Joining in

13th June
Nearly 70 WI members gathered at the Holiday Inn, Aylesbury at noon today for the Literary Lunch 2012. The sun shone so they could wander out into the courtyard to enjoy their welcome drink before sitting down to a very nice lunch. The guest speaker was Roma Tearne whose novels we know from our book groups are very popular with WI members. We were especially lucky because we were able to buy copies of Roma's latest work which is not being released until 5th July.To actually have her to speak this week was a bit of a coup as she is about to launch a film at the National Gallery in 2 days time.Roma is an artist and a film-maker as well as a novelist. She left Sri Lanka at the start of the civil unrest and this country, coloured by her own and her family's experiences, features in 3 of her novels. Because she describes the brutal torture which occured in that country, she will never be allowed back to visit. Many of Roma's concerns reflect the campaigns of the WI such as Violence against Women, the closure of libraries and Amnesty International.I think several of us listening to her, wondered how such a little person could be so powerful in her writing and her art. She knew nothing about the WI but was very impressed by the sense of fellowship in the room, based on village groups within the county.Her next book, like "The Swimmer", is based in Suffolk in a small village community in the 1950s/1960s so she asked us for the WI contact numbers in Ipswich so that she can research the WI activities in a rural setting.

6th June
The local WI meeting was a first in one way as the Town Mayor was invited to be our speaker. He had been warned that he couldn't express party political sentiments and he avoided that possible pitfall. He brought along maps of the town, wish lists and notes of costs for various services or constructions that might find their way on to our desired features.So in small groups we set about the planning of our town over the next 20 years.Amazingly the members agreed that we would need another 400 houses but where to put them? Your backyard or mine? How can our little town, blessed with an extremely busy road right down the middle, an inconvenient Health Centre, a dodgy bus service,little food shops with hardly enough space to function and limited local employment cope with the demands of a growing population which we want to use the town as a town, and not just a place to sleep?
You can imagine the level of noise in our hall! But we sent the Mayor away with plenty of ideas and we secretly felt that the WI members could make a good job of sorting out problems in planning because we are very practical people.It is a pity more WI members don't have the time to become councillors or members of parliament: a cry which has gone up from the NFWI for many years.

3rd June
I hope everyone has enjoyed the Jubilee and been able to celebrate the event in some way or other. Our little town pulled out all the stops so that every organisation or group within it was catering for a part of the population at some stage of the weekend. The inhabitants responded and braved the ghastly weather in true Blitz spirit. If the Queen can do it, so can we.The WI part in all this was to provide a 3 course dinner for the amateur players' production of Our Glorious Queens. It was a lot of work, both in the planning and in the serving but everything went well.These big events always do, if everyone does what is asked of them or what they have volunteered to do; no more, no less.I remember being told that was the secret of being a good WI member, that and coming to the regular monthly meeting.