I was giving my first herbal talk of the year last night to a group in Coventry. As usual, the hour they asked for turned into an hour and three quarters. We made two herb teas (the pub landlady kindly loaned the use of her kettle!) - lemon balm and mint and a mint vinegar and I passed round a variety of herbs to taste and smell fresh from the garden as well as a small selection of double infused oils and salves.

They asked lots of questions and seemed to enjoy themselves. They were especially pleased to find someone bringing alcohol for free into the pub! (They got to try one of my aromatic tonic wines.)

What I was wondering, I know Jenny, Linda, Jan Greenland, Christina Stapely and several other medical herbalists are busy doing talks - especially during Herbal Medicine Awareness week - but do we have other members, besides Lynn Tan Watson and myself who are "out there" promoting herbs to the general public? By this I mean talking to organised groups such as gardening clubs rather than lecturing hapless passers by on the merits of nettles or dandelions!

Sarah

Hi Sarah

Glad the talk last night went so well, not surprised really as your workshops are brilliant, I always come away with a new nugget of herbal knowledge and always feel good at the end, I think it could be down to a mix of your enthusiasm and being in the same room as like minded people?

Jenny is trying to get together a list of people who will do herb talks for the Herb Society, as you'll see when your get the latest issue of Herbs. It would be wonderful if we can get more people involved, I'd certainly like to do some form of talk in the future, just need to find my 'talking feet'. I'd certainly be interested to hear if anyone is doing talks along the lines you describe around my neck of the woods. Nothing much herbal seems to go on in Derbyshire!!!

Could I be cheeky and ask you to take some Herb Society leaflets with you to your next talk? Same goes for anyone else, if you know somewhere that you could leave some of our leaflets to help promote the society and maybe help get some new members please drop either myself or Flick an email with your address and we'll organise sending you some.

Debs

It's funny you should mention the leaflets, because I was only thinking I could do with some as I was packing my things up on Tuesday night!

If Flick could send me some, that would be great.


Sarah