31st May-1st June 2013
Annual General Meeting, Cardiff
It is always exciting to attend the AGM and it re-kindles my enthusiasm for the WI. Two coach loads of members travelled west to Bristol and spent the night in a hotel there before moving on to Cardiff in good time for the opening of the doors of the huge Motorpoint Arena where 6000 people spent the day.

The proceedings started with the Extraordinary General Meeting so that the new WI Articles of Association could be approved and the new constitution could be discussed and passed.It must have been galling for the Trustees to listen to members from the floor say that they knew nothing about this when for 2 years information and consultation sheets had been circulating around the federations and had been featured in WI Life. The constitution is more flexible than the former one and more geared to modern methods of communication but basically it holds good to the aims and objects of the WI movement which need to be expressed in a formal legal language.

Ruth Bond, our National Chair, described her busy schedule, drew attention to the new WI Guide, reported that we were gaining 500 new members a week and that our campaigns were gaining recognition. Although Denman College was still costing money, it had a rising bed take-up on last year and there were lots of new courses planned.
Stephanie Fort, the Hon. Treasurer, welcomed news that now the subscription was exempt from VAT it would bring in a £500,000 gain to funds and the share of the subscription to NFWI and the County Federations would be re-worked to give the individual WIs a larger share.

William Shawcross, the Chairman of the Charities Commission, praised the WI as "a model charity" and said his job was to regulate charities in order to safeguard society: there are 5000 new charities set up every year.
Presentations were made and these included the winning Makower quilt which was a beautiful piece of work on display from a Bucks member. We hoped our cheer was audible to everyone.
After lunch Griff Rhys-Jones, full of Welsh fire, talked about Britain's urban heritage under threat from de-restricted planning laws. He wanted us all to conduct neighbourhood audits and make our towns "destinations" because the high street was the local front room of a community.

The resolution about the decline of the high street was then discussed. It was introduced by the NFWI Board of Trustees which had enlisted the support of the CPRE chairman who championed local food to local shops and stressed the importance of the Great Food Debate. Partly in opposition to the motion was a very good speaker from the Retailers' Association who gave us hard facts about modern shopping patterns which could not be altered but he thought the town centres needed to be regenerated with lots of social activities and local input.
Discussion from the floor expressed dissatisfaction with the resolution. Jean Morris, our chairman queried the destination of choice phrase but the general feeling was that until the high street could offer as much parking and more free parking as the out of town supermarket giants there was little possibility of changing things and only limited action available to WI members.
The resolution was passed with an 87% majority
John Humphrys then told us about his career in broadcasting by asking for questions from the audience which he answered off the cuff. He was a very entertaining speaker and easy to listen to as we all knew he would be.

In her concluding remarks, Ruth Bond announced that next year's AGM would be in Leeds and the 2015 Centenary meeting would be very special so that as many WI members as possible could join in with the celebrations. A commemorative rose would be on sale and even a special postage stamp.
Then Jonathan Willcocks, the WI Choir Adviser led us in a song with actions to stir us all up before the closing anthems.
We had a good ride home and arrived back tired but re-enthused.I saw only one hat worn! If you get the chance to go to Leeds next year jump at it: you'll remember the experience.

9th May
The Current Affairs sub-committee met today and again there was talk about resolutions.However the bulk of the time was spent in planning the Great Food Debate in High Wycombe on the 25th September. There are going to be some high flying speakers and we are hoping that the WI members will do us proud by turning up with really good questions for debate and reasoned points of view. The ACWW theme of Grow locally, Benefit globally will also feature and some supermarket chains will be there to fight their corner. The organisation of the Royal Greenwich outing has been a headache but we were very pleased that the WI members responded so well to this offer and even more pleased that nearly every WI re-acted with understanding well when we had to limit it to WI members only. We hated doing this but it was the only way to be able to take almost all the members who wanted to go.We received one offer to come in drag which we regretfully declined! This may have been inspired by the photos of WI members dressed as pirates which appeared in the national papers this week.
We are suggesting that WIs construct their own websites so that the Federation website could link them in and they could link into the NFWI as well. We were assured that this was easy to do and if any WI wanted practical help it could enquire through Stuart Lodge.

