Some of our hard-working Crowlas & Ludgvan members staffed the kitchen at Friday’s CFWI Chairman’s Coffee Morning.
Serving well over 200 WI ladies from all over Cornwall was a tough job, but we rose to the occasion and made it through!
The day was a great success and CFWI Chairman Kathy Reed was extremely grateful to us for our help.
Last night’s Resolutions Meeting provided members with a lot to think about as we cast our vote for or against this year’s NFWI resolution.
Our speakers were Dr Gillian Saville, a consultant from the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro who deals with transplants; and Joanna Nankervis, a 12-year-old girl from Penzance who received a kidney transplant nearly two years ago.
Little Joanna stole the show. She gave her own Power Point presentation, describing her experiences with dialysis through to her transplant and recovery, and on to her great successes at the Transplant Games. Joanna, who’d like to be an underwater photographer, when she grows up, brought along her proud mum Helen and grandmother Lyn to our meeting. Her story was truly inspiring and the applause we gave her was testament to that.
Gill then gave us the professional’s perspective with facts and figures that were at times staggering. Although 90% of people say they would accept a donated organ if they needed it, the percentage of those who say they are willing to donate is much lower. We discussed the new system in Wales, whereby people who have neither opted in nor out of organ donation will be assumed to have opted in. Gill talked about the fact that not only does organ donation save lives, it also enhances lives. There is no greater example of an enhanced life than Joanna Nankervis.
Following both speakers’ presentations, we had a lively and engaged discussion and question-and-answer session after which we cast our votes on the NFWI resolution which reads as follows:
The NFWI notes that three people die every day whilst waiting for an organ transplant. We call on every member of the WI to make their wishes regarding organ donation known, and to encourage their families and friends, and members of their local communities to do likewise.
I’m pleased to report that Crowlas and Ludgvan WI voted unanimously to support the resolution. Our vote will be taken by our link delegate to the AGM in Leeds next month.
There’s a great little article about organ donation and the WI on the Western Morning News website which mentions the talk some of us heard at Spring Countdown earlier this year and which quotes CFWI Chairman Kathy Reed. You can read the article here.
If any of you is interested in joining the NHS Organ Donor Register, you can find the link to the website Gill mentioned last night here. As she explained, it allows people to be very specific about which organs they would be willing to donate.
Today a group of us met to learn the art of making Dorset buttons – with varying degrees of success, I should add!
If you’ve not heard of Dorset buttons, they’re hand-made buttons which were popular from the early 17th century until they were rendered obsolete by machine-made buttons in the mid-19th century.
To make a button, you begin with a metal ring and some embroidery silk.
From there, it gets a bit complicated as you cover the ring and then create spokes of silk to make a button in the cartwheel pattern.
After a great deal of intense concentration …
Our end results weren’t too bad!
After a lunch break and a lot of laughing, we turned our attention to traditional fabric buttons in the afternoon. Embellished with embroidery and beads, they were really lovely.
A big thank you to Lis who organised today’s workshop, to Gail who hosted and acted as tutor and to Charlotte and Sue Martin who were invaluable in helping us untangle our threads!
See more photos of the button workshop here.
The WI Guide is now available. This is a new WI publication designed to recruit new members and give existing members more information about the WI brand.
If you’d like a copy, please see Alison. Copies of the Guide are available for £5 each.
Otherwise, you’re welcome to print your own copy here, or view a screen version here.
Once you’ve read through it, why not enter the CFWI WI Guide quiz? All the answers you need for a perfect score on the quiz are within The WI Guide. You could be a star and win £75 for Crowlas & Ludgvan WI! You’ll have received a copy of the quiz by email but in case you’ve misplaced it, you can find it here.
Our first meeting of the 2014-15 season got us all off to a great start. We had a nearly full house and also welcomed five lovely guests whom we all hope to see again soon.
We’ve now created a one-stop table for you to sign up for all of our events, outings and craft days, as well as for all CFWI events. This was a really busy spot last night! In addition, on the table were samples on display of the lovely buttons we’ll be making at this Friday’s button workshop, and some samples of our Rag Dolls’ fabulous rag rugging work.
We’ve also given a boost to our Sales Table and hope it’ll continue to thrive. Rona brought some delicious-looking homemade jam last night which went very quickly! If you’d like to sell anything from garden produce to baked goods to craft items to things you just no longer need, please bring them along. You’ll keep 90% of the money you make, with 10% going to Crowlas & Ludgvan WI funds. Please remember that you are responsible for pricing your items. If you have any questions about the Sales Table, please see Sue Badcock.
Our speaker last night, John Richards, regaled us with tales of his childhood and youth in old Penzance. Who would have thought Penzance was once home to 14 butcher shops, countless sweet shops and four cinemas?! John had us all giggling with his wonderful sense of humour – in particular a joke about a zebra who escaped from the zoo.
