From this month's newsletter

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER 2007

As the golden hues of Autumn fade it so lovely to see all the winter flowers around at the moment.  The beautiful crimson reds of the poinsettias and the gorgeous pinks of the cyclamens look so vibrant and brighten up the darkest of winter days. The 22^nd December is the Winter Solstice and the shortest day of the year which means after that we will get a little bit more daylight each day!

 I am sure by now most of you are preparing for the Bayram and Christmas holidays.  What a hectic time it can be with all the present shopping and preparing the food for the festive season.  Don’t forget to take a little time out for yourselves and relax!

 November has been a busy month for Corona too.  Not just with all the preparations for the Bazaar, but with events as well. The Bobbi-Brown make-up demonstration at Harvey Nicholls proved a very popular event. Ayse and Jo were given a make-over and looked gorgeous! Along with some tasty nibbles supplied by Gilt Restaurant it made a fun event. 

 We had a lovely time at the Pot-luck lunch at Aileen’s house in Zekeriakoy. Aileen had made a beautiful display of the Corona Christmas cakes, pudding and chutneys which were for sale.  As usual everyone excelled themselves with some wonderful dishes for us all to try.  Congratulations to Anne Price on winning one of our large Christmas cakes in the raffle.  Thanks go to Julie Davies who had iced and decorated the cake. The raffle raised 195 YTL which was fantastic. We also raised 875 YTL from the sale of our cakes, puddings and chutneys which we sold to our members. Thank you Aileen for hosting the lunch especially when you had the builders arriving the next day to replace your kitchen!!

 

Buying our produce!

Pot-luck!

                                                                                                                 

The Corona cake stall at the Bomonti Christmas Bazaar made 750 YTL which we gave directly to the Sisters.  This was a huge amount that we raised this year.  We would like to thank everyone who kindly baked and donated cakes for the stall and who helped out on the day.  The Sisters very much appreciate the donation.

Janice Beaney hosted the November coffee morning at her home on the Asian side.  She made us all welcome with some delicious savouries and scrumptious cakes. Although Janice is fairly new to Istanbul she has certainly made her self very much at home in her beautiful apartment.  Thank you Janice for your hospitality.

The same week, twenty of us headed back across the Bosphorous for a visit to the Selimye Military Barracks at Hyderapasa for a tour of the Florence Nightingale museum. We saw a fascinating glimpse of her life there and I think we all found out some interesting facts about her that we never knew.  Rumour has it that she fell in love with a Turkish Major and that is how she came to be in Istanbul! There are some amazing old photos and a life size bronze frieze of Turkish soldiers.  We saw into what was her surgery and read some of her handwritten letters.  She certainly made a difference to the hygiene and standard of nursing on her wards.  While she nursed mainly the British soldiers she also helped nurse some of the Turkish soldiers as well.  I wonder if she struggled with the language!

 Now for all the news on the IWI Christmas Bazaar. Preparations continued through November with more chutney, marmalade and lemon curd making.  Seventeen ladies joined in the day at the Ceylan Intercontinental to wrap up all the Christmas cakes and puddings.  A lot of time and effort was put into making them look so decorative and it certainly paid off – they looked beautiful. As the saying goes many hands make light work!

The day before the Bazaar six of us set about decorating the stall.  With metres of burgundy and gold fabric we swathed the tables and decorated them with pine cones and baubles.  Our focal point was a wonderful replica of an English dresser behind the stall which made the stand even more eye-catching.  Autoban very kindly donated this to Corona.

On the day of the Bazaar we certainly knew when it was 12 o’clock and the doors had opened as the stall was inundated with people.  The cakes went like the proverbial ‘hot-cakes’ and were all sold within the hour, closely followed by most of the chutneys, mincemeat, puddings etc. We all felt very proud when it was announced that we won had the award for ‘Most original stall’ and received IWI medals! However, we didn’t do so well in the Carol singing contest – I think we know where our forte lies and it isn’t the singing!!!

	Our ’winning’ stall

We raised a fantastic amount this year of 3963 YTL for the IWI.  We would like to thank all of you who kindly donated food ingredients for making the cakes, chutneys and marmalades and also those who gave up a lot of time to help as well.  Helping out on the stall was Edith, Monique, Carol, Linda Harragy, Janice, Beatrice, Dawn and the committee ladies. Well done everyone for making such a success of the day!       

Our Christmas coffee morning hosted by Jacqui Anderson started December off in the festive spirit.  Jacqui welcomed us into her beautiful home with glasses of mulled wine which went down a treat with the Christmas fayre. Christmas music, decorations and a Christmas tree made it so festive.

 

Jacqui – our hostess with the ‘mostess’

Marjorie saying it’s the best ever cake!

The table was laden with so much food. Not only savoury canapés, but mince pies and of course a Corona Christmas cake, as well as various other cakes too.  Thank you Marjorie for saying it was the best Christmas cake you had tasted! We were given a cake icing demonstration by Burcu Gencoglu of Pasta Malzemeleri.  She made it look so easy! The raffle proved popular again and this time not only did we have a lovely Corona Hamper, but The Pink Angels kindly donated some hampers for the raffle too.  We raised 220 YTL of which we gave them half for their charity.

The table laden with Christmas fayre.

The cake icing demonstration given by Burcu Gencoglu.

Wednesday 12^th December will be our Christmas Lunch at the Sumahan Hotel at Cengelkoy.  We have sold all 46 tickets which is great. For those of you who are going can you please be at Kurucesme at 11.15 a.m. The boat will come to the Iskele opposite Royal Motors & Yamaha. There is parking nearby at Mado or Migros. 

The Corona Committee would like to wish all our members a very pleasant Bayram, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Peaceful New Year.  Thank you for all your support.

January's events are listed on our calendar page.

 

contact us : coronaistanbul@hotmail.com