February’s speaker is Jan Beaumont, who was originally scheduled to speak to us last September. When New Zealand entered its first COVID lockdown in
March 2020 Jan wrote her first poem “Let’s All Drink to Lockdown”, a light hearted verse
about how older people coped with being locked down for 4 weeks. She posted it on Facebook
and, within hours, it went viral, resulting in an interview on the BBC, a growing list of followers
from every continent and publications, including her own book of poems. We look forward to what the last lockdown has done for Jan’s poetic skills.

J