Another month and another fun-filled June Newsletter.
Here’s a link to download the PDF from the Middlesex Federation website—please share with family and friends and help spread the WI word!
Middlesex News – June 2023
MFWI News
Chair’s Chat – June 2023
Hello everyone
I hope that you are all well and have enjoyed the Bank Holidays.
I don’t know what we will do this month without any!
Several WIs have been sharing their events and photos from the Coronation celebrations; it was great seeing all of the banners and flags everywhere and it looks like many people had a great time with picnics and street parties.
Whatever you did, I hope you had a wonderful time.
My own WI is a member of Spelthorne Group and we recently held our Spring Group Meeting.
As usual, a good time was had by all and a highlight of the evening was the fantastic entertainment by Lindsay Barrell and her team, from WIs in Essex Federation. What an inspirational lady! She gave an amusing and uplifting talk on how she found friendship through the WI and how she was inspired to use her performance art to raise funds for charity.
If you get the chance to see her show, do go—it is great! As one of our members said, it made her feel happy—and that can’t be bad! Turn to page 5 for a report.
However, our meeting did remind me that there are very few of our WIs organising full Group Meetings.
I wonder why that is? It is great to get together with local WIs, even if it’s just for a party in the park! I know that several WIs meet up informally, so why not take the next step and arrange a ‘real’ group meeting?
If it’s anything like our last one, you will have a great time.
Turn to page 4 or see our website for a list of all our groups: time to get in touch and organise to meet up?
By the time you are reading this, we will have had our Annual Meeting in Cardiff. More about that in the next edition… But turn to page 3 for some images from the meeting (and the trip there)!
Have a good month.
Angela
Middlesex News – May 2023
Here we are with a bright and cheery Middlesex News for May: spring is here, the King has been crowned and hopefully its not raining where you are!
It’s May Newsletter time: here’s a link to see what we’ve been up to in the last month—do take look!
Remember you can see an archive of our old newsletters here: have a delve if you’re a new member and see what we got up in years past. Middlesex news archive
We are going to try to add to this with older issues over the coming year, too.
Chair’s Chat – May 2023
Hello everyone
Hello everyone. I hope you are all well and enjoying the three Bank Holidays this month! Let’s hope that the weather is kind to us.
I am sure that several of you will be busy planning for the King’s Coronation—I know that my WI is.
Maybe you are looking forward to watching the event on television, or are planning an afternoon tea or street party? Whatever you do, I hope that you have a great weekend—and don’t forget to send in the photos!
There are also some lovely Coronation makes in My WI if you are feeling crafty, so why not have a go?
You may remember that Board member Julia Lewis has organised a theatre trip in May to see Frozen. I hope that all who are going enjoy yourselves; I saw the show last year and it is truly magical, whatever your age.
Hopefully, Julia will be organising more theatre visits soon.
There are also other events in the pipeline, so watch this space.
It’s not long now until our Annual Meeting in Cardiff, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of you there.
The Annual Meeting is when we debate and give our final votes on this year’s Resolution, Clean rivers for people and wildlife.
Please ensure that your delegate knows how your WI wishes to vote.
The National Federation has announced two excellent speakers for the meeting: World Cup winning Cricketer Ebony Rainford-Brent MBE, and Laura McAllister, former International Footballer and now a Professor of Public Policy at Cardiff University.
I am sure they will entertain us after the hard work discussing the Resolution!
For those coming on the MFWI coach, we might just have a quiz for the journey…
Have a good month.
Kind regards
Angela
MFWI Annual Council Meeting 2023
What a fabulous day we had at The Questors Theatre in Ealing for our 2023 Annual Council Meeting on Monday 20 March.
It was amazing to get back together in person for the first time since 2019 in a lovely venue, only made even better by two truly fabulous speakers. Presenters stood at the front of a thrust stage with the set of Death on the Nile behind, adding an exotic atmosphere to the proceedings!
