Reports - Weekends 2026

Spring Weekend 2026

Hosted by Warwickshire Country Link groups at The Holiday Inn, Bromsgrove.

On Friday 29th May, ninety Country Link members from across the UK joined together for a weekend of fun and laughter at The Holiday Inn Hotel in Bromsgrove. Members had travelled from as far afield as Essex, Cornwall, and Ayrshire in Scotland, as well as a lot of other places in between.

On arrival at the hotel, all members were handed a welcome pack with details for the weekend, and a hand crafted slate coaster which depicted the member’s chosen day trip on the Saturday. Friday evening included a 2-course sit-down dinner, a fancy dress competition, and a disco.

On Saturday there was a choice of three day trips which members had pre-booked.

By far the most popular the first trip had thirty-nine members travelling to the Morgan Motor Company at Great Malvern which included a 2-hour guided tour of the factory. The guides were very enthusiastic explaining each process of the manufacture from start to finish. Each model is built to the customer’s own specifications. With approximately 55.000 body colours to choose from, different shades of leather, different wheel nuts, and the wooden dashboards, Morgan Motors claim that no two cars are identical. Many cars are exported to the USA and these can be recognised by the square shape of the rear number plate mount. Orders for the traditional three-wheeler varies from year to year. A special blue coloured Morgan car had been at Coniston Water to celebrate the recent revival of the Bluebird.

The factory was very quiet as there was only one or two members of staff working at the time. You can imagine how different it would be on a weekday with all of the processes taking place.

After an enjoyable lunch (of soup or a sandwich) at Coffee Lounge 44, the group moved on to a local dairy farm with 100 cows milked by two robots. There was a display of the farm machinery to look at while enjoying the hot sunny afternoon. The display included a much modified tractor pull which is used to participate in events, the next event being Hanbury Show on 4th July.

The second trip went to Worcester cathedral for a tour of the cathedral itself, with some members climbing the tower for some spectacular views over Worcester and the surrounding area. It was a lovely, fine, day which served to enhance the views. Other members enjoyed a choir rehearsal while in the cathedral. This was followed by a guided tour around Worcester city centre which the members found very interesting.

The third, and final, trip on Saturday saw seven members travel from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth along the Severn Valley Railway. The Severn Valley Heritage Railway has 16 miles of track running from Kidderminster in Worcestershire right up to Bridgnorth in Shropshire. There are four beautifully restored stations along the way. Passengers may alight at any of the stations as well as two additional request stops. Passengers travelling in original vintage carriages follow the flow of the River Severn with amazing scenery. What a surprise to see Rhinos in the safari park from the train.

It was a lovely way to spend a day with Country Linkers from Scotland, Warwickshire, Essex, and Nottinghamshire. The Scottish members returned on the Sunday for a further visit and to look at the ‘Inspiration’ exhibition train, promoting the past, present and future of the railways.

On Saturday evening we had a 3-couse sit-down meal during which the raffle took place. This was followed by a disco. A total of £1430.00 was raised for Kidney Research UK from the sale of raffle tickets on Saturday, and a bucket collection on the Friday evening. Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Sunday gave us a further three visits to choose from, again these were pre-booked by members, and everyone travelled by car today to their chosen trip:

Several members went to Forge Mill Needle Museum near Redditch where they were shown how needles used to be made. In its heyday 90% of the world’s needles were produced in Redditch, producing around 3.5 billion needles each year. A talk about Bordesley Abbey was included with this visit.

The second trip went to Croome Court, a National Trust property which is framed by the Malvern Hills and formerly the home of the 6th Earl of Coventry, having been designed by Robert Adam and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

Croome later became an RAF station, a Catholic School, and the UK headquarters of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Some members visited the gardens, and those who arrived early were able to have a tour of the house.

Finally, seven members visited Simply Alpacas, an Alpaca Farm run by the very capable Victoria. On arrival Victoria welcomed the members and showed them into her workshop, which housed the equipment for processing the alpaca fleeces. The members were treated to a presentation about the history of alpacas during which Victoria explained the differences between alpacas and llamas. Primarily llamas are considered to be pack animals in the native environment and alpacas are not. Neither alpacas nor llamas form part of the food chain! Alpacas are smaller than llamas, and are used mostly for their fleeces, and they have been domesticated for more than 500 years. Following the presentation the members were taken to meet the animals. Victoria has 55 alpacas, keeping the males and females in separate fields. She gave everyone a bowl of food so that they could feed the alpacas. The animals were all very friendly, or maybe just greedy, coming to look for food!

On return to the workshop teas, coffees, and homemade cakes were provided, after which Victoria opened her shop where she sells a variety of hand-crafted products made from alpaca yarn and felt, as well as home-made jams, marmalades, and chutneys. All of the members there bought something from the shop.

On Sunday afternoon there was the business of the national AGM at which Nigel Swain became National Chair, and Richard Rymer National Vice-Chair. All other posts remained unchanged. The ‘weekend baton’ was handed over from Lorraine to John Warwick in advance of the Autumn National Weekend to be held in Doncaster.

Finally, on Sunday evening there was another two-course dinner. Two First Responders from Redditch had been invited to join us all for dinner, after which they gave a demonstration of CPR, and how to use a community defibrillator. Members found this very useful.

After breakfast on Monday morning people said goodbye to each other, and are all looking forward to meeting up again in Doncaster in October.