March 2024 65p Joyce Meader will share her knowledge of military and historical knitting. Her collection ranges from 1817 to the present day. Monday 15th July, 1:00pm - 3:30pm at The 37 Club, Puriton. THE HISTORIC KNIT KATE LYNCH RURAL ARTIST Kate will share her charcoal drawings, pastels and paintings, created to celebrate traditional rural work in Somerset. She will share her stories and demonstrate her skills. Wednesday 22nd May, 10:30am, Burrowbridge Village Hall. Both events: Tickets £12 members, £15 non members. Contact the office to book by 1st July. with Andrew Prince Wednesday 15th May at the Canalside, Bridgwater 2 course lunch with coffee 12.30pm sit down with speaker at 2.00pm For the series and film “Downton Abbey”, Andrew was commissioned to make many jewels for the main characters. This inspired him to create a talk about his involvement with the production, as well as describing the unique period within which the production was set. Clothes and jewellery are often seen as two entirely separate and distinct fields of design, but this is far from the case. Andrew illustrates the close relationship between them, as well as highlighting the many clients and patrons who ordered such magnificence. In this lecture, Andrew talks about his involvement in the series and film, together with guiding you through the extraordinary decades and events between 1890 and 1929, where the great couturiers collaborated with the finest of jewellers to produce gowns and jewels of outstanding quality and glittering opulence. Along with this, Andrew brings many of the actual jewels that he made for the film and series for guests to see. Tickets £30 members, £33 non-members Tickets are limited! Don’t delay – book today! Downton Abbey Jewellery & Fashion 1890 - 1929
2 March 2024 Our new Federation Secretary Katie Parsons is settling in well. She is will try her best to answer your queries. The WI Adviser Team are introducing an Adviser of the month starting March. Advisers will be on a rota to assist you with WI queries. I am the first Adviser on the list. I will be available at the end of the telephone 07505015106 or email teresa. [email protected] We are excited to have several events in the pipeline, look out for save the dates for your diary. There will be Day Trips and Literary Lunches. Like several Federations SCFWI Trustees are navigating financially tough time, the federation needs more income, as membership fees aren’t enough. The pandemic and the cost of living crisis have impacted our events and costs and speakers costs have increased, leading to cancellation of under-subscribed events. Please remember we are part of a bigger picture and we encourage members to participate in Federation events. Let your members know what we are arranging and join us. Our County Teams are always happy to have new volunteers. Come along and help make a difference for our members. Will you be part of this dedicated team? We are delighted to see that individual WI’s are thriving and membership is rising along with WI’s supporting members with their own activities. At present we have 108 WI’s and 2947 members. It is heartening to see we are still a popular organisation to join, as a Federated Charity we still have a voice that is listened too. SCFWI Crowd Funding page could do with a boost, take a look. Every little helps. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/somersetcounty-federation-of-womensinstitutes-1022578 Thank you Teresa, County Chairman [email protected]. Chairman's Chat Casey Worrall and Judith Laughton, our Federation Secretary and Federation Administrator, who both left us in December 2023 for new challenges. They were delighted to receive envelopes of cash generously donated by members across the county in recognition of their help, friendship and advice over so many years. PRESENTATIONS FOR CASEY AND JUDITH FEDERATION OFFICE SCFWI, 344 Bristol Road Bridgwater TA6 4BU 01278 496400 Email: [email protected] www.thewi.org.uk/somerset OFFICE OPEN 9.30am - 3.30pm, Mon - Thurs Federation Secretary Katie Parsons COUNTY NEWS Editor Annie Makepeace Email [email protected] Advertising Assistant and Gallery Co-ordinator Laura Balkwill Email [email protected] Tel: 07860 531998 Editorial for COUNTY NEWS must be received by the 1st of the month preceding each issue, by Email if possible to the Editor or typewritten copy and printed photographs to the Federation