Chairman, Pauline Roberts opened the November meeting, welcoming everyone and a visitor who had joined us.

There were 8 apologies from members.

President, Margaret Fennell had entered the Guild's National Scrabble competition and was runner up.

She achieved the highest score in one round of the competition and received a certificate for this.

The secretary Joyce Coggins advised there were various coming events; the mayor was holding a coffee morning to raise funds for a charity.

The Federation Annual carol service is at St Thomas's Church in Stourbridge. Mrs Fennell reported on the state of the Guild's finances.

The speaker for the evening was Ian Bott with "A grave subject".

He took the group on a journey around Black Country graveyards, with slides showing church graveyards and, in particular, the many usual grave stones as far back as the 17th century.

The body snatchers were active in the area, helped by the superintendent of one cemetery who had his own business, unearthing recent burials and selling bodies to the body snatchers.

In 1815 there were only private burial grounds but in 18652 local authorities were able to have their own cemeteries. In churchyards it was the practice of burying the wealthy on the south side of the church, rom where the saying, "The sun shines on the righteous" comes from. Joyce Coggins gave a vote of thanks for an interesting talk.

The competition for the evening was, "An amusing epitaph", which was won by Pauline Roberts. There were four raffle prizes, won by Yvonne Maddox, Susan Neale, Margaret Howard and Dorothy Trice.

The next open meeting is on January 19 at Oldswinford Primary School, Field Lane. The speaker will be Sandy Cale, her topic; Elegant Georgian Worcester. Visitors are always welcome.