Investigation and Discovery 7th March
This event has become so popular that the BFWI Education and Current Affairs Sub- committee has had to admit that it has outgrown the Gateway at AVDC, Aylesbury and is looking for a larger venue to avoid having to ballot the members for tickets.
The first speaker was Dr Mark Spencer who worked at the Natural History Museum for many years: he is an expert in the use of natural history collections in the study of climate change and forensic biology. Mark began by telling us about the work of Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, who started to name and paint every plant including some which he more or less sponsored Capt. Cook to bring back from his voyages of exploration during the 1700s.By comparing modern specimens with those in his collections it is possible to study climate change on crops, ferns, coral and seaweeds .Plant growth gets out of sync.as the atmosphere heats eg. aphids are not available when needed by blue tits and things such as ragged robin are in decline. The botanical collections provide a source of DNA in research in pharmaceuticals and agriculture. He concluded by advising members to save any pressed flower albums in their possession and offer them to local museums as they are of value.
The second speaker Professor Elizabeth Tunbridge had started out in molecular and cellular biology at Bath University but then had moved to Oxford and specialised in neuroscience. She is presently the lead in a research group in psychiatry working out how genetic and environmental factors impact on the function of dopamine. I must admit that at the beginning of this talk I quaked thinking how is it that this young girl can use so many words whose meaning I cannot understand. However after a few minutes I realised that she was very skilfully leading the audience into an understanding of what she was doing ie. trying to treat the symptoms of psychiatric illnesses where the brain function is affected by genes and proteins bearing electrical activity. Gently she introduced us to RNAs (ribonucleic acid which codes and de-codes genes), to COMT which blocks Dopamine and to MINION (the DNA sequencer). At the end I felt enlightened about the human genome and could imagine some of what is happening in the human brain and how difficult it is to plot why things go wrong and how to repair the damage with drugs yet stop them from interfering with other organs. Neuroscientists always work with post mortem tissue so Elizabeth stressed the need for the Brain Bank and the UK’s biobank.
After lunch another slip of a girl Louise Hall who has been working on flood defence schemes in East Anglia gave a presentation: she described with slides her successful delivery of the £20m replacement of tidal defences in Great Yarmouth and recovery schemes in Essex following the East Coast Surge in 2013.She is also Commercial Services Manager for the £300m Thames Estuary Asset Management 2100 programme. We looked at her technical drawings for calculating the flow and weight of water and engineering budgets; we saw her team manoeuvring huge cranes along esplanades and doing bolstering work below the water in winched cabins. She concluded by asking the audience to encourage their family members to study engineering and she stood there a living advertisement for females at the top of the engineering ladder.
The final speaker was another female engineer and leader. Naomi Climer had studied chemistry then moved into engineering but obviously her real forte was in broadcasting and communications for the technology industry via the BBC and ITV in Europe and USA. Naomi talked about the Internet of Things: the ether is not overflowing with communications between people on social media, it is heaving with conversations between things--- 50 billion machines talking to each other: remote controls for heating , soon driverless cars advising each other, Satnavs and robots to name but a few. It is going to be perpetual connectivity between everyone and everything. Naomi finished with a cartoon of what she imagines our lives will look like in 50 years’ time---but it isn’t a cartoon, it is already happening. Again, what a wonderful explanation of the technical future and of course, she wants more scientists and technicians to come forward to STEM education.
Talk about food for thought we certainly were provided with excellent speakers and will not need to be encouraged to attend next year’s event. The questions were good throughout and it was obvious that the members appreciated being talked to at a steady pace and did not feel they were expected to receive dumbed down information. All the speakers seemed to value our attention.
 
