BBC4:the WI as others are viewing us

25th June
Another evening in the pub! This was the final meeting to plan our literary event. We have got down to the details now: where to find 30 cruets etc.We are also rather shell-shocked by the popularity of this meeting and hating turning people away but it is absolutely impossible to cater for more safely so we shall have to plan another similar get-together as soon as possible.
Of course being out of the house we all had to miss the BBC4 programme on the WI and I am told that you cannot video from this channel. Let's hope it is repeated.
27th June
Tonight was the local WI committee at which we discussed plans for the town show and for catering in the garden for a neighbouring WI and whether we could undertake some sort of basic cookery skills course for young mothers and children similar to the NFWI Let's Cook idea.
There was much talk of the Hissing of Summer Lawns programme. Everyone seemed to think it was a good programme which left much to discuss. Apparently it centred on a new WI on the Isle of Wight which was proving very successful but so divorced from the accepted norm for WIs that it was in danger of stepping beyond the constitution.The general opinion among the committee members was that it was a mini war between the federation and the new president and their money was on the establishment to win!
28th June
The meeting of the Education&Current Affairs sub-committee also chatted about the TV programme which I still haven't seen.Plans are being made for forthcoming events so this involves lots of letterwriting and phone calls to possible speakers and hall curators.I filled my car with equipment for the literary event and spent the evening at home practising with the Public Address system which must have given the neighbours quite a surprise! I think I have mastered it but these things are so sensitive that they need tender maintenance between events.It would also help if instructions were not written in Korean.
!st July
At last I have watched the Programme even though it meant sitting up until 12.30am. No wonder everyone is talking about it! I tried to look at it as a non-member and I could see how some of the views of young Amy would appear justified.And give her her due, she did pay her respects to what the WI had achieved and showed enthusiasm for current campaigns. What she didn't grasp was that much of what had been achieved had been done by people very like herself who had found the best way to tackle it.Amy thought she was breaking new ground by having controversial topics on the WI programme ("Look at me ruffling feathers" syndrome) when way back in the 1940s WIs were debating venereal diseases, divorced women, violence in the home etc.Every WI has always chosen its own programme and created itself to be what its members want.
I really felt for the girl when every president's nightmare came true and the speaker either doesn't turn up at all or is dreadfully late.
As a WI member who perhaps doesn't know what's what in the constitution, the programme might lead her to think it is OK not to keep accounts of the money, not to pay any notice of basic hygiene rules when preparing food and to fail to ask for nominations for the committee and president at the annual meeting.Also it came across that one needed to have a pretty substantial income to belong to the WI.Yarmouth may have the most members in the country but there was only 48 at the annual meeting. Are these members really members or just cherry pickers who pay their subs and don't attend ordinary WI meetings and therefore become an economic liability to the WI?
As an experienced WI member I was a bit surprised that the federation didn't ensure that the producer pointed out that Amy had been co-opted onto Executive ie invited to serve on the committee, not voted in. It will be up to the other WI members on the Island to elect her at the end of the next 2 year stint and she may well have upset a few people by then.
I don't know whether it was wise to invite the other three members of Yarmouth as well. Could have echoes of a Trojan horse there!
Actually like many other watchers of the programme I think that the relationship between the IOW Federation and the new president will be beneficial to both parties and that the establishment will be able to channel Amy's enthusiasm into a more traditional mode of operation and as her own member observed "She'll learn".
2nd July
The second programme was very different and highlighted another side to the WI. This was again someone thinking outside the norm in planning an outward bound event for a traditional WI with all the risks involved.It was very funny too.Did you notice the sparkle in everyone's eyes when they came in for lunch? They were really enjoying themselves.The main emphasis though was in the different personalities within the branch and the place of the WI within the village community.The social benefits afforded by a group helping each other recover from illness or trauma was acknowledged but we also saw the failure to consider the feelings of others which lost a member.
Here was another style of recruitment in the work of Mary, the WI Adviser.There was the fun element as well as the hard work and commitment at the Yorkshire Show and I bet there were many WI members who recognised the basic appeal of the WI from this piece of film.