THE Mayor of Crediton will be the guest speaker at the next meeting of Sandford Women's Group.

Cllr Liz Brookes-Hocking will be telling us about her experiences in 2016 as an Ecumenical Accompanier monitoring human rights on the Palestinian West Bank.

The meeting will take place at Sandford Cricket Club on Thursday, March 14.

The speaker at our February meeting was Anderson Jones from Devon Communities Together who spoke about energy saving ideas. Anderson encouraged us to ask questions during his presentation and to mention our own experiences, so the meeting became an interesting exchange of ideas.

Anderson covered a wide variety of subjects that ranged from simple measures such as switching off the kettle as soon as it comes to the boil and the optimum temperature at which to set our heating, to insulating our homes and the differing tariffs that are available from utility companies, including cheaper social tariffs available for people on pension credit or other benefits.

He mentioned that all utility companies keep a register of the vulnerable who, in the case of an interruption to supplies, are prioritised when work is carried out to restore services. Examples of the vulnerable are people who have disabilities, certain illnesses or are pensioners. 

Anderson stressed that when saving energy on heating it is important to stay warm in other ways such as wearing extra clothes. As a final surprise for us he distributed packs of thermal socks, gloves, a hat, a blanket and an insulated travel mug or, for a couple of our members, reflective sheets to place behind their radiators.

Linda Griffin