Christmas dinner at Tuorla

A nice wintry evening for our festive Christmas meal at Tuorla Inn in Kaarina. A good crowd of 14 old and new members got together to enjoy a British-style meal with crackers and a taster of Christmas pudding, too.

Tasty food, a friendly atmosphere and lots of humour and laughter made it an occasion of Christmas cheer for everyone. With these pictures we want to wish all our members

A Merry Christmas

and

A Happy New Year!

As always, the rest of the photos can be seen in our web album.

Wine tasting in Tampere

On a cold, cold Friday evening a small group of Turku Finn-Briters set off to visit the Tampere society for 'Wines for Christmas' tasting and Christmas party in the comfort of a nice minibus.

Along the road, our new British member David told us on organic wines with tasters of a Chiliean and Italian organic wine. It was very informative and certainly gave us food for thought about our carbon footprint.

In Tampere there was a good crowd to hear Gerald McAllister tell us about 7 different wines for the Christmas season. Among many other things we learned the 5 important s's of wine tasting: scrutinize, swirl, sniff, sip and spit/swallow.

The German sekt recommended to go with Christmas pudding was the ladies' favourite.

And some Tampere-Turku socialising got going as well - especially 'in the back row'!

A good time was had by all. Thank you Tampere society for inviting us, and providing all the wines and nibbles, too. Welcome to our beer tasting in January!

Some more photos can be seen in this web album.

Tea soirée at Café Art

Pirkko Arstila, ex-newsreader and the founder of the Teen Ystävät society in Helsinki, gave a two-hour presentation on the world of tea in the lovely surroundings of Café Art, which also specialises in roasting its own coffee.

We sampled 5 teas -white, yellow, oolong, Pu Erh plus some green tea that opened up like a flower in the pot (or salad, as she said!) amidst informative and amusing stories about many more different types of tea. Most of the samples were kindly provided by Turun Tee ja Mauste in Kauppahalli.



At the end, talk went on with Java and Bancha tea and sandwiches or carrot cake, provided by Café Art and looking at all the fascinating types of tea on display - modest selection from chairperson and secretary's collection.


Even Turun Sanomat reported the event. (read from the link - in Finnish!)

You can see more pictures by clicking this link.

Welcome to this event!

30th Anniversary Dinner of the Federation

This festive occasion was celebrated in the beautiful historical dining hall of hotel Seurahuone in Helsinki.



Former branch chairperson, and current vice chairperson of the Federation, Mr Jukka Itäkylä
opened the proceedings.

Besides the many speeches and delicious food, guests were also entertained by The Part A Bois barbershop singing.

Federation autumn seminar

Delicious smoked salmon provided courtesy of the British Embassy ahead of the seminar.



This year's theme was 'The Social Impact of Climate Change', and we heard both pessimistic and optimistic viewpoints from British, Danish and French researchers and Finnish Green Party MP, Oras Tynkkynen.

Here is the Ambassador opening the seminar.

4th smoke sauna evening

Again we had a lovely September evening to enjoy the rustic surroundings of the Impivaara tradition yard in Paimio, which is part of the travel services of Tuorla, the countryside college of southwest Finland.


It was harvesting time for the local farmers.



Seven Finn-Briters attended this time - even two ladies. The sauna was burning hot, but nice and relaxing. Lots of good food was on offer, and, as before, the men stayed the night looking at the stars.

Preview pictures from UK trip

The famous Carpet Gardens in Eastbourne (the chair's hometown)



Our group after their double-decker bus trip to Brighton


Chair and secretary along the Seven Sisters' walk

Traditional country pub investigations - the Tiger Inn, Jevington

The famed scrumptious cream tea and scones, courtesy of the branch

Fuller details and more pics to follow.

Summer meal at Samppalinna

On a beautiful June evening 9 Finn-Briters got together at the picturesque Samppalinna restaurant to start the summer season with style.

Other than somebody getting two main courses and the waiter forgetting the starter, it was a nice event in even nicer company.

View all the photos HERE.

Nick Hennessey: "Moss and stones, skin and bones" visit

Nick Hennessey returned to regale us with more renowned recitation. After last year's Kalevala, this time we had British and Irish folk tales with music and song, too.

Fifteen attentive listeners sat "spellbound" at stories about sons, fathers, butterflies, even sex transitions! What a rare treat for adults to listen to captivating stories.

More photos of the event here and more information about Nick on his website.

Europe Day society marketing

Blustery day, trying to encourage new members to join up.