​It seems to be the closed season for me as regards the WI because I haven’t added anything to the blog for 6 weeks. I shall start now with an item which was not run by the WI but which several local WI members attended. Another organisation had arranged a group visit to Greatmoor EfW centre (electricity from waste) based at Edgcott near Aylesbury. Here 345,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste from Bucks and other counties is converted into electricity---nothing is wasted. This is where the contents of our ordinary household bins end up. The size, cleanliness and the efficiency of the plant is impressive: every authority should have a similar facility but unfortunately not all are as switched on as Bucks. You may organise small group visits or attend an open day where you will receive a more superficial grasp of what is done. I do recommend this as it covers many aspects of WI mandates and there is a lot of misinformation about the process bandied about.
The local book group takes no notice of summer holidays so we met as usual and were rewarded by having read a book that everyone appreciated and kept us talking for much longer than usual. I can’t remember how we came by this novel but we can recommend it to you all to read. “Painter of Silence” is by Georgina Harding. It is set in Romania between 1939 and the late 1950s so is a pretty harrowing read about events that few of us had really known much about. The vehicle for the story is a deaf mute. You’ve got to read it to see how successful this is. The writing is excellent too.
We enjoyed our usual WI garden party in the usual downpour: it doesn’t matter whose garden or what day of the week it is, the rain can be guaranteed for the local WI‘s summer meeting. But then the BFWI archery session had to be re-scheduled for wind and fetes were washed out so what’s new for August in the UK?
In the national press there have been mentions of matters related to WI mandates such as the publicity about ignorance of young women about the necessity to undergo regular smear tests and the lack of opportunities for older women to continue being tested. This is thanks to Marina Wheeler, the estranged wife of Boris Johnson, revealing that she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. I wonder what would happen if we all walked into our doctors’ surgeries and demanded smear tests---there’s a suggestion for a group visit for you!
I also saw that the hospice in Leicestershire which had banned the local WIs from baking cakes has had to eat its words but we knew it would, didn’t we?  

​Four of us from the local WI attended the Thinking Lunch at Cheddington today. This was a follow-up meeting arranged by the BFWI sub-committee for Science and Society so that members could be aware of developments in the Care not Custody campaign and plan future activities to support it. The meeting was well attended and the hall was beautifully set out for lunch: the food was excellent too courtesy of Cheddington WI.
Each table displayed postcards of information to encourage discussion and information on the Prison Reform Trust and the Corston Report and some quotes from Lord Bradley’s address at the Annual NFWI Meeting in Bournemouth.
After lunch Sue Smith, an ordained prison chaplain talked about her work in Grendon and Springhill prisons. She had previously been on the staff at the Young Offenders Centre in Aylesbury. The general public doesn’t know of the therapeutic work undertaken in these two local establishments where most of the prisoners are completing the final years of their sentences. We were shocked to be told that there are 82,676 men and over 30,000 women in prison at present and there are 200,000 children who have both parents behind bars. The aim of the prison staff is to prepare people for rehabilitation into society and hopefully get them back into work. Compared with other retention centres Grendon and Springhill’s figure of just 39% reconviction after the inmate has completed the scheme is well below the national average of 69%. Perhaps the community set-up  where the inmates are grouped in wings of 40 is more successful. Pastoral care is good and there is access to medical and psychological help on the premises. However, the prison service is grossly understaffed. WI members were encouraged to volunteer their skills in the educational work taking place in the prisons. Some of the men cannot read or write so will find it difficult to find work when released; others are studying for further qualifications. Perhaps helping with literacy, gardening or crafts provides opportunities for talk and normality or joining the Prison Visitors Scheme to see what that entails. We just need to approach the relevant prison governor---every little helps both the staff who are short of time and the prisoner who needs to build his self-respect to withstand the temptation to return to crime.
At our WI monthly meeting the same evening, we enjoyed an entertaining talk by Isabelle Foley about her “Ten years at the BBC” mostly in the Costume Department. It was fascinating to see her memorabilia of nearly all the historical drama series since 1977 including the complete set of Shakespeare’s plays. We learned about the problems of continuity when concurrent scenes are shot not only months apart but also continents. As a finale Isabelle dressed a tailor’s dummy as Scarlet O’Hara from Gone with the Wind. Ruth Wilkinson gave an excellent report on the National WI meeting in Bournemouth which six of our members had attended. Plans were made for the August garden party and ideas aired for our stall at the Farmers’ market in November. We have received a rather unsatisfactory answer from the Blood Donors to which we are considering our response.

