Report of WI meeting

Nocton and District WI April Meeting

Monday 10th April brought our first meeting of the 2017/18 programme and as the competition was “A single Bloom from your garden” there was plenty of spring colour and scent in the village hall. The flower theme continued in the business section of the meeting with discussion of, and encouragement to take part in, the Lonely Bouquet campaign on Friday 5th May which is National Flower Arranging day. The proposed resolutions for 2017 of “Alleviating Loneliness” and “Plastic soup: keep micro plastic microfibers out of our oceans” and the launch of a new website in June for WI members were also discussed. The  NWFI campaign action pack on Food Waste was on display and it was decided that a representative branch of each supermarket in our area would be given a copy of the WI Supermarket Manifesto on the weekend of action planned for 19th to 21st May. This calls for them to aim to meet four commitments; An end to overbuying, Extending the product life of foods in the home, Fully utilising the farm crop and Supermarket transparency on food waste. At the spring Witham group meeting, where there was an excellent talk on Jane Austen and the costumes of that time, Jenny began our collection of trophies for the year with a silver rose bowl after obtaining first prize in the Easter Bonnet competition.

The winning Easter Bonnet

After tea, and as always delicious cakes, Sandra Bright stepped in as our speaker for the evening after Rachel Petherham had to withdraw at the last moment. Sandra was a finalist in the BBC`s Big Allotment Challenge and she regaled us with the trials and tribulations of  the application process and interview as well as the hard work and ups and downs of each week during the competition. There was an extraordinary amount of hard work, travelling and planning involved as each week the competitors had to produce three varieties of each chosen vegetable and the same for the chosen flower all having to be grown from seed. Also a recipe had to be developed and the item produced as directed by the judges. The contestants had to work on their allocated plot of land by the Thames in London and were down there from Friday to Monday every week for 6 months whilst keeping their participation in the competition a secret!! Sandra then produced a beautiful hand-tied bouquet using flowers from her large cut flowers garden which was raffled off. Sandra also complimented us on our thriving and bustling WI of which we are very proud.

Hand-tied bouquet

Sandra Bright with raffle winner, Janet Goldsworthy

Our next meeting is Monday 8th May at 7.15pm which is not an open meeting but if you wish to come and see what Nocton and District WI is all about you will be very welcome. The very popular Rosie is returning this time to talk about, and no doubt help us produce, Whole grain Mustard.

More details about our WI can be viewed on our website at noctonanddistrictwi.weebly.com

[All images and report courtesy of Jane Kania]