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3/4/2018 0 Comments Happy Easter!This month's blog is once again brought to you while wrapped up warm and considerably unimpressed with the wintery, snowy washout of a bank holiday! Hopefully it didn't put too much of a damper on the long weekend and everyone enjoyed the break, the time with friends and family, and of course.. chocolate. Our most recent meeting is the last in the Church, and the move back to Dynamo House will hopefully bring better weather with it. The first main news to share is that, after consideration with the Committee, Brenda has decided that this year will be her sixth - and last - as President, and will hand the reigns over next year. Support for the Committee is very welcome and members are welcome to join in with a meeting and get a feel for what happens, and potentially put themselves in the running for next year. We had some impressive Easter Bake or Makes, in fact the sugar content alone was mind boggling. Check out all the pictures in the gallery, and well done to Angela for first prize (since her Star Baker accolade she's on a roll)! Our last minute speaker this month was Claire, who gave us an overview of the Social Media course she's been running at County House, as well as some tips and hints about making social media work for our WI and how this changing way of communicating is vital to reach new members. Thanks Claire for stepping in at the eleventh hour! A Poppies pattern is now available for anyone who wants to join in with this year's yarn bomb, which is to commemorate the end of the Great War. Our plan is to cover the Community Centre, Dynamo and the Memorial in red, white and lilac poppies to celebrate the men, women and animals of the war. For help with the pattern, why not come along to a Knit & Knatter (you can crochet too!) on the first and third Tuesday of the month at the Community Centre at 7.30pm, and every third Wednesday at Dynamo House at 1.30pm. The Past Revisited exhibition at County House was extremely popular, in fact so much that Notts Fed will be extending the display and it will remain up for a while longer. We have a personal invite to attend a private viewing one evening as a group outing, dates will be offered very soon! This year's County Show on 12/13 May is swinging around fast, and we're looking for all entries to be ready by 9/10 May so they can be taken to the location for display. If anyone would personally like to enter, then the category calls for a recycled/ upcycled cushion cover 18" square. The group entry is a craft item, collage and floral decoration that encompasses the Three R's, and the theme of the Show - Reuse, Recycle, Reclaim - and should only contain items that fit in to the above. Ideas are in discussion and we'll be using our craft sessions to team up and create something, so join in on Monday 9 April and get your crafty hands and heads together!
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Brrrr! We bring you this month's blog sat wrapped up in fleece lined garments, heating ablaze and eyeing up the 'Beast from the East' out of the window. The village has seen an impressive swathe of snow blanketing the streets, and as picturesque as it is, it's a bit of a pain to our members not in walking distance! Last night's meeting drew to a close early to allow those who made it to get home safely, and the planned crafty Make n' Take will instead be carried forward to our Craft Club on Tuesday 12 March. As well as celebrating our 12th birthday with some lovely cakes from Eileen, we were joined by WI Advisor Helen to oversee the end of year reports and our committee elections. This year Eileen has stepped down from the committee, but having been President, Vice President, Minute Taker and member for seven years, we're extremely grateful for all her work, support and guidance! Current members approved are Angela, Elizabeth, Janet, Debbie and Brenda - hint hint, we have 3 spaces on committee available should anyone wish to join the ranks! Two members were suggested for President - Debbie and Brenda - however Debbie declined so for another year we congratulate Brenda on her Presidency! She's doing something very right to have such unanimous support! Next month's meeting has a little change up in the programme, and speaker Jackie will now return later in the year, so our own Claire will step in to entertain, educate or excite - we'll see what she has planned! We're also have an Easter Egg competition so crafty thinking caps on! Members will vote for their favourite, via a 'penny vote' so bring some change. Of course it can be more than a penny, we'll count coins not value!! And all the loose change will go into the Ladybird for this years charity drive. Keep an eye