How many of you were inspired by Jane Bolt, our June speaker, to start moving a little bit more?
If you were, you may be interested in trying out one of Jane’s gentle exercise sessions held at Clarence House in Penzance. To attend a free introductory class, ring Jane on (01736) 363052 or (07751) 053536, or drop her an email on info@janebolt.co.uk.
Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting around doing nothing! Crowlas & Ludgvan WI members have been up to all sorts of things over the past few weeks.
The Book Group held its annual Summer Garden Party at the end of June. It was held indoors this year, but all had a lovely time.
Val organised a SCUBA workshop for a few intrepid divers. With the help of instructors from Peninsula Sub Aqua Club, the members got kitted out and learnt the basics. Well done! (Click here to see more photos from the SCUBA workshop.)
And yesterday, our Camera Club had an afternoon session with wildlife photographer David Chapman at Tehidy Woods. He taught us his tricks of the trade for capturing the best shots of squirrels, birds and plants. (Click here for more photos of the Camera Club’s day out with David Chapman.)
“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.”
Robert Browning was right about that. There is nothing on earth as wonderful as the taste of freshly-baked bread. Or the smell of it either! And the delicious aromas wafting from Guval Village Hall on Friday must have had the whole neighbourhood salivating.
Sarah Judd from Jordan’s Cake and Catering Company (who also sells her fabulous bread at Sennen Market) led us through the day, making it all seem so easy.
In the morning, we made white loaves, some freeform and some braided, and granary loaves.
We weighed out ingredients, getting flour everywhere, and kneaded until we couldn’t knead anymore.
After lunch – a fantastic quiche and salad provided by Sarah – we settled in to make focaccia. Two kinds! Both savoury with rosemary and garlic, and sweet, with slivered almonds and chocolate chunks.
It was a really enjoyable and educational day! Thanks to Sarah Judd and also to Val for organising it all for us!
Lots of us had fun at this year’s Royal Cornwall Show, whether we were staging our competition entry, helping with teas or filling other roles.
Here are some of our wonderfully hard-working tea hostesses:
… and one of our members even found time to pose for a photograph with a very special guest!
Our fantastic competition entry team really did us proud this year, finishing sixth out of 24 entries. Marking was very tight at the top, so we were only about four points behind the winners!
Big thanks go out to all who participated in putting our entry together: Jane, Val, Di, Sue, Rona, Ruth and Dorothy (apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone!).
One of the highlights of our entry was Rona’s fabulous chutney – the only chutney in the whole competition to receive a perfect score from the judge! In fact, the judge was so impressed that she asked for the recipe.
If you’d like to give it a go, I have had Rona’s permission to share her recipe here:
Spicy Windfall Chutney
115g root ginger, shredded
1kg cooking apples, peeled, cored & chopped
675g onions, thinly sliced
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
225g raisins
450ml malt vinegar
400g demerara sugar
2 – 4 chillis, finely chopped
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp salt
Put first 6 ingredients in a preserving pan. Simmer for 20 mins until apple and onion are softened. Take off heat, add sugar and stir to dissolve.
Slowly bring to a simmer and cook for 40 mins or until thick and pulpy. Add chilli and cook for a further 10 mins. Add turmeric and salt and cook for 5 mins.
Spoon into prepared jars and seal with vinegar-proof lids. Leave at least 3 months to mature.
Enjoy!
Hilda’s granddaughter, Rebe Winn, has achieved something really big and we wanted to let you know all about it!
Rebe is a sixth former at Truro High School, and a piece of her artwork has been selected to be featured at Tate Modern in London!
Against hundreds of entrants from across the world, Rebe’s GCSE piece entitled ‘Deterioration’ was chosen to show in the Tate’s iconic Turbine Hall later this month.
Tate Modern challenged young people aged 15–25 worldwide to submit original artwork exploring the future of art and creativity by learning from the past and looking at the present.
Rebe’s piece of 3D Photography explores the theme of ‘Vanitas’: a style of artwork which includes various symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality. Combining this traditional style of still life painting with a contemporary, mixed media approach, the artwork transforms photography into sculpture investigating time, degradation and change in a highly physical way.
Joint Head of Art, Mrs Judith Tutin said: “Over the years, Rebe has developed a strong conceptual style which demonstrates an impressive maturity for an artist of her age. We are incredibly proud to see her talent recognised by one of the most prestigious art institutions in the country and can’t wait to see her work in a space which has hosted some of the world’s most memorable and acclaimed works of contemporary art.”
