Congratulations to the winners of our January 200+ Club draw!
1st prize – £35
Stanwell WI
2nd prize – £20
Dianne Butler, Stanwell
3rd prize – £15
Sunbury-on-Thames WI
MFWI News
Ruislip Evening WI update
Our WI meeting held on Thursday 2nd December at the GAA Club, McGovern Park, was our Christmas meeting. Many members wore Christmas jumpers and hats making the evening feel festive.
Dorothy and Lorraine provided various Christmas craft items, many of them recycled, for us to make a Christmas tree ornament and with advice and a demonstration to give us ideas we enjoyed making our own, while we chatted and had tea organised by Linda. Cheese, biscuits, chocolates, and mince pies were enjoyed by all.
Lesley made and donated a delicious Christmas cake for us to guess the weight – won by Hazel. A book swop was also available.
The second part of our evening organised by Lorna was a presentation from Helen Astrid, who runs a singing academy in Twickenham, on the history of Christmas carols. Carols date back to the 2nd century AD, and many of our favourite carols were mentioned together with their history.
Singing carols became popular in the Victorian times. Christmas carols, as opposed to Christmas songs, usually have a religious basis. Each of the items mentioned in the 12 days of Christmas was a metaphor for a bible story, the tree being God’s true love and the partridge, Jesus.
Helen had hoped to join us in person but still managed to join us on Zoom while we sung carols, Once in Royal David’s City, Silent Night, and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing: a lovely start to the Christmas Season. We finished the evening with member-donated gifts for a raffle.
Many thanks to Lorna who organised our Christmas meal at the Ascott in Eastcote where we had a very good meal and very pleasant evening with friends; it was so nice to be able to have a little normality in these difficult times.
REWI wishes everyone a happy & healthy 2022.
Bedfont Belles WI update
Father Christmas once again heard about our Christmas party and came along to hand out the Secret Santa gifts. We enjoyed sharing the food on our buffet table and had time for a good old chat before heading home.
Our Christmas meal was organised by Chris. Thankfully Covid was kind and we went to the St. Giles Hotel in Feltham and enjoyed their Christmas set menu.
Our first meeting of the year was an enjoyable and informative talk by Russell Bowes, a garden historian, entitled Say it with Poison in which he described, very theatrically, many plants which we may have in our gardens which can be used for dubious purposes.
Laleham WI update
Laleham WI had a great turnout for their first meeting of 2022. Members enjoyed catching up with each other over tea and biscuits and President, Helen Hurst brought everyone up to speed on news and events to come.
Membership also voted on the WI 2022 Resolutions.
The highlight of the evening was delivered by member June Barnard, who gave a lively and entertaining talk about her long experience as an event and trip organiser.
We enjoyed some amusing stories as well as learning a lot about what goes into making successful trips. Don’t know how you do it June… but please don’t stop!
Here’s Judy McFarlane presiding over her Raffle prizes for the evening.
Stanwell WI: Farewell Valerie Turner 1933-2022
Stanwell WI was sad to hear of the passing of one of their long-term members, Valerie Turner. She had served as our president for several years over three separate occasions and had served on the committee until fairly recently. Valerie was also an active member of the local community and served on several local committees including Stanwell Village Hall and Spelthorne In Bloom. She was very community-minded and the WI was a massive part of her life. She will be sadly missed.
Southbourne WI update
After a warm welcome from the new President, members attending December’s meeting were given a Christmas table quiz, on Christmas carols.
Homemade mince pies were amongst the treats to have with our wine and fruit juice. A table was adorned with a selection of handmade items skilfully made by the craft group. Santa socks, Christmas puds, angels, tree decorations and an assortment of various gifts and tags. We then played a round of Handbag Bingo, which bought lots of laughter as everyone emptied their handbags.
On leaving, all members were given a Christmas goody bag from our President and we wished a Merry Christmas to one and all.
January’s meeting was in a different hall as the one we normally use is undergoing refurbishment.
A minute’s silence was held in memory of our dear member Bobby Loveday, who passed away on 3 January 2022 aged 102: lovely lady who will be sorely missed.
