A warm welcome from President Christine greeted members and visitors to West Buckland WI’s first meeting of the New Year.
Here is the full report from Cheryl Bailey, secretary …
This year is our 90th anniversary and we will be celebrating with a variety of additional events throughout the year to commemorate.
The meeting started with WI business and reported that our skittles team lost their first match in the county skittles tournament, even though we put up a good fight, and thanks were given to the team, supporters and captains.
In December, West Buckland WI entered a tree in the West Buckland Church Christmas Tree Festival competition. Although not a winning entry, our WI tree looked very festive in WI colours alongside all the many entries.
Our extra activity groups continue to flourish which include Board Games, Coffee and Chat, Craft Group, Lunch Group, Indoor Kurling, Reading Group and a Weekly Walking Group. We hope the Handbells group will start again in February. Members are welcome to join all groups.
We continued with members reminiscing with A Jamboree of Memories, talking about their own personal memories of their treasured possessions.
These ranged from a book on modern needlework dating back to 1919, which survived the London Blitz, an antique nutcracker, nostalgia with a box of well-used buttons dating back to the 1930s, a pocket-sized Methodist hymn book from the 19th century, together with a replica of a Clarice Cliff tulip design tea set.
This was followed by fond memories of a very special occasion with a tale of two cows taken to the Royal Agricultural Show in 1958 when HM Queen Elizabeth II was present.
One of our long-standing members brought past West Buckland WI programmes and photographs with interesting monthly competitions which included making a donkey sculpture out of soap, a packed lunch for one, or a jar of bottled gooseberries!
We were also introduced to a small model of an ‘inuksuk’ – a type of stone landmark in the likeness of a human, used by the Inuit people – purchased on a WI trip to Canada.
Our monthly raffle was drawn and the winners for the monthly competition for an object, item or collectable in the January birthstone colour of dark red (garnet) were chosen.
Members then had time to socialise over a cup of tea and biscuits, provided by the hostess of the month and her team.
Visitors are very welcome to come along to our monthly meetings, which are held on the second Tuesday in the month, 7pm for 7.30pm at West Buckland Village Hall and our next open meeting is on Tuesday, February 10th, when our speaker will be Liam O’Farrell, an artist.
If you would like to join us at West Buckland WI one Tuesday evening, please come along or contact Christine on 01823 652863 or 07736 712273, email cmwombwell@gmail.com, or visit Somerset Federation of WIs online for details of WIs in your area.