Rise to the Challenge 2026 (part 1)
To begin the year one of our members wrote out some simple challenges, placed them in a bag, shook them up and then one by one all members of the group took out a challenge. We were each allowed one chance to swap our first”dip’ for a second if we weren’t happy with the first, and everyone had to keep their challenge a secret until our meeting scheduled to take place in July.
Last night we met to reveal some of the challenges that had been undertaken.
Invite someone for afternoon tea. Margaret invited four of her lacemaking friends round for afternoon tea (and coffee) and served meringue nests filled with strawberries and cream which were very well received.
Go to a museum you’ve never been to before.
visited The Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes which is housed in a former Victorian railway station. She showed us photos of some of the interesting artefacts and ephemera linked to life in the Yorkshire Dales on display there.
Re-read a favourite childhood book. As a child T had been a real fan of Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers boarding school series, so she was quite happy at the prospect of this challenge. She chose to read the first of the series, First Term at Malory Towers. and was surprised to discover how pedestrian and unexciting the story now seems. Young people today would probably find it boring compared to books such as Harry Potter.
Visit the birthplace and place of death of someone famous. J L chose firstly to visit the birthplace of Sarah Cox , better known as Fanny Cornforth, who may be largely forgotten now, but in her heyday was the muse, lover and nurse to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She was born in Steyning West Sussex and because she fell into obscurity after the artist’s death, her place of death was only discovered this century by searching archives for her married name of Sarah Hughes. She died in Graylingwell Hospital, (formerly the county lunatic asylum) in 1909.
Take a journey by rail or bus. J M’s first attempt at travelling to Worthing by bus to pick up her car was thwarted when the bus failed to turn up. She was forced to abandon the planned journey and took a taxi instead in order to arrive at the garage in time! Her next attempt at bus travel was an hour and a quarter journey from Horsham to Guildford to do some shopping. The journey was uneventful but a bit tiresome when travel by car would be half an hour quicker.
Look out for blue plaques in West Sussex and tell us who you found. K found two blue plaques in Horsham one to commemorate Hammond Innes the novelist who was born here in 1913 and Neville Duke, test pilot, WWII fighter ace and world air speed record holder who lived on The Causeway in 1964. K also went off piste and found two blue plaques on her travels to Plymouth, one for Nancy Astor and another for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Have a wardrobe tidy and donate any clothes no longer worn to a charity. J said her husband laughed when she told him her challenge, as she finds it almost impossible to part with any of her clothes. However, she rose to the challenge, took some clothes to the charity shop and found clothes she hadn’t worn before that she’s now wearing!
Keep a diary for a month. As it turned out, May was an eventful month for J with several ups and downs. There were some lovely countryside walks with one resulting in a trip to the Minor Injuries Unit the next day. There was a completely mystifying iMac tutorial with an expert, books read, decorating, NGS and RHS garden visits, ants in the kitchen, a visit to Goodwood Art Foundation, a family birthday and BBQ and U3a quizzes!
