Buckinghamshire Federation of Women's Institutes
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  • What we do
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      • Federation Trustees
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        • Get On Board
        • Stop Modern Slavery
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      • 100 Miles More
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The Members' Blog

Authorship
Until January 2020, this Blog was the voice of an individual WI member.  Over her 40 years of membership, our Blogger had made a very fine contribution to this and other Federations in England.  With interests in crafts, reading and writing and in travel, she also took an active part in campaigning for women's welfare and education and on environmental issues.  While she has now handed over the Blog to the wider Bucks membership, her archived blog posts are a testament to someone who always made the utmost of her membership, and a rich source of information about the part the WI can play in today's society. 

100 miles for 100years

31/12/2020

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by Sue Macdermott, Beaconsfield WI

​Spurred on by the Bucks Federation’s centenary challenge to ‘walk 100 miles for 100 years’, Beaconsfield WI asked me to form a walking group and lead it through the year. By the end of October, the official end to the challenge, 111 different walkers had participated in 13 walks. We averaged 3.5 miles – the shortest walk a gentle 1.5miles, the longest 7.5 miles, walking the perimeter roads of Beaconsfield as a grand finale to the challenge.  The total distance walked was 366.5 miles. 
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​Our year started off with a four-mile walk from a coffee house in Beaconsfield, walking in woods, fields and an unused country lane, to finish where we started with a well-deserved coffee and the chance for everyone to catch up after the Christmas break.
 
We managed to get out on a regular basis thereafter, so that by 12 March we had successfully completed five walks – one being the wettest walk the walk leader had ever led. The alpacas we saw did not seem to mind the rain but we did, so the walk was shortened to get back to the protection of the pub, where a hot drink was very welcome. 


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Blog from the NFWI page

10/11/2020

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Are you Using Slave Labour?

29/7/2020

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Written by Jane Cutler, Chair, Science and Society Team
The resolutions about Modern Slavery and Stem cell donation are now WI mandates.
 
Are you using slave labour?
I am sure that I have in the past. But am I using it now? What about the guy with an Eastern European accent who cleaned our windows on that hot sunny day last week? Okay I gave him an ice cream and tipped him but was it his own window cleaning business or was he a Modern Day Slave? And how do I find out? And what about those builders who put up extensions for a really good price and only the boss speaks English? And just how do we know if the staff at the local “really cheap car wash and they do a good job” are getting paid a decent wage?

Now getting more personal do you use nail bars? Here’s a more positive story. A WI member had suspicions that slave labour was used at her nail bar. She tipped off the police and a prostitution ring was uncovered and dealt with. You see this is a case where
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
The recent Centre for Social Justice and Justice for Social Care recent report states that at least 100,000 victims of slavery are being abused and exploited by traffickers and crime gangs in Britain today. This is 10 times higher than a Home Office assessment six years ago!

So how can we WI members tackle this problem?
  • Be aware what is happening locally. (In Cheddington we were astonished to learn of slavery happening on our doorstep. Several people were arrested and given long sentences in 2012 in a high profile case.)
  • When the price of new clothes is too cheap to be true ask yourself why. Were they made in a sweat shop?
  • Read the NFWI website for updates on the campaign.
  • Ask your WI Secretary to make the NFWI End Modern Slavery Briefing available to all members online. Here you may read advice on how to spot slavery from the Metropolitan Police
  • Being socially distance aware, discuss what actions you and your WI will take in your community.
 
BE SLAVE AWARE!!
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Fabric re-use and recyling for our environment

9/6/2020

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Along with many other Bucks WI members I have been spending time during lock-down sewing.  Many members set to, making the Scrub Laundry Bags requested by Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust reusing all kinds of cotton fabric that came to hand or which was donated by friends and neighbours.  I decided to use up my growing store of bright patterned gent’s cotton shirts purchased from the charity shop bargain rail to make fabric face masks, first of all for the family and more recently for friends and neighbours.  According to the internet a close weave fabric is best and the cotton or poly-cotton of shirt fabric is most suitable for hot washing.  I have also been mending and altering garments which had been waiting for me to get around to them for ages. Even my teddy bear got a new pair of trousers so he was respectable to sit in the window as part of the teddy bear exercise in lock-down action.
 
