In full flow

21st November
This evening the local WI hosted its Barn Dance and I think we can safely say it was a success.It was a new experience for the WI to hold this type of event so we were uncertain right up to last week about the outcome as the tickets seemed to be selling very slowly but we ended up with over 80 people of all ages and they all danced. The caller was excellent, the food was good and plentiful and the whole evening was enjoyable. We even had teenage gate-crashers which is probably a first for a WI event! Maybe barn dances are the way to attract younger members.It was our annual fund-raiser but the final sums have not been done.The important point is that it was a team effort when several members who could not attend the dance provided items for the supper.
20th November
An aside really here. When one sees pictures of people gathered in village halls and schools in Cumbria as their houses fill up with flood waters, one realises the importance of the system of emergency planning in which our WIs play such a welcome part. I bet the Cumbrian WI members are handing out tea and sympathy from those kitchens and being generally helpful.It could be us who have to report suddenly for duty in a crisis, to swing into action as rehearsed.
19th November
This morning saw the launch of the new part-time Post Office in Twyford village. There was a small opening ceremony in the United Reform Church at which the local people who had campaigned for the return of postal services to the village gathered and were duly photographed by the local press.The WI has been instrumental in raising people's awareness to the loss of services to rural communities so several of us went along to show how much this development was appreciated. It is now up to the local residents to take advantage of the new service. There are to be four other part-time Post Offices in North Bucks all run under the one peripatetic sub-postmistress so let us hope that the venture will prove a success.
In the afternoon some of us went to Stony Stratford where Bucks WI goods were on sale in a member's house. Items from the WI Shop down at High Wycombe are transported to some town in the north of the County in November every year so that WI members who cannot reach the shop may see what is available. It is also a social occasion with probably the first mincepies of the season for all to share. There was a lot of chat about the new WI logo which had been released in the November issue of WI Life magazine.We agreed it was smart and would be useful in printed paperwork but it isn't as strikingly visible as the old WI tree.It will not do the same job as our trees on boards at road ends to help identify halls used for events.Anyway we will still be able to use our wooden trees until they fall to pieces which probably wont be all that long either as they are becoming tatty round the edges.