The sun is shining and its still very cold down at the coast but at least it is getting lighter in the evenings now.
I was listening to Radio 4 this morning when the presenter mentioned National Village Hall week from 17th March to celebrate, encourage and support the hard work done by volunteers. He also mentioned that village halls really developed in many ways due to the ‘new’ organisation that came into being in the UK after the end of the First World War. Of course that new organisation was indeed the WI and to this day many individual WIs meet in Village Halls. Apparently in the early days after the end of the war there were not many suitable meeting places available for organisations and certainly not for an organisation catering solely for women. So well done to all those pioneers of the early WIs and Village Halls.
With the last Newsletter your Secretary received the application for the Doxford Hall event and I can now tell you that the next Lunch with the Chair after the Doxford Hall one will be at Hexham Mart on Wednesday 15th October and our speaker will be Mitch Bridgewater who was a previous contestant on the The Great British Sewing Bee. I am sure he will have plenty of tales to tell from that wonderful haberdashery room. Application forms will be out later but at least you can put the date in your diary now. We still have a couple of new venues ready for next year, one in the north and one in the west, along with a few ideas for speakers
In September, we will be hosting an exhibition for our friend Kevin Thornhill who is hiring our upstairs rooms to display wedding dresses, photos and accessories. He has been approached to do something for the MND charity by Lucy Pittaway, an artist from York whose father Willie Maddren played football for Middlesborough and sadly died of the disease in August 2000. Of course in recent years, MND has had a lot of publicity due to Dodie Weir from Rugby Union and Rob Burrow of Rugby League team Leeds Rhinos. We are delighted to help Kevin in this venture. The Cresswell café will be open during the event which will take place from Saturday 13th Sept until Friday 19th Sept from 10:00 – 16:00 each day. There will be no entrance fee for this event but it is hoped that attendees will give generously to this wonderful charity as well as buying a cuppa and a slice of cake from the WI café. Please come along and support it and bring your non WI friends & family as this event is open to everyone.
On the subject of charity I would like to mention the great work being done by Morpeth Town who featured in the latest WI Life (page 19) showing support for the ‘No more violence against women campaign’. However, inspired by a past resolution ‘See the signs of Ovarian cancer’ Morpeth Town have recently launched a Women’s Health Project in Morpeth. Well done on all your good work ladies.
Finally I know some of our members attended the event at Beamish to celebrate International Women’s Day and had a great time. On the following Monday, Karen Coleman, Dee Ward & myself were at Newcastle College where we had been invited to show students what we stand for and what WIs do. We went along armed with flyers, magazines and most importantly a big box of sweets and had a lovely time telling young students all about the campaigns, events and the fun that all our members have, after all, they may be students today but tomorrow they might just join us and see for themselves.
See you after the clock changes..
Marj
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