2010 comes to an end

9th December
One of the Bucks Federation's sub-committees met today for an IT surgery to learn about the new technology which it has bought so that its members will be able to wire up speakers in a blase fashion and without undue nervous tension.Everyone should be able to see the advantage of this training at future events.It was a successful and enjoyable session. We went on to explore the NFWI website with its Moodle (training scheme), our own Bucks Federation website which is heralded for release soon and then on to the National Chairman's blog and Twitter site. We came away screen-blind but very confident; so watch out you non-users of computers we are coming to get you involved too !
This will probably be my last entry on the blog for 2010. May I wish my readers a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year with many enjoyable experiences shared in your WIs.How about a resolution for the new year to make a comment on this blog or to drop in on the WI websites at National, at Stuart Lodge and the numerous others across the county? I promise you wont feel a thing except a bit smug and deservedly so!

8th December
The discussion group members shook the snow from their boots and enjoyed a cosy evening talking about old wives tales and sayings.This was pretty light-hearted stuff after last month's talk of Care not Custody. Probably the most interesting part was the regional differences to the same saying. We almost strayed into a reprise of talk on superstitions and we came to realise that in the days before Health and Safety regulations the old wives were warning of the dangers around us in another way. What a lot were gloomy forecasts of disasters and evil designs in inanimate objects! We touched on the possible closure of our library and agreed to talk about that at our next meeting.

7th December
The book group met this afternoon and of course there was quite a bit of discussion about the possible closure of the local branch library. It would certainly be a great miss for our group as we depend on the Library Service for our multiple copies of books to read.We do sometimes buy in bulk when titles are on offer but on the whole we rely on the library. The book we had all read was The House at Riverton by Kate Morton which suffered slightly from its resemblance to Downton Abbey recently covered on ITV. Actually it had similarities with those kind of family sagas such as the Forsyte Saga and Upstairs, Downstairs: not surprisingly as we recognised that authors were using the same sources for the background of their stories. One of the references in Riverton was a book written by a maid from Gayhurst House near Tyrringham which is local to us. I tried to find it in the library stock but there isn't a copy available now.The book also had echoes of Rebecca and the Nancy Mitford books which are all treating the same period but it was well constructed, keeping its secret until the end and making everyone finish the book.

6th December
Some of our local WI members went out for a Christmas Dinner together tonight. We invite partners to these events as they are not a bona fide part of the membership and not every member wants to attend. It is a way of saying thank you for all the phone calls our partners answer, the chair-moving and the provision of a shoulder to weep on when everything WI seems in danger of going pear-shaped.These parties are always very noisy affairs and good fun. The food was excellent again this year and we hire the community bus so that no one need worry about being found driving under the influence of drink which would be very embarrassing and give the local press a gleeful opportunity for a really damaging headline.