria Plum joined us for a festive afternoon tea 🙂
The last Sunday in November is always reserved for our Christmas meeting & we now have something of a tradition established by our very own Louise, who booked a very special Christmas afternoon tea at the Haymarket Hotel
Gluten & Dairy free & actually rather healthy as well as delicious!