on Facebook for reminders and events, news and updates on activities - there are not just competition entries to consider but a number of Notts Fed events including the Past Revisited exhibition on 14, 15 and 16 March at County House, showcasing lots of scrapbooks, memorabilia and textiles from our Centenary. A couple of members are heading over on the 15th so shout up to make it a group trip! 31/1/2018 0 Comments Janu-what?January must be the longest month ever but at last we are nearly through, and despite the general bleakness of the month, a ray of sunshine arrived.. meet Tristan! Proud mum and member Vanessa brought her new little man to our first meeting of 2018, and he's of course an honorary member now! With everyone queuing up for munches and cuddles, Vanessa knows she has some babysitters on standby, just in case! And the knitted and crochet goodies this tiny chap will be spoiled with, we can only imagine! A casual meeting to start the year, we welcomed new member Jesse to our gang, caught up with all the gossip and chat, played a few games and had chance to sit and debate a little about the resolutions. Picking just one from five great choices is hard! All are worthy, and slips must be in by 9 February. Don't forget to have your say about which we should push for 2018. Last year's resolutions are making headlines on a regular basis; a minister has now been employed to deal with alleviating loneliness, and new laws and initiatives introduced to try and stem the excessive use of plastics. It's on the news, it's in the papers, and it's on social media - great to see it's at a level whereby everyone is talking about it! Our voices together are being heard! We also had a lovely message of thanks from Eden Lodge residents for the gifts we sent at Christmas, just one more thing we can do to reach out to others. Going further afield, we're also working on a fabulous cause to raise £113 by April to send a Guatemalan teenage girl to college, where she can learn a range of skills and bring them back to teach others. Any spare change, donations and fundraising money can be added to the Ladybird money box, and we WILL pester you to keep adding your loose change! It's also time to work on Newark Show entries! See Brenda for the full criteria, but the basis is a 16" square board with craft item, floral arrangement as a group entry, and an 18" cushion as a personal entry (if you wish!) which all should be based on the 'recycled' theme. Ideally they should be ready for the April meeting, so get your thinking caps on and your crafty supplies out. We'll be at the Church for our next meeting and celebrating our 12th birthday! Thinking of joining us? Come along on February 28th at 7.30pm, have a natter and a brew with us and see what you think. We're not scary and we always have cake :) 2/11/2017 0 Comments Spooky Cakes and Apple OverloadOctober has been full on for BVWI! And pretty soon we'll be galloping towards Christmas but at least we are ahead of ourselves this year! As usual, chuck BVWI in a room with a load of craft supplies and we're on it like ants on sugar. We've got a couple of stalls coming up at community events (Bonfire Night, Christmas Lights Switch On) so we've made lots of crackers for the kids, each with a prize, and lots of lovely tree decorations with copious amounts of glitter and Mod Podge that hopefully will grace the trees of our fellow villagers this festive season! Of course, you should by now have also heard about us absolutely cleaning up at the Notts Fed Apple Day on 21 October in Southwell. No? Let us tell you! We had a total of 17 entries on the tables in just about every category, even our kids, grandkids and other halves got involved! We walked away with four First Places, a Second Place, and five Third Places, a Highly Commended and - the feather in our caps - STAR BAKER! Which was for Angela's truly mouthwatering Apple Crumble Cheesecake. We all tried some at the October meetings and it was beautiful! Take a look at all our winning entries and photographs in the Gallery. Credit and very well done to Brenda, Janet, Angela, Elizabeth (and respective husbands and grandchildren), as a small village WI we are VERY proud to have stood our own against some much bigger groups and we have a wonderful trophy to boot! Staying with cake, the October meeting was all about the baking and we had some genius entries. For those of us who cannot bake, we salute you! Creepy hands, spooky ghosts, spiders, flies and a broken skull (that non stick baking tray didn't hold up to its promise...) but all credit to Audrey for her nest of spidery delights (and matching fingernails) which really was quite the centrepiece. Lots of mouthwatering, creepy photographs in the Gallery! It's been our last meeting at the Dynamo House and so from our November meeting we'll be at the Church for winter now. Don't forget we'll be at the Bonfire Night celebrations with some goodies for sale on 4 November! 