When we moved our meetings online in March 2020, we never imagined we’d still be meeting on Zoom nearly a year later! Nevertheless, we persist.
Our January meeting is always focused on physical activity and we see no reason to let a pandemic get in the way of that. We invited a local tai chi instructor, Andrea Bugari to join us on Zoom and take us through some tai chi moves. It was a lovely gentle way to get us moving on a cold Tuesday evening.
We’ve really enjoyed how much our members are engaging with the online format, and have kept our monthly pub quiz and craft club going throughout the pandemic. The committee has been busy planning activities for the coming months to keep our meetings interesting. It’s no substitute for meeting in person though and we’re all looking forward to the day when we’re able to return to the community centre.


Bicarbonate of Soda, or Sodium bicarbonate, or Baking Soda, or Bread Soda, or carb soda, is a chemical compound composed of a sodium cation and a bicarbonate anion. It is a white solid that is crystalline, but often appears as a fine powder. Slightly salty in taste, its natural mineral form is nahcolite and components of this mineral are often found in many natural springs. Naturally occurring deposits of nahcolite are found in the Green River formation in Colorado, US. It is deposited as ‘beds’ during periods of high evaporation, ie drought. It is commercially mined using common mining techniques, such as used in coal mining. It can also be a solution, mined by pumping hot water through previously mined beds, and reconstituting dissolved nahcolite through a natural cooling crystallisation process.

