Membership of the Yorkshire Society rocketed after the group held its first international meeting at the Red Lion Pub - in Houston, Texas.

Yorkshire folk and Americans alike gathered for the branch meeting of the society, which celebrated its silver jubilee year in Bradford last year.

Yorkshire-born Arlene Graiff organised and chaired the meeting in the city famous for being the home of the NASA Space Centre.

Mrs Graiff, sister of Yorkshire Society vice-chairman Geoff Walsh, spends half of the year in her native Yorkshire, where she regularly attends society meetings, and the other half in Houston.

The mother-of-three set up the meeting after being approached to help expand the society, which already has branches in Jersey and London.

And just through word-of-mouth 24 people attended the meeting, with 22 of them signing up to become members.

The gathering was held at the suitably English Red Lion pub, which serves traditional pub grub and is run by a Yorkshireman.

"I was quite surprised to find out how many people were interested," said Mrs Graiff, who was born in Badsworth, near Pontefract.

She said attendees were a mix of those who had moved from Yorkshire to Houston, Americans with Yorkshire heritage and those with nothing more than an interest in the county.

Mrs Graiff said the group planned to meet for various events, such as meals, pub nights and shows, where a Yorkshire Society stand will distribute information to visitors.

And she said she hoped the international links would encourage travel swaps and business contacts between Yorkshire and Texas.

"We have good weather, it's a good place to visit. This is one of the things that the Yorkshire Society is encouraging people to do, Houston in the winter-time is a very nice place to be," she said.

Yorkshire Society chairman Keith Madeley said he was very excited by the first international meeting.

"This is fulfilling our ambitions," he said. "To get America on the society map is fantastic."

Mr Madeley said another group was also in the pipeline for Australia.

Around 700 individuals and almost 300 groups are society members.

"We are really building up our membership and the influence of our society," Mr Madeley said.