What a difference a bit of sunshine makes not only to the coloured clothes worn but also to the sunny smiles as the Bucks WI members poured into the Waterside Theatre today! Jenny Street opened proceedings with an up-date on the changed sub-committee structure, a new name for the Friendship Club and information on exciting plans to celebrate our County Federation’ centenary in 2020. We were all pleased to learn that BFWI was in good financial heart and making strategic arrangements to be able to afford to celebrate our centenary.
The High Sheriff, Professor Ruth Farwell described how she achieved the honour and high-lighted the inequality still present in the academic world. Bucks Resilience has a new name too as Stephen Irons encouraged the WI members to volunteer to be on hand to help in the Emergency Plan should there be any major disaster in the area. Another celebration this year is for Stoke Mandeville Paraplegic Games which was founded in 1948 by Sir Ludwig Guttmann. The speakers for WheelPower had just returned from the Gold coast in Australia where the disabled athletes had held their games in parallel with the main Olympics event.
Dr Natalie Welden from Portsmouth University then reported on the latest developments in the identification of the scale of the plastic soup problem. Natalie was the main speaker in Liverpool at the Annual General Meeting and she described her most recent work with langoustines fished out of the Clyde estuary. The morning session closed with Nick from Countryside Books exhorting all of the WIs in Bucks to contribute a passage about their own village or town to replace the Village Book produced way back in 1987. We all know how much has changed since then.
Then it was lunchtime and the members spilled out into the sunshine to sit about on the walls and seats around the theatre just like we do when we visit the Albert hall for AGMs. The speaker in the afternoon was a typical example of Northern Grit: no one crossed her path with impunity. Christine Walkden talked of her life and times as a gardener working from a front garden strip via grave-digging to Kew Gardens and becoming a TV gardening guru. Christine is convinced that tender loving care is just as important with people as it is with plants. She is a wonderful natural speaker and her talk was full of humour which really appealed to the audience.
The members were sorry to learn that Jenny was standing down after 4 years as our Federation Chairman and we wished her a well-earned rest. It was another successful Council Meeting to end on. Here’s to the next year as we race towards 2020.
​

Today I am wearing purple not just because I am already old and want to learn to spit but in memory of the fight which the Suffragettes waged to obtain the vote 100 years ago. How brave they were, not only physically but mentally as well! It takes a lot of courage to take up a banner and march in demonstrations even in the present time, when women are more visible in the public eye and much more confident in expressing their views. I was interested to hear at a talk given by Simon Heffer that the reason the women were granted the vote after the age of 30 was not because they were considered not to be mature enough to vote until they were 9 years older than males but because the government of the day wanted them at home to replace the loss of about two generations of the population in the Great War: don’t let the women have the opportunity of further education and a place in industry and the professions but keep them at home producing children.
Three generations of women have escaped having to fight for the right to vote so they are beholden to use it whenever the need arises. The WI is always in the forefront of sensible campaigns on behalf of the family and women’s welfare and are no longer bound by strict conventions on what is acceptable to be discussed in order to gain results. This week there is a question in Parliament about the practice of surgical mesh implants (Sling the Mesh) so why do some people think we cannot discuss FGM?
Every year once the short list for resolutions is released, it surprises me how many articles appear either in the national press or on the media on these very topics. This can be a good thing or not---are these ideas going to be old hat before the WI comes to discuss them in June or are they useful preparatory work as a build-up? Last year’s mandates are doing well. Lots of articles about plastic litter and measures to combat loneliness. The latter crosses over into the 2018 homelessness and modern slavery issues. The problems of self-image and the media and the selfie culture which is on the short list is appearing more often and also open talk about mental illness.
The sort of press interest we don’t need is people carping about the cost of the annual subscription and suggesting that the WI is closing branches. Is £41 for 11 meetings and for having the backup of a national organisation to look after our interests expensive? We are attracting younger members nationally although not locally. If we want younger members we really need evening WIs and operate where there are a lot of young women living and working. Reading the WI Life it seems to be the thirty year olds who are coming in perhaps to learn crafts but more likely to combat loneliness beyond work. Can we attract the older lonely too to get a good mix, since the sheltered accommodation these days is being built in the larger towns?
Our WI craft group has met twice since Christmas. We are turning our attention to making soft toy animals for the Annual Council Meeting competition. (This ties in with the resolutions about domestic abuse as the toys are to be given to women’s refuges). The book group has been reading The Girl on the Train which led to a lot of discussion about mental and physical abuse in the home. Because of a break over Christmas we had also read The Essex Serpent which was set in late Victorian times when women were beginning to question whether they had to obey convention and stay in the home rather than be educated and take an informed interest in the emergence of science and medicine.
So I’m back where I came in. We must not let the Suffragettes down by taking for granted all that they have won for us and remember that the early WI members were actively lending their support to their struggles. We can and should use their legacy to keep improving the lot of our families and others who find themselves suffering from injustice wherever they are.
 
