MFWI News

Ashford WI Craft group took advantage of the relaxing of Covid regulations at the end of March to begin April with a meeting in the park. Only four of the six members were able to be there but despite the cold wind they enjoyed meeting in person.

Our monthly Zoom meetings have continued with Sarah Lott showing us how to capture and share our life stories.

The newsletters, coffee mornings, book club have been joined by the script reading group. All are playing a part in keeping our members entertained and connected.

Doorstep deliveries are keeping our members without internet informed and involved with a safely distanced chat.

We were delighted to welcome Jo May to our April meeting for a workshop in playing the spoons.

Jo is a professional Orchestra Playing Percussionist with an avid interest in the art of spoon-playing. She is particularly interested in its folk music applications in Ireland and in the American Bluegrass Hillbilly tradition. Jo outlined the different types of spoons you can use from ordinary metal spoons to plastic measuring spoons.

She then took us through the different techniques of making music with them, starting off with gentle taps, how to do drum rolls and how to develop rhythm.

We ended with everyone joining in a singing and spoon bashing version of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor. We’ll let you know when we form the West Ealing WI Spoon Players Band!

We’re still keeping a close eye on updates from the Government and very much hoping that our May meeting will be the last one on Zoom.

We can’t wait to get back into the community centre and see our members in person again, especially those who haven’t been able to join our online meetings.

We are delighted that we have been able to hold our monthly meetings online over the past year, enjoying a rich variety of talks and even recruiting some new members.

We have had talks on topics ranging from Egyptian archaeology to black holes, and heard from speakers ranging from a professional dating matchmaker to a remarkable female adventurer who circumnavigated the world solo.

Despite the limitations of being online, we have also managed to bond over activities including book folding, at-home scavenger hunts, baking and photography competitions, bingo, quizzes and a hilarious self-portrait contest.

The meetings have provided a real lifeline over the various lockdowns – and our president Sarah has proved to be the most fantastic Zoom host (thank you Sarah!)

We also managed a wonderful summer garden party in the break between lockdowns – which was such a success we hope to make it an annual event.

We recently held our AGM online – the voting thankfully made easier in that we only had one candidate for President!

And we’re very much looking forward to the year to come – with upcoming events including talks ranging from beekeeping to taxidermy, as well as (Covid allowing) a local history walking tour, a visit to Harrow’s Headstone Manor Museum, a fitness class and of course our summer garden party!

Harlington members came along in the morning to our local garden centre carpark to collect their ‘goody bags’ prepared by the committee in advance of the April meeting.

The bag contained the usual newsletter where members have shared recipes, poetry, funny anecdotes, photos and jokes. Along with the WI 2021 booklet was an easy pattern for members to crochet roses or a single red rose to wear on St George’s Day (23rd April). We also included:

• an adult colouring page (members to bring them along to our next meeting)
• a handmade bookmark (Crafted by Anna), Spring Wordsearch.
• sunflower seeds to cultivate and enter in a competition next September (largest head and tallest plant)
• and of course what the WI is good at homemade fruit cake and tea. Lots of fun things to keep our members busy.

At the start of our evening Zoom meeting a five-minute upper body exercise routine was led by Rosemary. Yve from MFWI digital team gave a talk about staying safe online and members were able to ask questions during the presentation We all learnt a lot from her expertise.

Three members enjoy an April birthday so Happy Birthday was sung, their cards and gifts had been distributed in their goody bags. Two members have expressed an interest in becoming Joint President and Assistant Treasurer, all members have re-joined and we have one new member.

Members are looking forward to the end of lockdown and we can all return to meeting in venues until then our May meeting will be daytime in the park followed by an evening Zoom. The topic will be Resolutions, The origins of Coffee and a quiz.

A vote of thanks went to Rosemary for facilitating the interesting meeting and all the members of the committee for keeping Harlington so full of fun and fellowship. We are all looking forward to the relaxing of covid restrictions and taking our WI forward.