Buckinghamshire Federation of Women's Institutes
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  • Home
  • who we are
    • Federation Trustees
    • Sub-Committees
    • Sub-Committee Videos
  • What we do
    • Current Campaigns
      • Climate Change
      • End Violence against Women
      • Get On Board
      • Stop Modern Slavery
      • Make a Match
      • 5 Minutes that matter
    • Resolutions
    • The Members' Blog
  • What's On
    • Events Calendar
    • Competitions & Challenges
      • Green Canopy Competition '22
      • Elizabeth Bell Challenge 2021
      • BFWI Silver Cup
      • Lady Denman Cup
      • Pudding Fit for a Queen
      • Virtual Show
  • Running your WI
    • Finding a Speaker
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    • Library
      • Tutorials & Library
    • Learning
      • WI Training
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  • Gallery
  • Contact Us
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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. 

In the public eye

15/4/2018

5 Comments

 
Oh dear! What an uproar about a member’s comments on the activities of the Shoreditch Sisters WI! Is this another occasion on which we should say “There is no such thing as bad publicity”? I can understand how some members could find its approach too forthright (displays on quilts of female parts not usually discussed at the dinner table and pictures of sanitary wear worked into posters) but it is a generational problem and the WI does pride itself on catering for all ages. What Shoreditch does for our WI campaigns is not all that different to the rest of us except they are more active publicly. It is more direct and aims to shake everyone up---which it is obviously very successful in doing. What shook me in the press articles was that it had come from a federation trustee which seemed a bit disloyal: I thought trustee members stood together at least in public. Someone must have leaked the blog entry to the media because I don’t believe the local press reads our WI blogs.
If my blog is to go more public I had better be a bit more circumspect about what I say---especially now that I see I have been given categories for people to click to find specific subjects in my ramblings. Have you noticed this re-arrangement? Nothing has disappeared from the website. More future events have been added and some items shuffled about a bit. Our federation website was one of the first and was a role model for quite a few years so we should be proud of it. I wish more Bucks members used it.
The local WI discussion group met to discuss tele -medicine which we had to have defined for us at the start but then discovered that our local surgery has been using the system for some time but we, the patients, hadn’t known its title. Several members were appreciative of booked phone calls to avoid attending the surgery and felt confident that if there had to be follow-up on the diagnosis they would be able to see the doctor or specialist more promptly. Others were insistent that they preferred to speak face-to-face. With today’s pressures on hospitals and doctors generally, this must be helpful like the triage systems in A&E departments. And what about operations being conducted on Skype from one continent to another or being performed by an AI robot being manipulated by a surgeon in another room?
In support of our WI’s charity MIND Buckinghamshire a coffee morning and jigsaw swap in a member’s house raised £75. This is a gesture towards the resolution on mental health going to the AGM in Cardiff in June. This resolution is another example of the WI not being afraid to tackle subjects that have been considered unsuitable for discussion in public. I wonder how the Shoreditch Sisters will handle this one.
​
5 Comments
Hils
16/4/2018 08:24:11 am

I've always thought it a great strength of the WI that age doesn't matter. I appreciate discovering what I have in common with - or what I can learn from - women of any generation.

Reply
Thelma Sackman
16/4/2018 01:16:06 pm

Always find the blog very interesting and shows the diversity of the life of a WI member.

Reply
Betty Furner
16/4/2018 04:26:15 pm

Well done blogger!! See you Wednesday 🤭🤭

Reply
blogger link
21/4/2018 07:38:37 pm

Now I know that comments are getting through I shall try to reply. I'd given up even looking!
Looking forward to seeing your photos from the ACM. Forgot to mention the good news about Denman so will need to work that in somewhere else.

Reply
blogger link
16/4/2018 04:40:01 pm

Thanks for your comment which was rather like the arrival of a London Bus---wait for ages and then along come three. Am glad you agree: I've heard of some WIs with 3 generations of a family as members which must be rare as families are more mobile these days.

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Buckinghamshire Federation of Women's Institutes (Affiliated to the National Federation of Women's Institutes)   ​Charity No: 228057 ​
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  • Home
  • who we are
    • Federation Trustees
    • Sub-Committees
    • Sub-Committee Videos
  • What we do
    • Current Campaigns
      • Climate Change
      • End Violence against Women
      • Get On Board
      • Stop Modern Slavery
      • Make a Match
      • 5 Minutes that matter
    • Resolutions
    • The Members' Blog
  • What's On
    • Events Calendar
    • Competitions & Challenges
      • Green Canopy Competition '22
      • Elizabeth Bell Challenge 2021
      • BFWI Silver Cup
      • Lady Denman Cup
      • Pudding Fit for a Queen
      • Virtual Show
  • Running your WI
    • Finding a Speaker
    • Subscriptions
    • Library
      • Tutorials & Library
    • Learning
      • WI Training
      • Denman @ Home
  • Gallery
  • Contact Us
  • On-line Store
  • History of Buckinghamshire WIs
  • Use of Website