Crowborough Flower Club began as an afternoon club held on the 4th Wednesday of the month in All Saints Church hall and later moved to St Michael's Jarvis Brook. At that time the club was very successful, having a large membership coming from Crowborough and surrounding areas. Each month they held a club competition and invited a demonstrator who would demonstrate for the first half of the meeting and then judge the competition. There was also an annual club competition where engraved silver cups were given to the winners.
Sadly by 1980 club membership had dwindled and it was impossible to find enough volunteers to take on the duties of running a flower club.
At this point two or three ladies decided to hold an evening demonstration and invited as many friends as possible to see if it would be viable to start an Evening Flower Club.
This is how the new Crowborough Evening Flower Club was born, meeting on the 1st Thursday of the month at the old CCA Hall in Park Road.
When the original Crowborough Flower club folded they very kindly donated £100 pounds in cash, all their trophies and all their drapes as well as their best wishes, to the new club.
Our meetings began at 8pm, usually having a demonstrator, often with a club competition and these were well supported. After many years we changed our venue to All Saints Church Hall were we stayed until 2012 when we changed to the new Crowborough Community Hall at Pine Grove, starting our meetings at 7:30pm.
Over the years we have had some wonderful demonstration experiences and always at Christmas time we have Open Evenings to some very packed audiences.
One of our aims, over the years, has been to be an integral part of the local community, raising a lot of money for local charities by putting on flower festivals, sales of flower arrangements, coffee mornings, cheese and wine parties, and summer candle lit suppers.
We had our thirtieth anniversary a few years ago with a wonderful demonstration followed by afternoon tea, and a great time was had by all.
Through the years, members have represented the club in many competitions winning various awards. The Club still participates in major NAFAS events and last year, in the club’s name, two of our members entered the Floral Design competition at the Chelsea Flower Show 2013, and came away with a coveted silver medal.
As a result they were again invited to enter the 2014 show and have happily gained a second Silver award for Floral Design at RHS Chelsea 2014.
Again our two members were invited to enter the 2015 show and again gained a third Silver award for Floral Design at RHS Chelsea 2015. In 2016 they were even more successful and gained a Silver-Gilt. In 2017 they gained yet another Silver award. They took a sabbatical in 2018 but returned in 2019 to win another Silver-Gilt.