September 2019

​September is the month for fresh starts, the month when one looks at the calendar and thinks where did the year go and if I don’t get that done soon it will be Christmas. On the home front one rushes round to book flu injections, dentist appointments and house painters and if the luck lasts try to have an annual review with the doctor which I am assured is the due of all patients of a certain age. Things are starting up again for WI members after the summer recess. Members have survived wet garden parties and barbeques so it is time to get back to normal, whatever that is.
Our WI pennant for 2020 is completed and has been approved by the members before being sent to Stuart Lodge for adding to the celebratory bunting which will tour the county next year. We have looked at the list of walks planned across Bucks in order to encourage members to walk 100 miles in 2020. Most of them look of a manageable length and circular to avoid the problems of a linear walk which we did many years ago when we walked from one end of the county to the other. Some of our members have experimented with walking netball: I am told it was a hilarious session with a certain amount of cheating going on. The Book Group read “Persuasion” by Jane Austen and really enjoyed a trip down memory lane when the novel had been read in school. For some it was their favourite classic.
I did some sight-seeing in North Wales during the holidays and visited Plas Newydd where Lady Anglesey lived when she started the first WI in UK at Llanfair PG. Unfortunately, the mansion is undergoing restoration work so we couldn’t see the interior properly. The guide knew nothing of the WI connection so you can bet I put him right on that! I wonder what those original WI members would think of the organisation today. We still share many of the first concerns and certainly ideals but imagine their attitude to our ways of communication---a glossy member magazine, e-mails, the web and the unofficialwi site and the way we jump into cars to travel to meetings instead of walking or cycling. Early membership meant hard work and dedicated commitment---we have it easy. Perhaps that is why some members skim along the surface and cannot be bothered to look a little deeper into what the WI is all about: like most things, the more one puts in the more one gets out.