Office address at top of this page Advertising and Gallery pictures Advertising and Gallery must reach the Advertising Assistant by the 1st of the month preceding each issue Lineage: Cost per word 18p for WI members 30p for non-members (or advertisements placed on behalf of non-members.) Display: Rates and sizes upon application to the Advertising Assistant SCFWI does not accept responsibility for goods or services advertised in COUNTY NEWS The WI - Somerset wi_somerset Tel: 07790 449529 To all the ladies of the Somerset WI I’d like to say a hearty “Hello”, and an enormous “Thank you” to everyone I’ve spoken to so far. Everyone has been so welcoming and I couldn’t ask for a nicer way to start a new job! My name is Katie Parsons and I’m your new girl in the office – taking over from Casey as Federation Secretary, and what a whirlwind of a first month it has been. There’s so much to know here at the WI! I’m not new to charity life though, having been a volunteer with Scouts for the last 5 years. I also spent 3 years in a paid support role there learning skills I’m keen to use to support our WI groups. When I’m not at work I live in Cannington with my husband Ritch and my 2 children, Byron 10 and Freyja 7. I’m originally from the Midlands but somehow all my family ended up moving to Somerset, so life is a busy round of family and fun. I’m looking forward to meeting you all at our events throughout the year and you’re all more than welcome to pop into WI house for a cup of tea and a chat. In the meantime, if there’s anything you need help with, please just drop me an email or give me a call. It’s lovely to be here! All the best, Katie KATIE PARSONS
Membership Hello everyone and good wishes to you all. This month we have several items we would like to share with you. Firstly, many of you may already know that one of our long-standing WI Advisers, Margaret Lomax, has decided to take life a little easier and has retired as a WI Adviser. Margaret gave many years to this position as well as being a Trustee and Chair of several teams throughout her WI life. Many thanks Margaret for all you have done for the Federation and the WIs you have looked after over your many years of service. It will take a special person to fill your place. We wish you all the best for the future enjoying your travels and your continuing voluntary work for Musgrove Park hospital. Annual Meetings will be coming up very shortly and for most of you it will be a straightforward meeting but if you should be having problems with recruiting new officers to positions, please contact your WI Adviser and she may be able to help you. Please give her a ring or email to talk things through. Independent Financial Examiners are urgently needed to join the team to help with end of year finances. If you are one of those clever people who likes figures and can offer some help, our Adviser Finance wizard, Hilary Miller, would love to hear from you. She is holding an IFE Training Workshop at WI House on 19th June for new IFEs so if you are interested, please contact her on [email protected] and she will give you all the information. Places will be limited but more than one session can be arranged. Finally, look out later in the year for dates of the Coffee and Chat sessions which will be arranged for newly elected Presidents, Secretaries and Treasurers. Chair: Anne Chadwick At the last National AGM I attended back in 2022 (yes I missed 2023) our National Chair Anne Jones set all Counties the task of recruiting new members to grow our numbers nationally. You might ask yourselves why? Well I did, I took a moment to ask myself why I joined Walton WI back 10 years ago. I am only a baby member considering some of you have been members for many years. Walton WI celebrated its 50th Birthday last year and I was very proud to cut the cake with 4 past Presidents, one of whom was a founding member, so a member of 50 years. I joined Walton WI as I had recently moved to a new village and wanted to make new friends, learn more about the area and get involved with sewing and craft groups, all of which are offered at Walton. Since our National Chair set that task the membership of Walton has swelled, taking us up to 70 members, as we lost 5 due to illness and passing. I wanted to share with you how we have increased our numbers as I know some WI's struggle to get new members. We decided to market ourselves, bang