9/10/2017 0 Comments Autumn Days in Stained GlassWhere did Summer go - in fact, are we sure it arrived in the first place? As the leaves start to fall and the evenings get a bit chillier, thoughts turn to Autumn, which for us means the last couple of meetings in our 'Summer Home' at Dynamo to return to the warmer Church for Winter; our Autumn Fayre, Bonfire Night and Christmas preparations. The Fayre fell on a remarkably lovely day, which benefited us as it brought out all the walkers, ramblers and their doggy friends, who all popped in for a drink, cake or a gravy bone (the dogs, obviously!) Despite it seeming quiet we still raised over £300 which is fantastic! Thanks to everyone who came along and served, manned a stall, washed up or just gave their support. Our September meeting satisfied our craft addictions nicely, and we welcomed Jennifer McEwan, a glass artist to give us all a demonstration of how she makes her fantastic stained glass pieces. Starting our by practising on cheap greenhouse glass, Jennifer collects all manner of beautiful glass, in a range of colours and textures, and creates everything from sun catchers, to Christmas decorations, wind chimes and whole windows. A mix of cutting, sanding and soldering allows her to cut and fix together shapes for her variety of pretty decor. We weren't about to risk glass splinters or cutting our fingers off by mistake, so we all instead made a beautiful glass chime, wired and beaded to hang in our windows, from some of Jennifer's ready shaped and drilled glass pieces. Put a box of craft supplies in front of BVWI and we're off! If you are interested in taking part in a workshop to make your own sun catcher, or indeed something of your choice, get in touch with Jennifer via her Facebook page or email: [email protected]. 9/7/2017 0 Comments Peg Pals!Ever since Claire's Peg Pals featured in WI Life last month, we wanted to have a go. So on Monday evening (and again at Coffee Club.. and in between..) we got together, combined our haberdashery and went to town creating some of the most fabulous dollies you're ever seen. The full gallery of photos reveals the joy of a good old crafty evening, with glue and pins and beads and fabric and lace, oh my! Such a range of characters emerged, it was really good fun and we'd encourage everyone to have a go, it's fun and easy and really quite satisfying! As planned, we went along to the Village Fun Day today with some games and Peg Pals to sell, and the full array were fantastic! Some members even bought back a couple, they have become so enamoured of these little ladies (and gents!) 29/6/2017 0 Comments Kurling and Keeling OverJacqui Hayes came along to introduce us to Kurling - yes, indoors without ice! - and what an evening.. at some points it was hard to tell what sport was taking place, what with Eileen throwing it like a frisbee, Andrea knocking the castors off and Liz bowling it down the room! Teams A to F smashed it out (quite literally, at times) down the length of Dynamo House (freshly cleaned by Brenda and Angela that very afternoon) noting as we got more confident that the floor was definitely on an 'uneven keel' (nothing therefore to do with our aim or lack thereof...) Howling with laughter, we all took turns by hand or with the broom, and despite little previous experience, every team scored at least a few points - pretty impressive. Take a look at the gallery to see the photos... amusement guaranteed! A quick update also on the Resolutions, Brenda attended the AGM and reported that Alleviating Loneliness passed at 69% and Plastic Soup with a whopping 98% pass. Brenda told us how worthwhile it was to attend, which is always good to know. Susie Dent from Channel 4's Countdown was the keynote speaker and Brenda's most positive sentiment was the emotional shivers she felt whilst the combined women of the WI - some four thousand - sang together as one voice. if you've ever known that feeling, you'll understand! We're running a Peg Pals workshop with Claire on Monday, as she shows us how to make her fabulous dollies as featured in WI Life magazine, with the aim to sell them at the Village Fun Day on 8 July and again at the Notts Fed Centenary on 15 July where we'll also have Play Your Cards Right to play on our stall. Anyone who enjoyed our walk at Moor Pond Woods or missed it and fancies taking a mosey around, they have an open day on 23 July so pop along between 10am and 4pm. 13/6/2017 0 Comments Exploring the Papplewick TrailWe took a trip around the Moor Pond Woods last night after our recent speaker Stephen