To echo Angela’s comments, members who were not there really did miss out on a lovely time. We’ve had much lovely feedback from so many of our members, which is very reassuring.
Enjoy these photos of the day!
Scroll down for our Federation Archivist Liz Alcock’s take on the day.
Liz Alcock’s ACM Reflections
Boss: So, the ACM… Would you introduce and thank the morning Speaker?
Me: No probs… after all I was President of Finchley WI for a few years AND faced classes of boys for 19+ years!
Boss: Oh! And can you give a report on archiving?
Me: Sure thing!
The ACM day arrived, and me—with a spare folding table and folder of Introduction & Report. But (you knew there’d be one, didn’t you?), after a brief chat with the awesome and very friendly Bonita Norris I took the spotlight at the podium… and started shaking! I really had no idea how I was progressing with my short contribution, but I assumed the delightfully kind audience laughed with me rather than at me, but laugh they did. To be honest, it was a relief after all the serious facts and figures of business! Bonita was fabulous, as were her magical slides.
Lunch break gave time to wander, reconnect with old friends and make new ones then it was onto the afternoon session. Shorter (no business except me again; I do hope everyone got the message to contact me with any queries) and extremely well entertained by the versatile actor, Eliza McClelland. Such professional skill, relaxed and fun. Could have listened (and laughed) with her for hours!
Then—all too soon—we were folding away tables, loading cars and wandering off with silly grins stuck to our faces.
If you attended, thank you for generous tolerance of a newbie. If you thought it wasn’t worth coming—you were wrong! You missed a treat, but don’t beat yourselves up—we’ll do it all over again next year and will welcome you with the open arms of WI sisterhood!
Chair’s Chat – April 2023
Hello everyone
I hope you are all well.
Well, where do I start this month’s Chair’s Chat? Ah I know, the Middlesex Federation Annual Council Meeting!
What an excellent day we had! I do hope that those of you who attended enjoyed it. For those who didn’t attend—where were you??
As I have mentioned, we changed our venue this year to Ealing, to hopefully make it more accessible to more WIs and several have said it worked well for them.
The location was very good, with plenty of space to eat your lunch or cafes and coffee shops a few minutes walk away.
We had two excellent speakers, Bonita Norris and Eliza McClelland; totally different, but they really complemented each other.
I would like to thank Gill Wildman from Hayes Town WI and her team of Stewards who helped to organise our visitors, Mary Jeffery and Maureen Stone from Stanwell WI who provided an excellent raffle and our super Secretary Georgina who was sorting everything out behind the scenes.
Of course, special thanks go to the Board of Trustees, who worked so hard to organise this event—it wasn’t easy!
Many thanks as well to all members who attended. I have had some lovely feedback from those who did attend, I am really pleased that you enjoyed it.
However, on a less positive note, we were very disappointed in the number of members who actually came. We have over 1500 members from 44 WIs in Middlesex and only a fraction of that number attended.
Why is this?
I know some of you are still a bit apprehensive about attending large gatherings and I understand this, but we really hoped that more members would come along, especially as it was the first major meeting for us since lockdown.
We changed the venue, to make it more accessible to more WIs and we had inspiring and amusing speakers. I am not sure what else we could have done.
I would be really grateful if you would give us some feedback of why you didn’t attend.
Is there something else you would like from these meetings? We have to do ‘the business’, but after that we are always open to your thoughts and ideas.
As mentioned, the Federation is hoping to put on more events in the coming year. We are starting with a Theatre outing to Frozen on 12 May, which Julia Lewis is organising for us. More information was sent to WI Officers on 27 March.
Finally, It’s renewal time for those of you who have a paper version of the Newsletter, Information on how to order has been sent to your Secretaries.
Have a good month
Angela
Middlesex News – April 2023
It’s a bit late but it’s here: our April newsletter landed in our members’ inboxes today, with hard copies on their way to those who subscribe.
Here’s a link to download the PDF—please share with family and friends and help spread the WI word!