our drum at any event we could. For example, 4 new members came via a cup of tea and a chat with me at the Walton Fun Day, which is held every year in the village. We put out our display boards up and sold tea and cake, a great opportunity to meet prospective new members. We did the same at the Merriman Park fun day in Street. We sent leaflets to estate agents to target anyone new moving into the area. Every month after our members meeting, we have a piece in the local paper courtesy of PR gal Jocelyn Haydon. The biggest recruiter has been word of mouth – our Vice President Brena Court has recruited 6 members in the last year. Why? How? As I said above, we decided to market ourselves, give ourselves a voice, carry the same message. This is that message we have all been using – try it if you wish. Our WI offers women of all ages and backgrounds a unique chance to come together and share experiences, tackling social isolation and building community cohesion. We support women to learn, develop new skills and achieve their goals throughout their lives, building confidence and improving physical and mental wellbeing. We empower women to use their voice individually and collectively to achieve real changes on the issues that matter to them. You are invited to join our monthly meetings, and as many groups as you want from our selection of: Explore your local area, Table tennis, Skittles, Craft, Ladies who Brunch, Walking Group, Garden Visits, Croquet and Indoor Games. There is an annual membership and in return you get the above, plus friendship, a monthly newsletter, a monthly magazine, annual money-off vouchers, monthly members meeting, support, laughter, chatter and a nice cup of tea and possibly a piece of cake! If you want to know more about Marketing your WI please get in touch with Katie at WI Headquarters as if we have enough interest we can run a free marketing event at WI House in Bridgwater. Shirley Routley, President, Walton WI Duty WI Adviser To relieve our Federation Secretary Katie of some of the Adviser questions, it was agreed at Membership that we would have a ‘Duty WI Adviser’ who would change each month. Duty WI Adviser for this month (March) is Teresa Hemms on 01278 683947. Walton Village Hall Saturday 15th June 7.00pm start Enjoy a fun filled evening testing (not too seriously!) your music knowledge over the decades Teams of 6 people max – get friends and family involved! £5 per head More details to follow! to Maxine Clinton, Diane Cockle and Rosemary Green from Evercreech WI who helped pack the February issue of County News. March 2024 3
4 March 2024 We need pictures to fill our gallery - please send digital pictures to the Editor at [email protected] Dundon WI together with speaker, Brian Wright and The Green Man. Liz Payne, President of Williton and Watchet WI at their Christmas lunch held at the Williton Pavilion. The delicious meal was prepared, cooked and served by students from Foxes Academy, Minehead. Pictured is a smiling Hu Fe serving Liz. Trull and Staplehay WI about to enjoy lunch at The Winchester Arms, Trull. During 2023 Pawlett WI raised £334.75 for Cancer Research UK by holding a bric-abrac stall at meetings and taking donations at their December party. Denise Emery and Ann Gibbs are pictured with Tim, Manager of the Bridgwater Cancer Research UK Charity shop, after he received the cash raised. Yeovil Wraxhill WI Craft Group enjoyed a morning of glass painting.
March 2024 5 Please continue to send in lots of photos for the Gallery, don't be shy! Showcase your events and let us all know what fun you are having. om or prints to SCFWI, 344 Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BU. We will print as many as we can each month! Leigh on Mendip WI recently celebrated their 75th Birthday Party with an evening of skittles at their local pub, The Bell. Ladies from teens to nineties attended! A fun time had by all - which, of course, included the eating of birthday cake! Having made a donation towards its cost, some ladies from West & Middle Chinnock WI had an impromptu demonstration of the new leg press at South Petherton Community Hospital by Physiotherapist Michael Hensman. Trull Trendles WI President Virginia Roache welcomed Bob Selway, speaking about his time in the Met, and members were entertained by Taunton Concert Band (below). Walton WI pictured at Ruth Ames-White's Mosaic Studio, Wells, in November 2023.