​

​There is one thing I can promise you in 2018: you will not find any recipes nor pictures of food on my blog. What did journalists and people on the media write about before they discovered food? On every page of newspapers these days there is something about baking or cooking or dieting. If it is not directly taking up columns, then it is in the adverts. I cannot be the only person bored to tears by the subject. However, I reserve the right to let you find references to food waste because that is something which I feel strongly about and which the WI wants to work towards reducing.
So that is one New Year’s resolution. The next is to try to eliminate as much plastic from my life as possible. I will continue to take paper bags with me when I shop for food and read the labels on any new purchase to see what it contains and where it came from. This slows the whole shopping process down but is quite interesting to do. I wonder whether the WI campaign, along with David Attenborough may really make a difference. Surely all plastic should display advice on whether it can be re-cycled or not. Couldn’t all plastic be collected in one bin and be similarly dealt with at a plant in every authority?  It is so confusing at present with no common treatment available.
If we are going to try to live by WI mandates we can all look out for our neighbours to combat loneliness and problems of depression which this often exacerbates. Homelessness is another problem that a WI member can try to alleviate by supporting her local women’s refuges and looking out for solutions. What a difference it would make if every town council took upon itself to house one homeless family! All communities have houses standing empty for months, sometimes years on end. Locally, we have an unused school building which has a roof, electricity and water which could be a refuge---albeit temporary until it is knocked down for re-development.
The local WI meeting last week touched on some of these topics when running through the shortlist of possible resolutions to go up for discussion at Cardiff at the NFWI Annual General Meeting in June. At this stage it is an individual choice from five topics but later we will vote as a WI either for or against the resolutions chosen to go forward. We listened to a very interesting talk on food nutrition when I think we all learned something new and useful about the food that we eat and what our bodies need and do with it. A high proportion of our members are planning to become dual members with the morning WI. Our interest groups continue to flourish.
The discussion group which meets monthly in a member’s house is one of the most successful of these. It is now four years old and has not run out of topics yet nor had anyone so offended as to walk out. Last night we were discussing body image in line with one of the shortlist resolutions. This again is a field where social media and advertising have a lot to answer for. It is not a new problem as everyone has always worried about how other people view us but now through social media one is on trial by a vast audience which is made up of spiteful people cloaked by anonymity. It is no longer one’s peer group in class nor one’s own family nor villagers on the street; it is the whole country telling everyone else where one’s face or body falls short of perfection. Little wonder the victim refuses to go out, go to school or walk back into the workplace.