Reusing this accumulated fabric is good for the environment so we can all feel appropriately proud of our activities.  I had a search around the internet to see if I could find out a measure of exactly how much CO
2 might be saved by reusing cotton fabric but it is hard to get a simple measure or specific amount. The nearest I could find was in a WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) case study report where it calculated that reuse of a cotton T shirt produced a saving of 2.5kg CO2-eq per T-shirt.  This methodology is outlined in www.wrap.org.uk/benefitsofreuse.  And there are other environmental benefits too; saving energy and resource.  
The Benefits of Reuse Case Study: Clothing can be found here
http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Clothing%20reuse_final.pdf
 
The WRAP organisation was set up in 2000 to promote sustainable waste management and I found lots of other information on their website about textiles including a new Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP)  which I need to have a good look at. see http://www.wrap.org.uk/sustainable-textiles/scap
 In autumn 2019 Cath attended the NFWI educational Fast Fashion event, organised along with clothing charity TRAID, for WI members to learn more about how to reduce the global impact of clothing and learn more about the true cost of fast fashion.  Members were asked to consider different aspects of fast fashion - repairing and mending clothes,  clothes production and the throwaway culture and the impact microplastic fibres have on the environment. Cath made a pledge not to purchase anything new for a whole year and I am trying to follow her good example. So far this has worked well, especially now that we can not go out to shop.
I did wonder about the actual term fast fashion meant and found a definition in a UK government report which said that:    ‘Fast fashion’ is a term used to describe a new accelerated fashion business model that has evolved since the 1980s. It involves increased numbers of new fashion collections every year, quick turnarounds and often lower prices. Reacting rapidly to offer new products to meet consumer demand is crucial to this business model.
The report Fixing Fashion: clothing consumption and sustainability;  Published: 19 February 2019 is very informative and deserves more visibility, its available here
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/1952/full-report.html
Finally I wondered what happened to the clothing that we in the UK send to recycling and found the website of a very interesting company Roberts Recycling Ltd which recycles and sends textiles overseas for reuse.
 
https://www.robertsrecycling.co.uk/news/how-much-co2-is-saved-by-our-textile-recycling-operations/

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Bucks Climate Ambassadors have a cup of coffee online!

9/6/2020

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April 2020 was the first month of national lock-down and it had been necessary to change or to cancel so many events and plans. The Public Affairs team at NFWI had continued to issue information and campaing updates and both Cath Campbell and I accepted their invitation to join other Climate Ambassadors in a national online session.   It was a learning experience and I was very impressed with the presentation, conversations and information exchanged. 
 
The session was introduced by Ann Jones and the Public Affairs team provided us with an update on NFWI campaign activity and the team explained how things have changed now that the office is closed and staff are working from home.  Although public attention is elsewhere the Public Affairs team have been monitoring the wider environmental sector and shared their summary with us.  Lots of climate events have had to change focus, and the COP 26 conference which the UK was going to host in November on behalf of the United Nations Committee on Climate Change is cancelled.  There was general agreement that the Climate Ambassadors really need to keep up pressure on our MPs to make sure that the UK takes a prominent leadership role in the meantime and when the next event actually takes place as time is running out. 
 
The NFWI team was working with Friends of the Earth on the plastic waste part of the Environment Bill which was at Committee stage and the WI national campaign about End Plastic Soup was still current and ongoing.  The issue of pollution of both micro plastic and larger plastic waste is a great concern to many WI members.
 
The questions and information shared at this session gave Cath and I lots of links and leads to explore and investigate further.  Here are some you might like to view and follow up.
 
Peat Free April campaign  #PeatFreeApril
This concerns the continuing destruction of UK peatlands which offer vital wildlife habitats and storing vast amounts of carbon and the campaign for good labelling on compost packaging.
For more information, find @PeatFreeApril on Twitter or Facebook
 
Heathrow third runway and climate change.
The Court of Appeal ruled on 27 February 2020 that the decision to allow the expansion was unlawful because it did not take climate commitments into account.
For more information see
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-51646562
 
Hedgehog awareness week May 2020 - organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) to highlight the problems hedgehogs face and how you can help them. This year the charity asked people to try to make the whole street hedgehog friendly by join up habitat by making CD case sized Hedgehog Highways in the bottom of fences and walls.
For more information see
https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/hedgehog-awareness-week-2020-3rd-may-9th-may/
 
Transport Decarbonisation Plan – the steps which will be taken to develop the document
For more information see
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/creating-the-transport-decarbonisation-plan
 

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Throughout our site you will find links to external websites. Although we make every effort to ensure these links are accurate, up to date and relevant, BFWI cannot take responsibility for pages maintained by external providers.  If you come across any external links that don't work, we would be grateful if you could report them to us.
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  • Home
  • What we do
    • Board and Committees
      • Federation Trustees
      • Committees
    • Speaking out
      • Resolutions
      • Campaigns
        • Get On Board
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        • Make a Match
        • 5 Minutes that matter
    • Denman
    • The Members' Blog
  • What's On
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      • 100 Miles More
      • Huxley Cup
      • Elizabeth Bell Challenge 2021
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      • Virtual Show
    • Centenary+1 Celebrations
  • Join Us
    • About Bucks WIs
    • Find a WI (Map)
      • Morning WIs
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    • Find a WI (A-Z)
  • On-line Store
  • Contact Us
  • Gallery
  • Running your WI
    • Tutorials & Library
    • Finding a Speaker
    • Volunteering with BFWI
  • History of Buckinghamshire WIs
  • Use of Website
  • Covid advice