Middlesex News – March 2023
Spring has almost sprung, and here’s your and your Middlesex News for March. We have lots of updates from across the Federation, and hope you enjoy the read! Please feel free to share the link, the PDF or a printed copy with your family, friends and wider community.
Looking for back copies? Click here for them!
Chair’s Chat – March 2023
Hello
As I am writing this the sun is shining and the early daffodils are starting to bring the garden alive again.
I really love Springtime. I know that in this part of the world we are quite lucky with the weather, but it really lifts the spirits when the warmer weather comes along.
The Board of Trustees is still busy planning our first face to face Annual Council Meeting since before the pandemic.
As you probably know, we have changed the venue this year, mainly in the hope that more members will be able to attend —the theatre has excellent transport links. Many thanks to Board member Julia for recommending her local playhouse!
I do hope we will see a lot of you there.
Tickets are available from your Secretary or from Federation Office and you will be able to order a packed lunch, bring your own or take a short walk to the local cafes. If the weather is nice there is a lovely park just opposite the theatre. We also have two excellent speakers, so I am sure that you will have an enjoyable day.
The deadline for Resolution votes has now passed and the results for the Middlesex Federation WIs have been sent to National Office.
The results for Middlesex were: Save our Water – 210, Women to Women – 67, Online Gambling – 218, Clean Rivers – 299. The total number of votes cast was 794.
Thank you to all WIs who took the time to discuss the Resolutions and send in their votes—but it was a bit disappointing that this was only approximately half of our membership. However, I am sure that we are all looking forward to finding out which Resolution has been chosen to be voted on at the Annual Meeting – we should hear the results at the end of the month.
As you know, we are hoping to start organising some Federation events and one suggestion was a cross-Federation quiz.
As soon as we have more news we will be in touch—so please do put your thinking caps on!
Take care and keep in touch.
Kind regards
Angela
Chair’s Chat – February 2023
Hello
…and a belated Happy New Year to you all.
I do hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and are now looking forward to what the next few months have to bring.
I always feel that this is a strange time. Lots of people make New Year Resolutions, but how long to we keep them up?
One I am really trying to keep to is to get out and about more.
During lockdown our daily walk was a blessing and it’s easy to forget how much just getting out into the fresh air raised our spirits—I want to get that feeling back! Maybe I will start counting my steps…
By the time this reaches you, your WIs will have hopefully had their Resolutions meeting and maybe some of you attended the Zoom presentation. I hope you have found the Resolutions interesting this year and have made your choices.
Please remember that your votes need to be with the Federation by 14 February at the latest, either via your WI or directly from yourselves.
At the moment, your Federation Trustees are busy arranging our Annual Council Meeting, the first face to face meeting since 2019. We are so excited to be doing this and I really hope that many if you will be able to attend.
You will see that we have changed the venue this year. We have done this to try to make it easier for all areas of the Federation to be able to get there—it has excellent transport links.
However, the downside is that there is very limited parking, other than in local pay-for car parks. I am sure you will understand that finding suitable venues in our area is quite difficult; we think that this venue offers lots of benefits and I do hope that you will come along and enjoy the day.
Also coming up is the NFWI Annual Meeting in Cardiff. As you know, there has been a reduction in the number of tickets available; this was because of the lower numbers who applied to go to Liverpool last year. I know that some of you have been disappointed as you have been unable to attend, but don’t forget you can join in the day via Zoom. Details are available on the WI website.
Let’s hope more of us will be able to attend next year!
As we look forward to the warmer weather, we are hoping to do more to bring individual WIs together. Do you have any ideas? What would you like to see Middlesex doing? Do let us know your thoughts.
Finally, have you ever thought about joining the Federation Board as a Trustee?
It isn’t an onerous job and we are a friendly bunch! It is an interesting way to find out more about the WI in general, both locally and nationally and really won’t take up too much of your time. Our meetings are hybrid, both face to face and via Zoom, so please don’t worry if attending County Office in West Drayton is a problem.
If you are interested, please get in touch with me or any Trustee.
Angela