The Creative Arts team have been busy over the past months arranging events. As seen in the February issue of County News, we have a talk on historic knits by Joyce Meader and artist Kate Lynch coming up later in the year. Our first event of the year is the activities weekend at the Manor and Ashbury Hotel in Okehampton. On the 15th of March, 49 ladies will be making their way down to Devon for an action packed and fun weekend. We will take lots of photos and hopefully share them with you in the May Newsletter. In November of this year, we will be holding the ever-popular autumn and winter ‘Create a Craft’ day at the 37 Club in Puriton. Five new and exciting crafts will be available to learn, from making gonks, painting fabric, making felt robins and a few more surprises. Our plans also include the ‘Learn To’ days – we plan to hold them at WI house in Bridgwater. We want to cover things like ‘Learn to crochet’, ‘Learn to knit’ and so on, the list is endless. If you have any of these skills and you can help by teaching one day for a maximum of 12 people, please do get in touch with myself or Katie at WI House. We hope to run these days in June, July and August. In addition to these days, by popular demand, we are going to hold a pastel drawing day with Hazel Hillman for a maximum of 12 people to be held at WI house in Bridgwater. It looks like this day will be in August, so keep your eyes peeled for more information in County News. This year at the AGM we will again be having a competition as it has proven to be very popular and it was nice to see so many of you enter last year. For 2024 the competition piece will be a gift box in any medium, no bigger than 8 x 8 x 8 inches. More information will be in the April newsletter. Please note that we have taken on board what some of you said about getting the competition piece there early in the morning, so therefore we will judge it later to allow entries to arrive no later than 11.00am. We need some help in bringing more interesting things. We’ve been trying to find somebody who wants to come along to do a simple masterclass on iPhone photography, or just simple photography. It's proving a little difficult to find somebody who wants to come and spend the day with some lovely ladies, so if you know anybody who might be interested, please do get hold of myself or Katie at WI headquarters. There’s only four of us on the Creative Arts team, if you feel you would like to join us and you could give some input by zoom or in person for a couple of hours a month, please let me know, we are always looking for new voices and new ideas. I hope you agree there is a lot going on with the Creative Arts team for you, our members, and we are already making plans for 2025. Shirley Routley, Creative Arts Chair Chair: Shirley Routley CHRISTMAS QUIZ WINNERS 1st place Sarah Challes (Monkton Evening WI) 2nd place Jean Morrish (West Buckland WI) 3rd place Julie Gordon (Compton Dundon WI) Emma Mawston, former head of Design at Liberty Art Fabrics Talk at Shrubbery Hotel, Ilminster with lunch Wednesday 18th September More details to follow! 6 March 2024 Forthcoming Events for your Diary EVENT DATES VENUE CLOSING CN ISSUE Leisure and Activities Break 15 Mar Manor House Hotel, Okehampton Fully booked! October Taunton Race Day 11 Apr Taunton Racecourse First come, first served P7 Downton Abbey Jewellery Lunch 15 May Canalside, Bridgwater 1 May P1 Kate Lynch, Rural Artist 22 May Burrowbridge Village Hall 8 May P1 Music Quiz 15 June Walton Village Hall 31 May P3 The Historic Knit 15 July The 37 Club, Puriton 1 July P1 Emma Mawston Talk 18 Sept The Shrubbery Hotel, Ilminster 4 Sept P6 Thursford Christmas Spectacular 9 Nov Thursford 30 Nov January PLEASE COMPLETE BOOKING FORM (available from your secretary) AND RETURN TO 344, BRISTOL ROAD Spring March is host to the first day of Spring. Spring the season of nature’s reawakening. The Earth’s axis tilts towards the sun, the days lengthen and the weather, hopefully, becomes warmer. Animals awake from hibernation; Migratory birds begin to arrive, and the cute baby lambs appear in the fields. Our gardens are now, also, springing back to life. The glorious colours of the crocus flowers and the snowdrops nod their white heads. Daffodils and Tulips are also bursting into life bringing more colour back to our gardens. ‘When it’s Spring again I’ll bring again Tulips from Amsterdam’ is a line from a famous song, but did you buy your Tulips and other spring bulbs from Amsterdam or our WI Catalogue? We would love to see photos of your flowering bulbs. Do you have a ‘host of golden Daffodils’? Our 2024 Bulb Catalogue will be sent out to secretaries in due course.
