Poetry and dance

22nd October
After about a year's planning the local WI held its annual fund-raiser, an international evening concentrating on dance.We were delighted to welcome 92 people from different organisations in the town as well as members from neighbouring WIs.We bought in fish and chip suppers but provided home-made desserts. The Indian dancing performed by Geet Kala's little troupe was very good but it was the Morris Dancers who stole the show.I think we could all appreciate the steps and timing with their sticks far better when seen up on a stage rather than on the village green.The reggae singing was interesting but we would have liked more story-telling from the Caribbean compere.The hall looked good and there was an attractive display of Indian materials and jewellery for the audience to look at during the interval.The guests seemed to have enjoyed themselves so when the dust has settled we will start to plan another different event for next year.
The morning's Daily Telegraph featured the WI on the front page where our National Chairman was complaining that there are not enough women in the Cabinet to stand up for women's concerns.This is especially disappointing to the WI because our campaigns, such as combatting violence in the home, need Government support.I think we agree that we want the best and most honest people to be Cabinet Ministers whatever their politics or sex. However, to expect half its members to be women is unrealistic: the pool of women MPs from which these must come, is so much smaller than the male so the standard would have to be skewed to do this.What we should be going for is more women becoming MPs and that cannot happen until childcare facilities and care of the elderly are both improved to free women to think of entering politics.For many years this has been the aim of NFWI for more women to become parish councillors, town councillors and magistrates and so work their way into Parliament.The ability is there: it is the time that is lacking.

11th October
Our WI Book Group met this afternoon and because of a slight hiccup in planning we had all taken home different books to read---not the usual "set" book. Several different novels by Jodi Piccoult and some poetry selections from Carol Ann Duffy, Andrew Motion, Seamus Heaney and Roger McGough were the objects for discussion.Some readers found Jodi Piccoult's books rather upsetting to read.Even when they knew that the author always dealt with a controversial social issue, they didn't want to get so involved with the problem but felt compelled to carry on reading which is a mark of her success as a writer, I suppose. We wondered how the poetry would work out in the Group but it was a great success. We picked out favourite poems and read some of them aloud. We even considered how different the writing of verse had become since we were schoolchildren. How much easier it was to learn poetry in our youth and how it sticks in one's memory down the years.The real mark of success was that some of the readers intend to borrow the poetry from the library and to buy some for Christmas presents. Perhaps we ought to do it again.