Walker offered us a guided tour due to our interest in the area and the work being done. We enjoyed an interesting and spirited couple of hours following the trail from St Pauls in Linby down to Papplewick Lane and back up towards the Griffin's Head. Visual signs in the landscape hint at the previous geology, with remaining water areas and undulating fields showing the natural flow of the Leen and the Mill remains. Let our photographs tell you the rest - check them out in our gallery! Find out more about the trail and the excavation of the site at the Friends of Moor Pond website 4/6/2017 0 Comments Ecstatic Pudding!Local poet Joy Rice joined us for our May meeting which was jam-packed, with lots of news and WI Resolutions to be fit in! We had a hearty discussion about the two resolutions before voting. This year Alleviating Loneliness and Plastic Soup - Reducing Plastic Microfibres in the Ocean are the two causes, and both offer a chance for WI involvement at a grassroots level - however both are also causes of our society's own advancements and government support is still needed to make either effective. President Brenda hopes to delve a little deeper as we all felt there was much more research to be done into both before a real plan of how the WI can really join forces to make a difference. The Notts County Show over the weekend of 13/14 May was very successful and over in the WI area and the show's competition entries, we were thrilled to discover we placed 2nd in the Photography Category! We also had excellent comments on our other entries so all round, a very pleasing result. Our fundraiser in early May was our best ever, with a whopping £380 raised! We can all agree that the lure of freshly made cakes plus the great weather certainly helped, but seems our new banner (and it's whereabouts) also did the trick. You'll be pleased to hear it finally turned up and it is back in our possession! Sadly it turns out although we had all relevant permissions and approval from Parish and Borough Councils, there was still some disagreement by Trustees. A real shame, especially in a small community where it's good to support each other! By now everyone should also have their copy of WI Life in which member Claire appeared, having designed fabulous Peg Pals for the Friendship issue. Hopefully she'll run a workshop with us soon, so we can all have a go at making a mini-me doll! We really are getting our tiny WI in our little village out there for all to see, we are small but mighty! Our guest this month has visited before, but everyone was looking forward to Joy Rice coming along once again. With her own style of observational witty prose, Joy's poems were relative to everyone in attendance, evidenced by all of us rolling around giggling at her dry humour. She's been writing for around 20 years after taking an evening class, and never looked back. No topic is taboo with Joy, and she tells it like it is when it comes to mammograms, bladder control, sex, celebrities and the characterful residents of her home town, Bulwell. Published over two volumes, Joy's books 'Ecstatic Pudding' (Joy Rice... ecstatic pudding.. geddit?!) and 'Second Helpings' are available on Amazon and are a fabulous collection of her poetry, commentary and parables. She's also on Facebook so head over to her page Joy's Poems and give her a like. She posts new poems regularly and they are bound to put a smile on your face no matter what day you've had! We'll leave one here for you now, rather appropriately, about the WI! Enjoy! The Women's Institute There's a well known organisation.. ...That I've heard makes jams and chutney from fruit Yes! I think that you've guessed it! I'm referring to the Women's Institute! They are welcoming to all types of women, The good, the bad, the ugly and the cute! Yes! You'll be met with open arms At the Women's Institute They enjoy a laugh and a giggle These gals really are a hoot! So if you want a good night out come to the Women's Institute! There once was a bit of an uproar when they posed for that calendar in their birthday suit. It was all for a good cause, raising money for cancer treatment those barefaced ladies of the Women's Institute! I've heard they want to spread the word Maybe you'll be a new recruit? They are open to all ages, sizes and types of women at the Women's Institute So if you want to make new friends, try a new hobby or craft pursuit Then join this bunch of skilled ladies, at your local Women's Institute! The WI has just celebrated their centenary! I think that deserves a ten gun salute! Congratulations and best wishes ladies, lassies and gals of the Women's Institute! |
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May 2021
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