Misterton WI says ‘Goodbye’ to Lyn Drew At our meeting on January 9th we said a fond farewell to our longest serving member, Lyn Drew, who had been a member since 1982. Lyn loved meetings at The Globe, our new venue since selling the old WI Hall in 2022. She said it had given our Institute 'A new lease of life'. She has moved to South Wales to be nearer her daughter, and will be much missed by the members of Misterton WI. Community Projects Ambassador: Hazel Hillman Hello ladies, The spring flowers are coming out and the days are getting longer and looking forward to Easter. The photos below are of a collection from WI House recently and by the time you read this they will all have gone to 'good homes' Also some other lovely things – a toy hedgehog made by Alice and baby coats by Kristin for Princess Anne's Wing at the RUH. Thank you to the following WI's ONCOLOGY Westbury sub Mendip Litton & Hinton Blewett BLANKETS Litton & Hinton Blewett Lydeard St Lawrence Woolavington Bridgwater Firecrackers TWIDDLE MUFFS Lydeard St Lawrence Horton & District Woolavington Alcombers HAND PUPPETS Litton & Hinton Blewett MITTENS Chewton Mendip WALKING FRAME BAGS Lydeard St Lawrence TOYS Litton & Hinton Blewett Lydeard St Lawrence (see photo) BABIES AND NEO NATAL Woolavington Bridgwater Firecrackers Litton & Hinton Blewett Lydeard St Lawrence Horton & District BEANIES & SCARFS Lydeard St Lawrence Alcombers DELIVERED TO Clare Hall Nursing Home, Ston Easton and Avalon Dementia Care Home, Bridgwater. I look forward to receiving more of your lovely creations for those in need and hopefully meet up at some craft days. Keep fit and well and a VERY HAPPY EASTER to you all. Hazel As I write this, we are at the end of January, where does the time go? I am desperately trying to organise events but I need a team to help me. If you can spend a few hours, every now and again and have an interest in issues that matter, especially WI resolutions past and present, please contact me on the email below. Lynda Norton lyndanortonwi-publicaffairs@ outlook.com Public Affairs Chair: Lynda Norton Tickets £90 Join us in the Orchard Restaurant, offering a first class dining experience at a window table to enjoy lunch with a birds-eye view of the entire course without leaving the table. A tote kiosk in the restaurant for ease of betting and screens to view the racing. Ticket price includes admission to the course, race card, 3 course lunch and afternoon tea with all day use of the table plus unlimited tea/coffee. Bar is available. Go outside to soak up the racing atmosphere or eye up the runners in the parade ring if you wish! Tickets are limited and available from the office on a first come, first served basis March 2024 7 And the WI ladies are off …! A Great Day at Taunton Races Thursday 11th April Starts 11.30am – last race 4.55pm
WI Learning Hub Page 1, point 3 of the WI Constitution states: The main purposes of the Women’s Institute organisation are to advance the education of women and girls for the public benefit etc. In 1948 the WI established a training establishment at Denman College, Marcham, Oxfordshire for day and residential courses. This was for WI members to learn cookery, crafts, lifestyle skills and to meet with other members from all parts of England and Wales. Denman became a popular place and centre for WI learning until 2019 when the college was put up for sale. During the pandemic Denman arranged a variety of online courses enjoyed by many members in their own homes. For £5 you could take part in craft courses, listen to interesting talks, keep fit and learn all sorts of new skills. This was called Denman at Home with courses advertised weekly. When Denman College was sold, an education fund was established to continue online courses for members without charge. On January 24th 2024 the WI Learning Hub was launched. This is a valuable free resource for members with a variety of online courses, both of interest and educational. Courses can be viewed live or available to view anytime on a catch up basis to fit in with members’ lifestyles. Enrol yourself to receive details of the courses, sit back alone or with your WI friends and enjoy. The talks and demonstrations could be streamed at a monthly WI meeting. You could learn computing, word processing, study for A levels or simply learn to crochet and knit, the options are many. This is a fantastic resource not to be missed. Sign up today! www.learninghub.thewi.org.uk 8 March 2024