St George's Ladies Group

Cobnor Activity Centre

Cobnor Activity Centre was the subject for our first February meeting. 1950 saw the start of Cobnor at Chidham, an inlet of Chichester Harbour, and it became a Trust in 1979, set up by Martian Beale OBE and is now a registered charity. Sixty schools and youth groups plus 400 disadvantaged and disabled children use the facilities each year. The options are many and varied, from sailing, raft building, climbing/abseiling, archery, mountain biking plus many others. These are all overseen by dedicated and fully qualified experienced instructors. Weekly summer camps are available through July and August, either in residential log cabins, with full mess facilities and shower block or camping under canvas. For the disabled there is a £50,000 landing craft that can accommodate five wheel chairs plus carers, or twelve persons. This chair-boat features a dual control steering system allowing users to pilot the craft from their chairs. Cobnor accepts children from age 8 to 16 years and also offers them the courses and opportunity to work towards the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

June Bradley

China

Mr Mitchell came to tell us about his visits to China and brought some lovely slides to illustrate his talk. One of the most memorable sights was the Great Wall of China, which is wide enough for horsemen to ride five abreast, is around 4,000 miles long and can be seen from space. In Beijing Tain'anmen Square is the largest square in the world. In 1989 a huge number of protesters gathered here to demonstrate against the slowness of reform and lack of freedom and when tanks were brought in by the military they indiscriminately massacred hundreds of people. The Forbidden City is at the north of the square and only the emperor was allowed to enter, but it is now open to visitors. There are some lovely parks and we saw an 80 year old lady teaching t'ai chi, mainly to the older generation.

The Terracotta Army at Qin Shi Huang was only discovered in 1974 by peasants. This army is made up of soldiers which have different features and are of different ranks and was built to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huang. There are also horses and chariots and traces of pigment on the figures show that originally they were painted in bright colours. Around 1,000 figures have been excavated but it is estimated there are six to seven thousand more. Many figures were shattered and a lot of people are employed to painstakingly put them together.

The Yangzi river is the third largest river in the world and there are cruises through the Three Gorges where the scenery is spectacular. A dam is being built on the river to stop it flooding, which endangered lives and this will generate hydro power. This is a huge project and the water level is going to rise so high many houses in the hillside will be completely submerged and families will be rehoused. One beautiful temple will be preserved by having a ten foot wall built around it.

In the north of China it is bitterly cold for about three months of the winter with the temperature around -19°C. We saw a huge park where the Chinese make houses and all sorts of things out of snow and prizes are awarded for the best. There are also huge carvings and statues made out of ice and this park looked like a winter wonderland. We saw people diving off diving boards made of ice into the bitterly cold water, which constantly had to be disturbed to keep it from freezing over.

There were some lovely pictures of smiling children who enjoyed having their photo taken. China is a fast developing country and a lot of building work is going on. Whereas in the past everyone cycled everywhere people are now keen to own cars and many more are now seen on the streets. This was a most interesting talk and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.

Margaret Deal