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Minutes from meeting number 1231

Minutes of the 1231st Meeting of the Manchester Pickwick Club held at the Moorside Social Club on 16th September, 2015.
For the first time in a long time the 1231st meeting of the Manchester Pickwick Club started promptly at 8.00 p.m. Mr Snodgrass volunteered to act as P.O.C and because it was 2 years since the death of his father, the former Alfred Jingle, the current Alfred Jingle who is this year’s Mr Pickwick indicated that he would like to pay for the first round of drinks in his father’s memory.
There were no guests present although Pickwick and the vice-chairman both indicated they had friends who wished to join the club and would introduce them at the next meeting; this meant that there was no need for the various items referring to guests and the reading of the minutes of the last meeting was an early agenda item. One of the minutes referred to Grummer’s description of Stiggins dangling his scarf in a urinal whilst on holiday. This was refuted by Stiggins who said the incident didn’t happen but that the zipper on a waxed jacket had failed thus causing difficulties whilst trying to unfasten his clothing. Grummer said this was when the scarf descended into the urinal, and that had Stiggins purchased a better quality of waxed jacket, the problem wouldn’t have arisen.
There was some discussion concerning the above story and it was agreed that provided the comments, however damaging, were made in a Pickwickian manner, they were acceptable - Tupman commenting that it was one of the club rules. Stiggins said that the ‘club rule’ excuse was always quoted whenever he made a complaint and that the other members were ganging up on him, but in response to Grummer’s suggestion he admitted that he had ‘ganged up’ on others in the past.
Pickwick and Pott were them thanked for organising an outing to the races at Aintree which had proved to be an excellent outing which should be repeated.
The Secretary reported that he had set up a liaison with Rick Bravo at the Philadelphia Pickwick Club and passed round the latest magazine from that organisation, the ‘Eat and Swill’ gazette.
It was reported that Pickwick and Pott had sent kippers from the Isle of Man to Grummer and Dodson. Grummer wrote to Pickwick thanking him for the kippers which he had found attached to the door handle; this confused Pickwick who had only just ordered them and didn’t believe delivery was so efficient. Eventually it was found that the door handle kippers were from another source, so Pickwick’s kippers were a welcome bonus.
Grummer told he tale about 3 Chieftain tanks at Patricroft and Mivins reminded him of the occasion when he was asked to collect and deliver a 25pdr. Gun from Belle Vue to the Crescent in Salford for a display and the garage where he worked was the only place which operated an AEC Matador to tow the gun. In those days Market Street in Manchester was not pedestrianised so the looks which Grummer and Mivins received as they drove down Market steet with the gun on tow had to be seen to be believed.
Continuing with the war stories, Grummer told members that a pig at Mitchell and Shackleton had produced a number of piglets and in accordance with regulations they were duly registered with the Ministry of food. However, only 9 were registered and eventually inspectors arrived demanding the names of those who had received the additional piglets and threatening prison if the names were not divulged. When the list was produced and found to contain the names of several senior police officers, the enquiry was quietly shelved.
Tupman reported that the Christmas dinner would be on 4th December but that the caterers at Breightmet had recently changed and he was unable to give further details at that stage. There was some discussion about the possibility of combining the Pickwick and Globs groups to create one large group for the Christmas and Dingley Dell outings but it was decided that this was a possibility for the future and the arrangements might cause problems so would need to be looked at carefully as the clubs were very different in character.
At this point Stiggins leaned back in his chair, forgetting he was sitting on a stool and disappeared through the swing doors immediately behind him. It seemed that clumsiness was a character strait because once reinstated on his stool he tols members he had tripped going into Timpsons and knocked down their display but still managed to get a 75p reduction on his shoe repair.
Proposing a vote of thanks to Pickwick and the vice-chairman, Snodgrass said he could only put the abysmal performance down to the youth and inexperience of the incumbents and hoped that improvements would follow in future. The performance had wandered up and down the agenda like a game of Snakes and Ladders and the vice-chairmans handling of the gavel had been so tentative that few had realised he was there. Seconding the vote of thanks, Grummer said that as it had been their first time in office he thought they had both done a wonderful job and Snodgrass’ failure to hear the vice-chairman’s gavel was probably because it was so quick after Pickwick.
To the usual discord ‘Good Neet Owd Friends’ was sung by all and followed by the National Anthem.
The raffle raised £4.50 whilst the Fines Box contained £9.00.

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