​It is not often that I seek refuge indoors away from the temperature outside and am glad to sit down to write the blog. Now that I do, I find that it is over a fortnight since I wrote anything about what is happening in the WI in Bucks which is not, I am sure a true picture. Locally, our WI discussion group set the members a topic about which few of them knew anything at all so they were forced to do quite a lot of homework in advance. We talked about the Chinese social credit system. OK! So you all knew about that: well, we didn’t but we do now and this is why our meetings are so worthwhile and enjoyable. It is a national scheme where every citizen will have a credit rating assessed on his/her reputation in the community to include aspects of private and business life. In some pilot towns and cities the ratings are pinned up in public places for all to see and anyone can add or subtract points to the scores of others. If one plays the radio or TV too loud, if one is seen to jay-walk or jump a red light, or thought to be a bad parent or fail to pay a fine etc. one’s rating will suffer. This has the potential to have a mortgage refused or put an end to a job application. Couple this system with a register built on facial recognition and one’s life is no longer one’s own. Could this happen in the UK? We can check our credit ratings and sometimes these have been proved wrong. Amazon and big shopping stores keep records of what we buy and so do our computers. There are tax records and a national NHS data bank. CCTV and Neighbourhood Watch? Makes you think, doesn’t it? Name and shame---here we come.
The Book Group read “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert this month which is a story of Emma who lives in a self-centred world of her own based on dreams which have been fed by reading  romantic novels similar to modern day Mills &Boon. She wrecks the lives around her, runs into desperate debt and ends up taking the only way out by committing suicide; all in her search for passionate love preferably in some exotic far Middle-Eastern setting. I am glad to say that nearly everyone finished reading the novel in spite of the tragic storyline because there was dark humour at the expense of the heroine and the pomposity of the people living in a small French town in the 1850s and it was beautifully written. Flaubert commented on society in as great detail as any Chinese civil servant assessing his neighbours’ economic and social rating.

This was a very good meeting, not wildly exciting but interesting. Lynne Stubbings NFWI Chair started proceedings with a “state of the nation” type of resume of the past year. The Treasurer reported a good year financially: WI Enterprises had done well and Denman College had been dealing successfully with its deficit. The new system for claiming Gift Aid was explained. Ann Jones promoted the Climate Ambassador Scheme and appealed for volunteers to work locally for it.
The resolution against the decline of local bus services was well presented with experts speaking for and against the motion. Debate from the floor stressed the extent of the problem and the negative impact on living conditions in rural areas. It was carried by a huge majority as expected.
Lord Bradley Chairman of the Care not Custody Coalition spoke of the work of the Prison Reform Trust and 38 other organisations working within this coalition. He listed the action programme that it was carrying out with 92% coverage across the UK. This included diversion services, street triage, teams in schools and colleges, Pathways such as the one in Milton Keynes for women on remand or with short sentences and improved information sharing between hospitals, the police and social services. A united approach would save money in the NHS, reduce the crowding in prisons and cut re-offending figures and more importantly increase the chances of the offenders enjoying a better standard of life.
After lunch the resolution Don’t fear the Smear was presented. Rob Music from Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust supported the motion and a member from NFWI Trustees spoke as the Devil’s advocate because no expert could be found. There were heart-rending examples quoted in the debate and the overall message was don’t stop at the age of seventy, encourage businesses to allow employees time for tests and increase awareness to stop the gap among younger women who had missed the new system of vaccination in secondary schools. This was passed by an even huger majority than the morning’s motion.
Maggie Philbin CEO of Teentech and previous presenter on Tomorrow’s World and Swapshop described her work with youngsters especially girls to encourage their skills in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and Maths). She stressed the need for nurturing talent and imagination from an early age even if it was difficult to fit into a rigid school curriculum.
This year I didn’t travel down with the BFWI coach nor stay with Bucks members in the same hotel but I am sure that worked out well as usual. I shared my hotel with Suffolk Federation which had arranged for the delegates to raid the breakfast bar to make up sandwiches and take fruit etc for their lunches at the conference to avoid crowding in the hall: foil and paper bags provided. This wasn’t repeated for their journey home! I couldn’t help thinking this was a good idea as there have been meeting halls with pretty ropey refreshments in the past.
I picked up leaflets encouraging the use of MYWI and the Climate Ambassador Scheme to bring home to Bucks but left all the promotion material for cruises---well, you know what I think about the pollution from ocean liners! Mind, if you look at the financial statement for NFWI you know why it insists on handing out their cruise lists and fills WI Life with their advertisements. Enough said…
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