Our speaker was Sandra Ebbetts from The House of Colour. She spoke about being adventurous with colours, styles and accessories. Having your skin tone analysed opens up a whole new world of style and colour. Sandra was friendly and her presentation was good. Members were impressed. Tea and coffee followed and there was lots of chatter as the raffle was drawn. A good start to the new year!
Stroud Green WI update
Upcycling and recycling was the theme of our December meeting as we enjoyed making Christmas decorations, gift bags and cards with excellent guidance from Leila Khasal (pictured).
Here’s a selection of those made in person at Mind (our venue) and also by those following from home via Zoom. It was our first time trying to livestream a craft activity rather than a talk.
We were so happy to be back with our cake stall at the Crouch End Christmas Fair—our thanks to organiser Patsy for the opportunity.
Wonderful to see everyone who stopped by and hopefully there will be other opportunities this year, so do look out for us! Grateful thanks to all our members for their time and efforts spent organising, baking and helping on the day.
Greenford update
We enjoyed the company of Wildlife Photographer, Tom Way for a second visit.
He is based in Buckinghamshire and travels the world in search of perfect wildlife photographs which involves days and sometimes weeks of patience waiting for that ‘perfect shot’.
This may involve lurking in tall grass for hares, sitting in the river looking for voles or hiding up trees but the results are fantastic.
His last talk was mainly his exploits in Africa in search of big game with amazing close ups of lions, leopards, elephants and gorillas but this time he concentrated on UK wildlife with shots of red deer in Scotland and a plethora of wonderful bird close ups, including puffins, owls and birds of prey.
He also sells cards of his photos and amidst the oohs and ayahs from the audience at his cute array of animals, he was certainly a resounding success.
Memories of 2021…
On 5 July we were lucky enough to have our planned garden party in tribute to the NHS 73rd Birthday.
A fine buffet of sandwiches and home made cakes graced our table at the Outdoor Centre and a safe and sociable environment for our members was enjoyed. Our main NHS cake was kindly made by a member’s daughter.
Most of us had come through the last 18 months unscathed and hopes were high for a return to many more WI occasions. We hope all is well with other WIs and look forward to seeing the rest of our members soon.
Centenary Banner
Our centenary banner is nearing completion: here’s a work in progress image from the MFWI office where the Craft team has been laying out the contributions from WIs.
And—shhhh—You’ve not sent yours in yet? We look forward to receiving it as every WI is an important part of Middlesex Federation!
Farewell and Thank you, Lorraine
From left: Julia Lewis, Sarah Endersby, Lorraine Reed-Wenman, Emma Watson, Alison Fremantle, Heather McIntyre.
From Emma Watson, Middlesex News editor
The March 2022 issue of Middlesex News marks the 33rd issue since I took over production of our monthly newsletter from Lorraine in May 2019. I couldn’t believe Lorraine would be editing the newsletter while carrying out the duties of Chair—so raised my hand to help out. It’s been a journey!
Whilst you see Lorraine’s Chair’s Chat each month, she is there behind each issue with ideas, checking and proofreading, and most of all providing much-appreciated moral support without fail, when we’ve both been busy with other commitments or occasional flagging energy at deadline time.
Thank you so much Lorraine for your support, friendship and (never-ending!) humour as we piece together this l’il archive of activities of our Federation. It’s been a joy to work with you on it and whilst I will miss our little team, I feel certain you will enjoy a break from this aspect of your MFWI role. Thank you, and best wishes Lorraine!
From Sarah Endersby, MFWI Treasurer
When the 2018 MFWI Annual Council meeting finished, and the Board of Trustees met to vote in a new chair, little did we know what a challenging role Lorraine would be taking on.
During her tenure as chair, a new technology, Microsoft 365, has been introduced, to make our roles more streamlined, new trustees encouraged to join our Board and we’ve had two years of uncertainty with enforced lockdowns with no Federation Secretary in place. Lorraine has continued without faltering to be responsive to all of our members, has promoted MFWI at every opportunity and most importantly has been incredibly supportive to her fellow Board members.
I know Lorraine will welcome the time to spend with her family, without having to deal with WI issues at short notice however, I am positive she will miss the network of colleagues and friends she has frequent contact with, but not as much as we will miss her.
On a personal note – thank you Lorraine for not only being our chair for an amazing four-year rollercoaster but for being a true friend.