The Association of Irish Floral Artists will be staging its National Flower Festival entitled "Another Time Another Place" in Naas on 1st-4th July 2022. Clubs from all over Ireland will be participating.

As part of this event, there will be craft sales, plant sales and bric a brac items pertaining to floral art. I am requesting your support in contributing to this if possible.

Proceeds from the Festival will go towards supporting the Alzheimer Society of Ireland.

If you have any questions, please email aoifasec@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely,

Margaret Murphy
AOIFA Secretary

Due to the current situation with Covid-19, the AOIFA executive has taken the decision to cancel the planned Social Weekend for April 2022.

This event is now rescheduled for 6th - 9th October 2022 in the Galway Bay Hotel.

We sincerely hope that this event will take place so that we can all meet up again safely.

In the meantime, stay safe and mind yourselves.

The results of the 2021 Virtual Poetry competition hosted by Bridget Morley are as follows:

1st Place: Emma Champ, Naas Flower & Garden Club
2nd Place: Nicola Desmond, Kinsale Garden & Flower Club
3rd Place: Mary Cowhig, Owenabue Flower and Garden Club


“Wait till I tell you what’s been going on,”
he slumps in his nest of a chair,
clutches the cigarette, places the lighter in his lips.
The goings-on are from forty years prior,
but I still want to hear them.
Time shared multiplies, and I’ll take all I can get.

Shades of him pepper my habits now -
cold coffee forgotten on the mantlepiece,
appreciation for a good woollen jumper.
Waning comprehension of the world beyond,
but still understanding me better than anyone.
My name is lost to time, my heart is not.

- Emma Champ, Naas Flower & Garden Club

Wait till I tell you what's been going on,
In the last 18 months all normality's gone.
Instead, our lives have become very strange,
The Covid pandemic has caused such a change
When the virus arrived, in a rather odd caper
Some people began bulk-buying loo paper.
Though grocery shopping was once a chore,
It's more entertaining than before,
For since Covid-19 came
It's turned into a guessing game.
Since most people wear a mask,
What was once a mundane task
Has become weekly puzzle,
"Name the face behind the muzzle!"
In a life without Covid, 'would be my first task
To go out and burn this thrice-cursed mask.
I'd place it on top of a funeral pyre,
Then gleefully watch the flames leaping higher,
In the last 18 months, I've become it's despiser,
How I long for a time without this damned visor!

Mary Cowhig - Owenabue Flower and Garden Club