MFWI News

It was a very long 518 days between meetings but we were delighted to get back into the Community Centre for our July meeting. We were thrilled to have 20 members attending our first night back and even more excited to meet some of our members for the first time in person as they joined during lockdown and we’ve only met them on Zoom before. As one of them put it ‘it’s like meeting people off the telly!’

We had planned to have a speaker from our chosen charity, St Mungo’s Ealing, to tell us about the work they do to support rough sleepers in our community but unfortunately our speaker was pinged by the Covid app. However, we luckily foresaw this possibility and had a back up of a game of People Bingo where members were given bingo cards and had to find someone who was born in another country or was wearing patterned socks or has been to Denman College. It was a lovely opportunity for members to chat and get to know each other.

We were taking it easy in our first meeting, skipping some of our usual activities until we get back into the swing of things. As such, we didn’t sing Jerusalem (although we watched a video of it being sung at the 2015 Annual Meeting) or have a raffle. We did however have cake and we were delighted that our members rose to the occasion with their cake contributions!

Sixteen members met for (hopefully) the last time in the Bandstand suitably decorated with colourful pompoms (and Penny Shervill matching with her Pom Pom sun hat!) Wendy Capehorn’s beautifully knitted Hayes Town WI bunting.

After Jerusalem and WI business , I passed some Quality Street around, but not to be eaten yet, rather each colour wrapper represented a subject members had to talk about from my list: travel, sport, and so on.

The funniest one came from Jo Johnson who announced she was a Happy Hooker to shrieks of laughter: her subject had been hobbies & her passion is… crocheting!

As it will be her and Marion Batchelor’s birthdays next week ,we stopped for yummy cakes and of course sang Happy Birthday.

Everyone is looking forward to meeting up again on 19th August in our community centre.

Two of our committee members took things to the extreme to get their exercise during lockdown by playing socially distanced badminton over their garden fence. The problem was they couldn’t see when the shuttlecock was on its way back over!

But now that things are a little more back to normal we were able to have our first meeting in July in our President’s garden.

After the catch-up on news and official business had been completed, we were able to plan our next meetings and even a day out. This was followed by more catching up, sandwiches, cake, tea, maybe a little prosecco and a raffle to complete a lovely afternoon together.

Our July meeting was Prosecco and strawberries at our first in person meeting for 16 months! 18 members had a wonderful time at our welcome back social. June brought shortbread, Ching savoury snacks and Elisa lemon polenta cake.

The most emotional point was when members spontaneously broke out in applause: it was quite a moment! Friendship and camaraderie prevailed and found a way!

We were really hoping to be back in the community centre for our June meeting but sadly it wasn’t to be as lockdown restrictions were not lifted. We also planned to meet in the park on the fifth Tuesday of June but we were unfortunately rained off. June was not our month it seems.

Instead of meeting in person, we held a scavenger hunt where people had to show us something they had made that they’re proud of and something that hangs on the walls of their house. We loved seeing everyone’s contributions, especially the imaginative contributions from the non-crafters.

Katherine showed us a picture of her pride and joy – her six children – and Sue showed us her perfectly organised collection of boutique chocolate wrappers from her job as a food judge. People had touching and personal stories about each of the items they shared and it was lovely to learn a little more about our members.

We’re hoping that for our July meeting we will finally be able to meet in person – we can’t wait!

Stanwell WI once again took part in the annual Charter Fair held on Stanwell Village Green on 26^th May, all following covid rules.

The Mayor of Spelthorne attended with his wife, alongside Stanwell WI member Sue Doran who has been appointed deputy Mayor: Many congratulations to Sue.

President Mary Jeffery and members baked cakes to sell, raising money for our local charity.

Harlington ladies met twice on 2nd June: it was our 89th birthday after all!  We met in the afternoon in Cranford Park and on Zoom in the evening to ensure those who couldn’t come to the park ‘met up’.

Firstly  we were put through our paces by Gill’s workout, we all felt a bit fitter afterwards. We are so fortunate having our very own Green Goddess, she is used to hearing the orchestra of creaky joints.

We had decided that as a way to reintroduce everyone to each other after the long gap of this latest lockdown, we would do a form of ‘Speed Dating’.

This was a very entertaining experience in organisation to try and ensure everyone spoke to everyone, we mainly achieved it and any gaps were easily covered at Tea and Birthday Cake time, such delicious cakes.

Everyone enjoyed the Speed Dating and found out some surprising things about each other, we are planning to do part two as there were more things to talk about than time allowed.

Our most talented Secretary showed us the Emotion Puppets she had knitted, a very diverse selection with a grandma with curly hair! Very inspiring and as a result I’m sure this will be the trigger for more.

Our raffle and competition are our favourite regular features  and our birthday didn’t disappoint with a clever and elegant hand made Meerkat card winning the competition and a beautiful bunch of flowers as star prize in the raffle.

 

It was lovely to see more members in the evening meeting and we did the final part of our Scavenger Hunt, which revealed yet more household treasures with some amazing Mrs Beeton cookbooks and hand signed cookbooks. There was as expected a selection of WI cookbooks.

The Post-It Notes hunt revealed Post-It Tape; this generated some Post-It Note envy, in the nicest way of course. We really enjoyed our Scavenger Hunt and would recommend it as a Zoom fun game. Roll on our 90th!

Several of our talented members have been using their lockdown time knitting, crocheting  & making pompoms, to celebrate yarn bombing day and decorate the trees in Barra Hall Park for our 28th birthday on June 17th. Unfortunately the weather with threatening skies, we reverted to ‘plan B’ and used the 1928 cast iron bandstand, with the beautiful trees all around us.

We attracted many walkers taking photos & waving, especially when singing Jerusalem. One five year old boy wanted to come inside our “fairy castle” and join us for birthday cake. His excited mother told us that her mother had been a WI member till she died at 106 years of age!

We did use some of the knitting around the bandstand poles etc but it proved difficult in the windy conditions, so have decided to keep it all for our very first meeting when we can all be together in our community centre—hopefully August?