Congratulations to Rebe and to proud grandmother Hilda!
A coach-load of us headed up to Killerton House near Exeter on Monday for a jolly! A rather wet jolly, but a jolly nonetheless.
Our first port of call was the café, for a delicious lunch.
We looked around the displays of clothing from the National Trust’s collection, all arranged by colour.
We heard a talk from Shelley Tobin, one of the Killerton volunteers, centered around the colour green. Shelley is a dress historian and is also an assistant curator at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, so she knows her stuff. Not only that, but she’s President of her local WI as well!
After the talk, some of us looked around the house while others braved the rain and walked around the grounds.
Of course we still made time for cake and coffee.
And a little retail therapy before leaving.
Thanks so much to Kathy for organising the day. And to all of our Crowlas & Ludgvan members for their hard work fundraising all year so that we could go to Killerton!
Click here to see more photos of our day out to Killerton.
Last weekend, I attended the NFWI’s Annual Meeting in Brighton, and what an experience it was! I’ll report more fully at our meeting on Monday night, but I thought I’d just share some highlights with you here and give you a bit of an idea of what it was like.
We arrived on Friday and stayed at the Hilton Brighton Metropole, right on the seafront. I was one of the lucky ones who wound up with a room with a sea view, looking out toward the dramatic skeleton of the old pier.
Our hotel was full of WI ladies, from Federations all over the country. On our first evening, there was a big buffet meal for all of us in one of the hotel’s big function rooms. It was great because it gave us all a chance to meet and chat with people from WIs outside Cornwall.
On Saturday was the meeting itself.
The lobby of the Brighton Centre was full of all sorts of stalls to explore – ones showing off the WI and Denman College, but also selling WI merchandise, handbags and all sorts of other things. Ladies in yellow hats with buckets were collecting for the Save Denman Appeal as well. I later heard they raised nearly £5,000!
We heard speakers on both of the resolutions and cast our votes. Both resolutions passed, with 79.4% supporting the ‘appropriate care in hospitals for people with dementia’ resolution and 82.7% supporting the ‘food waste/food poverty’ resolution.
Lunchtime was a lot of fun, with WI members all over the beach eating their sandwiches and dodging seagulls.
We also heard from two very accomplished women: Rona Fairhead, Chair of the BBC Trust and Baroness d’Souza, the current Speaker of the House of Lords.
After such a long day, it was nice to get outside and have a wander around Brighton. We were too late to go to the Pavilion, but we did walk around the outside of it and took some photographs.
Other WI members took to the Pier.
In the evening, after some cocktails in the hotel bar with more than 20 Cornwall WI members, some of us headed out for a lovely dinner together.
This was my first experience at an Annual Meeting and I found the whole thing wonderful. The meeting itself was fascinating, but the best part was the chance to meet and mingle with other WI members. Over the years, I’ve made ‘friends’ with lots of ladies through social media, so meeting some of them in person was a real treat!
As we’re part of a ‘link’ group of four WIs, it won’t be Crowlas & Ludgvan’s turn to send a delegate until 2020. But I highly recommend it so keep it in mind when the time comes!
There’s an interesting blog post on the NFWI website about how best to report problems with goods and services. Have a read here and see what Lewis Shand Smith, chief ombudsman at Ombudsman Services, has to say.
(A day late, but make it 29 Days Wild and it still counts!)
The Wildlife Trust is encouraging people to get outside and feel happier, healthier and more connected to nature by doing something wild every day for thirty days this June.
“No matter where you live – from an urban jungle to a windswept mountain – wildlife and wild places are all around, waiting to be discovered by you.”
Go for a walk, smell some wildflowers, paddle in the sea, watch butterflies in your own garden – there’s no end to the opportunities!
If you have a child or grandchild you might like to play along, he or she can sign up to take the challenge and will get a badge, chart and stickers! Click here to sign up.
If you see or do anything you’d like to share, get in touch with us (crowlasludgvanwi@gmail.com) and we’ll post it here on our blog!
Blogger Alexandra Pearce is writing about her ‘random acts of wildness’ here. Why not follow along?
We did a bit of fundraising today with a stall on Causewayhead in Penzance.
BIG HUGE thanks go out to everyone who baked yummy cakes, donated plants and books and who helped on the day. We raised £175 for our funds. Well done, everyone!
Fundraising efforts like this mean that we can afford to subsidise our trip to Killerton, so it’s great that we have such wonderful support from our wonderful members!
Crowlas & Ludgvan WI 