28th February
I have been reading the latest issue of the WI Life magazine and was most interested in the article about blogging. I hope it will encourage the WI members in Bucks to blog. The examples described in the magazine were very professionally produced; several of them seemed to be promoting businesses as well as hobby interests. They also included photos and pictures which of course this one never has done. The article stresses how easy it is to blog which is what I have been saying for years but it is obvious why I don't receive comments. I have never gone into other people's blogs. It all depends on what you are aiming to achieve by your blog. If it's an advertising tool or a form of chat show, fine. This one isn't: I set it up with the blessing of BFWI to illustrate the various activities a WI member in Bucks could enjoy, a form of advertising I suppose or a promotional item.Who else in Bucks WIs has a blog? Why not make contact with this blog and advise me on whether I should change the style and direction? I don't want Facebook or to Tweet but think I could liven this up a bit if it is thought old fashioned.
27th February
Today two coach loads of Bucks WI members travelled down to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. We enjoyed a marvellously traffic-free run there and back and spent about five hours roaming around the museum. The draw was the exhibition of photographs of Queen Elizabeth taken by Cecil Beaton. There were nearly 100 of them as well as film clips and Beaton's personal scrapbooks which were fascinating to read. The day also afforded time to view the collection of artefacts from all over the world and I came home suffering from an overload of colour, design and pattern in every sort of material there is.What was particularly breath-taking was a cloak made over 4 years from material spun and woven from the Golden Orb Weaving Spider---well, about a million of them were used to create the whole thing.Some drawings and paintings by Beatrix Potter were on display and the jewellery was absolutely beautiful.
21st February
The local WI Book Group met this afternoon and we talked about Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd.In spite of the violence contained in the novel, most members really enjoyed reading this thriller. It was very well written with a complicated plot and set along the banks of the river Thames from Chelsea down to Canvey Island. In fact, it was quite Dickensian when describing conditions in East London which in some ways haven't improved in the last 200 years. The story raised issues of the plight of the homeless, the corruption of the welfare state and the big business manipulation of medicinal drugs: also, rather worryingly, the amount of trained fighters released into society who may be useful to perform tasks for illegal concerns or security firms.
13th February
A fantastically busy gathering of members for the Craft Group today. Somerset patchwork has proved very popular and when the members had seen at the last monthly meeting what a beginner could achieve, we had some new people come along inspired to start.Several members are making a cosy for tea and coffee pots for the April Council Meeting competition and work has started on the exhibit for the County Show.A neighbouring WI has invited us along to a craft workshop next month and some of our members are involved with courses at local shops.The meetings of our craft group are great for swapping ideas and getting another answer to a problem that has arisen in some craft project---or come to think of it, in life in general!
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Monday, 13 February 2012
Talk amongst ourselves
8th February
The local WI Discussion Group met this evening for the first time since December and we all enjoyed getting beyond our own four walls while the snow still lay around.We set out to discuss the short list of resolutions even though our votes had been already cast at the January WI meeting. Then, the two delegates had reported back from the Selection Meeting in Aylesbury but discussion amongst 45 people is not really easy and there was pressure for time.We were fairly evenly torn between the wish for more midwives and against the closure of environmental centres.Discussing all the topics led to talk about the system of choosing resolutions and the importance of WIs following up on those passed at the Annual General Meetings.After the "set" topics we ranged back over some of the resolutions from the past and once more thanked our lucky stars for living in the age in which we are and for having seen so much progress in science and technology, knowledge in general.
3rd February
As 2012 is a big anniversary for our local WI, not just the Jubilee and Charles Dickens, we spent this morning looking through our archives and thinking about what to display when we hold our birthday event in July. Material has been squirrelled away in variuous houses across the years so we now have a list of where everything is.We need a new scrapbook for the last couple of years of photos and press cuttings. There is a danger, now that events are recorded electronically, that things might disappear from the obvious tangible records that are needed for exhibitions.What struck me was how old fashioned material looked which had been produced in our own lifetimes.Tempus fugit.
1st February
What a good meeting we enjoyed tonight. There had had to be a straight swap between speakers booked for the annual programme. About 45 members watched a butcher prepare a lamb carcass for the shop. Not one member keeled over because it was all so clinically cold. We learned about the problems besetting butchers today, a trade where there are few apprentices and many high street shops are disappearing. We touched on the butchery methods of people working in supermarkets and the damaging effect of animals travelling long distances to slaughterhouses---a subject which the WI tried to bring to more general notice through a resolution some years ago. Then the butcher handed out a quiz for members to do. I wonder how many unsuspecting males on the verge of sleep were suddenly asked "So what is the gestation period of a pig?" It is surprising the interests one develops via the WI.
Did you see the lady on Mastermind who had chosen the WI as her specialist subject? Poor woman, in the stress of the moment she forgot the name of our National Chair: she'll probably be excommunicated! Actually she did very well but didn't win the round. I wonder whether a Mastermind might go down well in Bucks. Members enjoy the quiz evenings but those are team events and not such a challenge as an individual trial.
The local WI Discussion Group met this evening for the first time since December and we all enjoyed getting beyond our own four walls while the snow still lay around.We set out to discuss the short list of resolutions even though our votes had been already cast at the January WI meeting. Then, the two delegates had reported back from the Selection Meeting in Aylesbury but discussion amongst 45 people is not really easy and there was pressure for time.We were fairly evenly torn between the wish for more midwives and against the closure of environmental centres.Discussing all the topics led to talk about the system of choosing resolutions and the importance of WIs following up on those passed at the Annual General Meetings.After the "set" topics we ranged back over some of the resolutions from the past and once more thanked our lucky stars for living in the age in which we are and for having seen so much progress in science and technology, knowledge in general.
3rd February
As 2012 is a big anniversary for our local WI, not just the Jubilee and Charles Dickens, we spent this morning looking through our archives and thinking about what to display when we hold our birthday event in July. Material has been squirrelled away in variuous houses across the years so we now have a list of where everything is.We need a new scrapbook for the last couple of years of photos and press cuttings. There is a danger, now that events are recorded electronically, that things might disappear from the obvious tangible records that are needed for exhibitions.What struck me was how old fashioned material looked which had been produced in our own lifetimes.Tempus fugit.
1st February
What a good meeting we enjoyed tonight. There had had to be a straight swap between speakers booked for the annual programme. About 45 members watched a butcher prepare a lamb carcass for the shop. Not one member keeled over because it was all so clinically cold. We learned about the problems besetting butchers today, a trade where there are few apprentices and many high street shops are disappearing. We touched on the butchery methods of people working in supermarkets and the damaging effect of animals travelling long distances to slaughterhouses---a subject which the WI tried to bring to more general notice through a resolution some years ago. Then the butcher handed out a quiz for members to do. I wonder how many unsuspecting males on the verge of sleep were suddenly asked "So what is the gestation period of a pig?" It is surprising the interests one develops via the WI.
Did you see the lady on Mastermind who had chosen the WI as her specialist subject? Poor woman, in the stress of the moment she forgot the name of our National Chair: she'll probably be excommunicated! Actually she did very well but didn't win the round. I wonder whether a Mastermind might go down well in Bucks. Members enjoy the quiz evenings but those are team events and not such a challenge as an individual trial.
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