Winchester Embroiderers' Guild'd 39th AGM at Shawford Village Hall re-elected Chris Brown as chairman.

It has been another successful year for the guild, which is looking forward to its 40th anniversary celebrations next April.

The annual bursary award was won by Marguerite Ackroyd, who will be able to use the money to attend a course or workshop of her choosing.

Last year the award was won by Pat Kennett, who gave the members a brief description of the computer-aided design course.

Following the formal business, three members gave a show and talk about the work completed during their four-year City and Guilds Embroidery course parts one and two.

Pat Kennett showed a striking piece, "September 11th", which depicted the New York skyline with white, yellow and black clouds rising above it. Karen Head had taken cars as her principle design source using tyre-tread prints in gold work patterns and also in embroidery on felt.

Sheila Mansfield explained how part 1 of the course taught traditional embroidery techniques, which were then developed to produce unusual experimental work for part 2. She explained that it was necessary to complete both parts of the embroidery course in order to benefit fully from the syllabus. Sheila had made some colourful felt which she had sewn into a jacket and matching handbag. Several of her smaller embroidered pieces were on show.

Another member of the guild, Jayne Lewis, had won the celebrate-in-style competition run by Sewing World magazine.

Her winning piece was a splendid book cover in gold, using a variety of embroidery techniques, for which her prize was a Bernina sewing-machine.