Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday November 29, 2026
Organizing Committee:
- Charlene and Tim P.
- Cherie S.
Agenda: TBD
2026 November/Christmas meeting
2026 September meeting
Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday September 27, 2026
Organizing Committee:
- Tyler C.
- Judy G.
- Andy N. & Don R.
- Tammy R.
Theme: Halloween/Fall
Agenda:
- Trivia and Word Search Game
- Be sure to bring your thinking cap and put your knowledge to the test!
- A scary tale to tell?!?!?
- The organizing team has a couple of stories to share with members. Are they real? Are they fictional? There’s only one way to find out — be sure to come to the meeting!
- Halloween/Fall display
- It is that time of the year when the leaves are changing colours and ghoulish decorations are popping up around your neighbourhood. That should give everyone some inspiration for their Halloween and fall displays!
2026 Special July meeting highlights
Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday July 26, 2026
Organizing Committee:
- Executive members
Theme: Christmas in July
Agenda:
- Food!!
- For our special summer gathering, we decided to have a picnic-style potluck lunch; everyone who came to the meeting brought food to share.
- As you can see from the photographs below, there was definitely no shortage of food!
- A “Tropical Christmas” Display
- In keeping with our summer theme, everyone was encouraged to bring a “summer” Christmas display or a display in a tropical setting.
- We had quite a few wonderful entries, and they were all so imaginative and unique!
2026 May meeting highlights
Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday May 31, 2026
Organizing Committee:
- Lucy H.
- John and Gail H.
- Bonnie M.
- Charlene and Tim P.
Agenda:
- Vintage Villages
- We were delighted to have the owners of Vintage Villages, Dylan and Breanne, join us and give a brief presentation about their collectible “buy-and-sell” business and how they run their operations.
- Because they are both collectors themselves, Dylan and Breanne certainly appreciate the products they sell. They enjoy working with collectors who are looking to build up their collections, as well as those who are looking to downsize.
- Vintage Villages offers:
- retired Department 56 collectibles
- retired and current Lemax collectibles
- buy-and-sell services
- They can be contacted by email at breanne@vintagevillages.ca, and their website, https://www.vintagevillages.ca, features various items they currently have for sale.
- White Elephant sale
- As a means to raise funds for club operations, we held a White Elephant sale. Basically, we asked members to donate items they no longer wanted, while also having the opportunity to browse the donated items and see if there was anything they could use or want to add to their collection.
- You can imagine the variety of items available at the sale! Everyone involved had fun browsing, shopping and looking for good bargains.
- At the end of the day, the club was able to raise close to $200.
- Water, water, everywhere
- The theme for the display was water, with each display incorporating some element of water - be it a pond, a bucket of water, or whatever else members could dream up. The possibilities were limited only by their imagination!
2026 March/AGM meeting highlights
Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday March 29, 2026
Organizing Committee:
- Executive members
Theme: Easter
- Annual General Meeting
- Our Annual General Meeting is traditionally held every March. Last year, however, we had to postpone it due to — you guessed it — bad weather! Fortunately, the weather cooperated this time around, and the meeting was able to proceed as scheduled.
- An election of officers also took place during the meeting, with the positions of Secretary, Membership, and Program Planning open for nomination. The positions were decided by acclamation, and all incumbents — Ruth T., Andy N., and Gail H. — were re-elected to their respective roles.
- We also reviewed the club’s financial budget. Unfortunately, due to declining membership numbers, our finances have certainly seen better days. Nevertheless, we remain committed to moving forward and will continue doing our best to keep the club active and thriving.
- Easter display
- Since Easter was just around the corner from our March meeting, the display theme was Easter. As you know, our club is mostly associated with Christmas themed villages, but our members had no trouble coming up with some ingenious Easter related displays!
- Easter trivia
- Judy did her “homework” diligently and came up with a few tough Easter trivia questions. But because of this exercise, we now all know that the legend of Easter Bunny was originated in Germany!
- Easter Basket Exchange
- Due to the cancellation of last November’s Christmas meeting when we normally would have exchanged gifts among ourselves, the club decided to “switch it up” and did an Easter gift exchange.
- As expected, our members embraced this twist with enthusiasm and many of us came out to the meeting with gifts wrapped. It took a bit of time to finish the exchange as gifts were “taken” a few times, but all in all, everyone went home with excitement and a wonderful gift.
2026 January meeting
Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday January 25, 2026
Organizing Committee:
Canceled due to inclement weather. This was a bit unprecedented as the club has never experienced back-to-back meeting cancellation due to the bad weather.
2025 November/Christmas meeting
Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday November 30, 2025
Organizing Committee: N/A
Meeting was cancelled due to inclement weather.
The November meeting was normally the Christmas meeting when there would be
- a potluck lunch
- a gift exchange among club members
- a member display with a Christmas theme
- and a charity donation
All planned activities has been postponed to the meeting in January 2026.
2025 September meeting highlights
Location: Banbury Center
Date: Sunday September 28, 2025
Organizing Committee:
- Tyler C.
- Judy G.
- Rick J. & Lise W.
- Ruth & Dennis T.
Theme: Halloween!
- Display
- Our members were invited to create a display featuring a witch, and they truly delivered, as you can see in the photographs below.
- On the day, nine wonderful displays were presented, with each creator sharing the inspiration behind their work and the materials they used.
- (Tough) Trivia Questions
- everyone was given a sheet of 20 multiple choice questions that are Halloween related
- however, the questions were tough and probably only Halloween enthusiasts could answer them all correctly. For example,
- On which night of the week do witches traditionally hold their meetings?
- Wednesday, Friday or Saturday
- What is the name of Shakespeare’s ghost that haunts Macbeth?
- Banshee, Banquo or Lucifer
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