8th May
Our WI Discussion Group met this evening. I don't know who set the topic: it sounded a bit off-putting but proved very interesting."Access to Welfare" started with some background notes on the Beveridge Report and the introduction of the National Health Service. If the Government needs help with re-organising the NHS, I suggest the Ministers contact our WI! We touched on the work of the old Job Centres as well and uncovered the fact that this Universal Credit being piloted in the North East relies completely on on-line access which is a "catch 22" situation for those who have no money, no computer and no confidence in their ability to use the websites. There must be many people whose personal pride would prevent them from using the computers in public places or from asking help from someone where their financial position has to be discussed.
Do we hear a WI resolution in the making? We all agreed that it was a damned sight better than the one coming up in June.

1st May
There was a good turn-out tonight for the annual meeting, always referred to as the Resolution Meeting. The motion about preserving the High Street created a lot of discussion, although it was by no means all about the content of the resolution. Knowing that abstentions are not counted and therefore a waste of a vote, we finally instructed our delegate to vote in favour because we didn't want to appear unconcerned about the plight of the high street traders BUT we thought the resolution was already in the public eye with all the Mary Portas business: it lacked any definite aim: it was too long and woolly. To a certain degree, it was unrealistic too because no one can halt on-line buying or persuade people to completely give up visiting superstores. We thought that there must have been better resolutions to choose and someone should express our disappointment to NFWI.

The craft group have made over 100 items for the stall at the Young Farmers Show in June and a working party was set up for the August Garden Party. A very favourable report was given of the April Council Meeting and of the meeting of 3 of our members on behalf of Bucks Federation with John Bercow about the chronic shortage of midwives which was last year's NFWI mandate---something that the WIs could work on and try to make a difference.

22nd March
I am adding this date to my blog only because the WI is mandated to try to preserve public libraries in these days of stringent economic cuts. Our town is unfortunately one of the 13 in Bucks which is now going to survive only if it can call on volunteer support from the community. There was a meeting tonight to see how many people could find the time and enthusiasm to serve in the library in order to keep it open for the same amount of hours that it now provides.The attendance was good so one imagines this will be possible. Volunteers are not the real answer to the problem even if one professional librarian remains but it is this or nothing so we had better get on with it. The principle down-grades the profession of librarianship back to the days when working in a library was seen as date-stamping books.

21st March
Another sew-in day at a member's house.Actually it is beginning to resemble a sweatshop from the Third World. We are kept at the sewing machines and chained to the end of balls of wool but the results are going to be amazing. I just hope that the public will want to buy some of the stuff that is being manufactured so that our WI funds will swell and our expertise may attract even more new members who are interested in crafts.

19th March
Two coach loads of WI members and friends were up early this morning to visit the Manet Exhibition at the Royal Academy. We made good time in spite of road diversions until we actually came to drive along Picadilly when it slowed down to a crawl. It is a wonderful collection of Manet's work and beautifully displayed but it was very crowded.Someone reported that there had been a nasty incident when one viewer said she had been rudely jostled and the steward had to intervene.I missed the excitement but am sure it wasn't Bucks members involved! We went to the top floor to view the very different pictures of George Bellows which were on display up there: a lot of muscle and strain in boxing rings and illustrations of the under-privileged in America in the early 1900s but well worth seeing. I really enjoy the chance to visit the London galleries without the hassle of train and underground so I hope the BFWI continues to arrange them.

14th March
I forgot to mention that last evening on returning from the Science Day I went to the local WI's Discussion Group to talk about the value of art. It was a good subject once we got over the idea that it was too philosophical about something on which we had no real expertise.However, we were soon away on the practical uses of art in therapy, in industry and in what nowadays is termed the "feel good factor".With the help of an artist member of our WI, we got beyond the "I know what I like" stance and enjoyed a pleasant exchange of ideas.
The members of Current Affairs met this morning still slightly shell-shocked from their exertions at the Invention and Discovery meeting yesterday.We felt it had been a great success and had already received messages from WI members and the speakers congratulating us on the meeting.No time to rest on our laurels though so it was down to arrangements for an outing to Royal Greenwich and future activities.The next big event will probably be the Great Food Debate which we hope will fit in with NFWI's campaign and help the wider community to understand the challenges of feeding a growing world population and try to do something positive to deal with the problem.