21st June
Was there ever such a hot day for a WI outing as today? Winslow WI was celebrating its annual group excursion and had chosen to visit Windsor where fortunately it had booked a cruise up the river lasting for most of the afternoon. This was a little cooler than on the riverbank and was very enjoyable and ---guess what?--- I saw a kingfisher for the first time in my life. There was a lot of bird life to be seen and the commentator on the launch was very knowledgeable. The coach driver went a long way round to avoid the usual traffic jams in Aylesbury but the passengers didn’t mind how we reached home provided we could be reasonably cool. The members were grateful for the work of the committee in arranging the day.
19th June
Happy Stitchers were suffering from the heat so attendance was down but a few stalwarts managed a few stitches and quite a bit of chat.
7th June
The National Federation’s Annual General Meeting in Liverpool and I was halfway up a mountain in The Lakes but I was willing the Ashley Green WI resolution to go well. Without one of these ultra-modern gadgets I had to wait to be told by text what the outcome had been. What a vote! Now we will need to lead the way in getting things done about the pollution caused by plastic fibres in the ocean and also, from the home front, to tackle loneliness in the community.
I am looking forward to hearing all about the meeting and reading about it in WI Life. I don’t think I have ever written in my blog so little about this the most important day in the WI calendar so I am hoping someone else will cover it on the Bucks website.
30th May
The book discussed by the local WI Book Group this month was not a novel but the autobiographical account of Joe Simpson’s survival story “Touching the Void”. We all learned a lot of new words to do with ice and mountains and knots used in climbing but what most impressed us was the sheer courage and determination demonstrated by both the mountaineers in extreme conditions. The decisions they both had to make with as much detachment as they could muster facing the almost certain outcome of death were mind-blowing. They were up against frostbite and broken limbs in blizzard conditions but never once did they blame anyone but themselves although both began to think of the mountain as a malevolent force against which they were fighting. We admired the book and the endeavour but still Joe Simpson couldn’t really explain why people like him have to challenge themselves to climb up these peaks and put themselves in such peril.
​

​22nd May
Apparently on Countryfile on TV at the weekend a discussion was featured about the microfibres being washed into the water courses from organic fertilisers being spread on the fields. In our WI information on the resolution going up to the AGM in Liverpool about microfibres entering the ocean from our washing machines, there was also mention of the water run- off from the motorways which is contaminated by the shed from the wear and tear on tyres. The fall-out from fertilisers was a new source of danger. This followed the articles in the national press the previous week covering Prince Charles’ talk about the growing problem of plastics generally in the oceans. It is hopeful to learn that there is a substantial prize being offered to encourage research into finding solutions to the situation. Obviously, there is growing awareness of the subject of our Bucks resolution but it in no way takes away the premise of ours: ours has a different angle. We are asking for the Government and industry to research at source how this flow of microfibres can be stopped from our homes--- either change the textiles or the filters somewhere between our houses and the sea.
20th May
This weekend the NFWI was joining with other like-minded bodies to make representations to supermarkets expressing concern at the huge amounts of food waste after items are withdrawn from the shelves. WI members were asked to find out what was happening locally. Did your WI do anything about this? Did you see any coverage in the press? I took the WI manifesto with me on a group outing for another organisation and talked briefly about it. The response was very positive but I was only drawing the listeners’ attention to the WI mandate and hoped that what The WI was doing would feature in the media but I haven’t yet found any mention of it. Of course, it was Pippa Middleton’s wedding too.
18th May
The local WI supported the Town Council this afternoon by going on a litter pick. I think this was prompted by the coming visit of our twinning associates from France and the fact that the town is entering the Best Kept Village competition but whatever the motive it was a worthy activity and re-enforces our role in the local community.
10th May
The members of the discussion group were talking about Air Travel this evening. They described their experiences both good and bad, the advantages and disadvantages of improving ready access across the world. It also revealed how many families were scattered about the globe and how integrated we all are with other nationalities. Some of us will never enjoy flights because we are just terrified by the whole idea, just as others dread a sea crossing or going by tunnel. We shared information on the ways to get “bumped up” and how to find out which seats are to be avoided. It’s all on the Internet apparently.
8th May
The Happy Stitchers are still busy on their projects and progress is being made at different rates. We also find time to talk round and plan future activities in more detail than is often possible at the monthly meetings.