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7th March
A fairly large contingent of members from our WI attended the Investigation and Discovery Day at the AVDC Gatehouse in Aylesbury. If I had been told that nearly 200 WI members would sit enthralled listening for an hour to a talk on Maths at 10.15 in the morning, I would never have believed it. Adam Kucharski who is an Assistant Professor in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine talked about how epidemics can be fought by the use of maths to predict the spread of diseases. Early intervention and co-operation through WHO is vital in dealing with epidemics. We heard about recent outbreaks and Adam showed us how his graphs plotted the true rise and fall of infection rather than the panic reaction reported in the media. Unfortunately, he does think that the biggest threat is another strain of flu which could sweep quickly across our shrinking world.
Then it was the turn of Helen Arney to explain some physics and astronomy accompanying herself on the guitar as seen on TV and at the Edinburgh Fringe. She concluded her entertaining presentation by singing the periodic table to the music of Gilbert and Sullivan. Before lunch there was a brief talk by an emergency motorbike rider from SERV OBN, the rapid response team who wanted to tell the Bucks WIs that the organisation had speakers available to come to meetings to raise funds for what is a very worthwhile service manned by volunteers.
Denise Smythe-Wright was an Honorary Research Fellow at the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems in Southampton and is now the President of the International Association of Physical Sciences of the Oceans, advising on climate change at World conferences such as the next G7. She talked about her life travelling across and under every ocean as she analysed sea water and tracked plankton distribution in their currents. Denise designed and built her own equipment. She explained about the effect of melting glaciers and the shrinking icy coasts of Greenland on the jet stream which we all knew a little about and the thermohaline circulation of water which we didn’t. Of course, in Bucks WIs this year, debate touched on pollution through micro-plastics but also halocarbons and iodine.
The final speaker was Dr Giles Yeo who is working on genetics and severe human obesity at Wolfson College, Cambridge and at the Medical Research Council’s Metabolic Diseases Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He has appeared on the Horizon TV series. Giles is a very dynamic speaker, entertaining to listen to but he explains clearly complex ideas. We learned about the importance of leptin which is the hormone which inhibits hunger. It tells the brain when the human body needs food.  Many of the cases of obesity are because of the absence of this vital hormone which can also cut off the immune system and prevent puberty.
It was a fascinating day and everyone went home feeling that they had learned a lot and enjoyed the day. There was a representative from WI Life present again but I shall be very surprised if an account of the day is ever printed in its pages which is a shame as WI members in other federations would benefit from these informative days on science and discovery.
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​29th June
The WI members and guests had taken great pains to dress in floral clothes, predominantly pink, to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday as if it was a lovely summer’s day---Barbara Cartland would have been proud of us. Fortunately, we were all under cover. There was much chatter and rueful laughter in the foyer of the Community Centre in Amersham as people shook themselves dry after crossing the car park. However once inside, everything was lovely: a traditional strawberry tea plus cakes and sandwiches accompanied by pink drinks. Many guests had made tiaras which they wore with style. A nonagenarian was installed as the Queen of proceedings and wore a very impressive full crown. In the course of the afternoon there was a royal quiz and an entertainment put on by members of the Board of Trustees and WI advisers. The finale of synchronised swimming was very well received. If you are wondering how this was achieved, I will just say that we were in Drake’s Hall and there had been a lot of rain that afternoon. If you don’t believe me, you should have attended this event put on by the BFWI for our entertainment to see for yourself.
 
8th June
The local WI’s Discussion Group met in a member’s house this evening to talk about “Engineering”. Some of us had been at a bit of a loss wondering how we could discuss such a huge topic so we started by defining engineering as the application of science for the control and use of power, especially by means of machinery. This made things a little easier when trying to separate science and technology. We discussed the rise of female engineers in spite of parental and social prejudice against young girls taking up what is still considered a career path more suited to males. Of course the inequality of rates of pay between the sexes was also mentioned. There is also a tendency for the public to imagine that the UK is no longer a big player in the field of industry. The evening’s discussion included other forms of engineering such as genetic, social engineering and even political manipulation which was a rather topical subject this month. We concluded by planning to ask the BFWI Education and Current Affairs sub-committee to consider inviting a high-power female engineer to talk at one of its science days.

15th January
Halfway through the month already! Tonight the local WI discussion group got together. We were supposed to be talking about New Year Resolutions but it wasn't a topic conducive to much talk.Most people there didn't make them or knew that they broke them very early on anyway. Also if one revealed a resolution it rather drew attention to one's basic failings which perhaps should remain hidden and certainly not be discussed by everyone in the WI. So we ended up running through the members' experiences with the local NHS and the town pharmacy which did provide mixed feelings. The topic for the next session should be more interesting. Perhaps I ought to have conducted a bit of a survey on the referendum I introduced on my blog in the first entry of this year.

9th January
Today was the meeting of the Current Affairs sub-committee down in High Wycombe at the Bucks Federation HQ. We spent a lot of time organising the coming Investigation and Discovery meeting in March which promises to be a sell-out.We are especially pleased about this as we know that other federations have difficulty attracting WI members to any event which has a whiff of science about it. So well done to Bucks members! We also spent time debating whether we ought to return to being named Education and Current Affairs because we didn't want to be restricted to work with the WI campaigns. We know that the events that have been popular over the years have been based on history, geography and the environment and we don't want to be deadly serious all the time. We need to cover the campaigns because that is our job and we enjoy organising things like the Great Food Debate and lobbying MPs about midwives but we want a bit of fun too. So we have asked the BOT to agree to a change back.

8th January
The first local WI meeting tonight and yet more new members arriving! We are going to need our name badges more than ever as we get to know new faces.The talk was given by one of our own members and she called it Spinning Plates. If the crowd had come to see a juggler it would soon have seen its mistake because these spinning plates are beneath our feet. We watched an excellent presentation about volcanoes and earthquakes and everyone was so quiet and attentive that you would have heard a pin drop, never mind a plate.It was not the same during the coffee break when the level of chatter was extremely loud---well, we hadn't seen each other for about a month! We handed in our voting slips for the AGM resolution choice and paid subscriptions and planned events over the next few months.Some of us are going to play scrabble to see if there is a team in the making for the County competition.I am sure our WI will have a go because it usually does have a shot at most of the county competitions whether it is craft or croquet.

　

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.