​Happy Christmas and a healthy prosperous New Year to all the Blog readers!
13th December
It was a rather select group of members who met this evening to discuss Humanitarian Aid. It wasn’t the choice of topic that kept people away, more the condition of the local roads and pavements after the weekend’s snowfall. Several of us had done some diligent research and reading in advance of the meeting. Unfortunately, we learned from each other just how unsatisfactory and corrupt a lot of the aid organisations are. It came as a surprise that so little that is raised for victims of natural disasters ever reaches where it is needed. Administration seems to swallow up a lot of it and then what is sent abroad is often going into the pockets of corrupt officials or worse still being used to provide arms for militia, either official or breakaway forces. We decided that the work of the ACWW was a better solution where not money but tools, equipment and education is sent abroad to teach the locals how to help themselves. We then moved on to the work of the WI with the homeless and abused in Women’s Refuges.
6th December
The December monthly WI is a festive affair with plates of food and wine and a musical entertainment. Of course, there is always a business side to cover as well. The new committee was introduced and the programme for 2018 revealed. Members were encouraged to think about the proposed resolutions to go to NFWI for the Annual General Meeting in June and to bring their voting forms with them to the next meeting when some time would be given to considering them together. Di Kemp showed off her certificate from the National Croquet Association for services to the game over the years.
28th November
“The Flying Man” by Roopa Farooki had been allocated to the WI Book Group when the organiser and the County Library had between them left a blank between choices of book. We were lucky really as most of us enjoyed reading the novel, although we couldn’t warm to the hero---probably anti-hero best describes him. He travelled across the world in his long life, changing his identity at the drop of a hat, leaving emotional baggage behind and always hoping that his luck would rescue him from the consequences of his actions. There was humour there and the background cities and countries were well described and their history was accurately fitted into the plot. I think we can say it was a happy accidental find and who knows, we may read another by the same author. To discover new writers is really what book groups are all about.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, DEAR READER AND A SUCCESSFUL NEW YEAR
12th December
This will possibly be the last entry on my blog for 2016. At this time of year, I always wonder whether it is worth going on with this WI diary. With advancing years, I shall be attending fewer events and there may be another Bucks member out there who is more active than I am who would like to take over. Discuss.
Our Christmas craft group meeting took the form of a lovely tea party where the talk was of things achieved in 2016 and vague ideas of changes that the next year will bring. Some of us are planning to drop down to Stuart Lodge one Tuesday to visit the craft shop even though we ourselves could probably compete from the stuff we have about our houses.
7th December
The local WI was treated to communal singing of carols and popular songs led by Paul French. As usual the refreshments were many and varied and hugely fattening. In the business part of the meeting the members approved the financial statement held over from the annual meeting in November. Reports were given of the outing to Winchester and the walk for Climate Change. Names were taken for events coming up in the next two months and members were asked to be sure to fill in their personal choice from the short list of resolutions for the NFWI annual general meeting in June at Liverpool. Unfortunately, it is not our WI’s turn to send a delegate this time.
5th December
Progress is being made by the members who are learning to crochet. Everyone is at a different stage but three projects are underweigh and three people are still practising the basic stitches before starting on something real. It takes time to stop trying to knit with a crochet hook rather than use a single tool.
29th November
What a delight it was to find that all the members of the Reading Group had enjoyed “Road Ends” by Mary Lawson and that we were only one short of a full house for the meeting. We had read two other novels by this author over the years. They are family stories set in the swinging sixties in London and the same decade in a very cold rural community in Canada. All the characters are beautifully developed and the tensions within the families and within themselves ( whether they are old men, stressed out mothers or 4 year old children) are completely understandable. Everything hangs together so that one cannot see exactly what single event caused and set in motion the happenings of the story because it is all so interwoven. It concludes on a positive note although some of the characters have had to modify their ideas of how they planned to lead their lives.
 
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7th September
The speaker this evening was Edwin Rye talking about plants for a winter garden. The members always enjoy his talks and find them very informative. Having missed a month, there were a lot of forthcoming events in the county to sign up to attend in the autumn months. Unfortunately, there are few takers for the Royal Event at Wolverton in spite of the warning that if the WIs in the north of the county don’t support events arranged north of Aylesbury the federation sub-committees will stop providing them for us. Our Group convenor is arranging an outing to Winchester to the city’s Christmas market which sounds very interesting as she has booked a Blue Badge guide as well. A new group to learn to crochet will start in October to run on alternate Mondays with the craft group but the badminton has stopped. The WI has already banked money earned from catering for the Denman College Fund and other events are planned. The President asked everyone to start to consider joining the committee next year.
30th August
The Book Group met to discuss “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman. I am afraid the majority had got as far as one of the characters munching on a rat and shut the book up. It was a fantasy rather like a Terry Pratchett novel set underneath the city of London centred on people who were ignored by society, who had “fallen through the cracks in the streets”. It was a satirical take on modern society using the London location names literally so that one had a real angel in Islington, real shepherds in Shepherds’ Bush etc. All very clever and quite entertaining but too much for some of our members.
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