It was wonderful to see such a full Competition Table this month! Flower of the Month was won by Helen Kestle. Our other competition was to bring a photograph of Penzance, and some of the entries were fascinating. The winner was Margaret Walton, with Wendy Larkin second and Kathy Merrett third.
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the WI’s 2009 resolution about honey bees.
During the last year, the NFWI has worked hard to help persuade the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that a joined-up, comprehensive Bee Action Plan is needed if we are to tackle bee decline effectively. The Plan is currently out for public consultation, providing a key opportunity to tell government what should be improved, as well as remind them that the WI and wider public are behind an ambitious pollinator strategy that will make a real difference to bees in the long term.
Here’s what you can do to help:
Have you read Martha Kearney’s Bee Blog? It’s really great! And what about tuning in to see her on BBC 4’s The Wonder of Bees? If you’ve missed it, you can always catch it again on iPlayer.
If you prefer your bees in real life, why not go on the CFWI ‘A Day at an Aviary’ event at Lanhearne Aviary near St Eval in June? You’ll have a chance to don a bee suit and visit some working hives! The cost is £17 per person. See Alison or email us on crowlasludgvanwi@gmail.com if you’d like to put your name down. The deadline is 7 May.
Finally, why not try a recipe using honey?
Honey Granola
Granola is like a slightly sweetened roasted muesli, which gives it a lot more crunch and chew, as well as some baked nuttiness. It’s the honey that really brings this together: as well as being a preferable form of sweetener, it binds the ingredients to make fun clusters. Try blossom or heather honey for a proper taste of the British countryside in your breakfast bowl. Once you’ve made your own granola there’s no going back to shop-bought.
(Makes around 1kg)
150g honey
60ml sunflower or groundnut oil
250g rolled oats
100g bran
150g sunflower seeds
100g hazelnuts
150g dates
100g dried apricots
100g wheat germ
100g sultanas
1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
2 Pour the honey and oil into a pan and heat gently until the honey has melted.
3 In a bowl, mix the oats, bran and sunflower seeds, then pour on the liquid from the pan and mix well. Spread out on a big baking tray.
4 Roast for 20-25 minutes, turning everything three or four times, then leave to cool.
5 Meanwhile, roast the hazelnuts until they turn a golden brown (which takes about 10 minutes), then roughly chop, along with the dates and apricots.
6 When cool, mix everything together with the wheatgerm and sultanas. Store in an air‑tight container; lasts for about a month.
Recipe from The Guardian, 9 February 2013.
Keep the honeybee buzz going!
If you don’t often take a look around the NFWI website, you might be interested to know that every week a new ‘Menu of the Week’ is published!
This week, it’s an antipasti starter, chickpea burgers with salsa for a main course and American chocolate pie for dessert. In addition, there’s a good index of all the recipes that have been published in the past, conveniently sorted by course.
I like the sound of those chickpea burgers!
Have a look around and see if there’s anything there that strikes your fancy.
For those of you who’ll be going to CFWI’s Take a Town event next Friday or Saturday, here’s a sneak preview of the Newlyn Archive exhibit which will make up part of the day.
It sounds as though it’ll give us a fantastic look into Newlyn’s relationship with the sea over the years.
At last Wednesday’s Spring Countdown, we were treated to a talk by author Julie Summers who has written Jambusters: The Story of the Women’s Institute in the Second World War.
Julie mentioned one source of W.I. photos which she encountered while researching her book, the Mary Evans Picture Library. Mary Evans, an avid collector of old books and photographs, established the library in the 1960s and now, in the digital age, many of the library’s collections are available online, including a great assortment of photos of the W.I.
Because the library licenses images for commercial purposes, all of the images are watermarked to prevent illegal usage. However, you can still have a browse and look at the collection. I’m particularly partial to the photo of the 1950s basket-making class. Plus ça change!
A record 18 (!) members of Crowlas & Ludgvan WI attended today’s CFWI Spring Countdown at the Hall for Cornwall in Truro.
We were all thrilled when Julie Summers, author of Jambusters, revealed that the book is going to be made into a six-part drama series for television. It’ll air in the spring of 2015 on ITV. Exciting news indeed!
But the high point of the day was seeing the display of prize-winning photographs from institutes across the county. Our own Wendy Allen was awarded five prizes – first prize in the Novice class, second in the Architecture and Landscape classes, third in the Favourites class and a highly commended in the Flora and Fauna class. Helen Kestle also won second prize in the Favourites class and highly commended in the Novice and Architecture classes. Well done to Wendy and Helen!
Crowlas & Ludgvan WI 