News

Menu of the Week

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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!

chick-pea-burgerWIE-Trad-Favourites-cropped-and-CompressedThis 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.

Take a Town: Newlyn

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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.

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Some lovely old W.I. photos from around the country

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Queen Elizabeth visiting the WI canning unit at ReadingAt 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!

Spring Countdown

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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!

Wend Allen stands proudly in front of the CFWI photo competition entries
Wendy Allen stands proudly in front of the CFWI photo competition entries

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!

Save the High Street – Do Your Part!

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5961266-largeThorne’s Fruit & Veg in Penzance is doing its part to help save the high street! If you spend £10 at Thorne’s on any visit in the month of April, they’ll give you £1 to pay for two hours’ parking in town.

Malcolm Hendy, who has run the shop with his wife Sue for the past 18 years, says, ““It would be great if we could encourage some of those who currently do all their shopping at the big supermarkets to come into town to do their shopping.”

This is right in line with the WI’s efforts to encourage people to shop in their local high streets.

You can read the full article about Thorne’s in The Cornishman here.

Crafting is Healthy for Your Brain!

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aggg4pnlv70wxgbrsgbjKnitting and other crafting can serve as a natural antidepressant says a new study published in The British Journal of Occupational Therapy.

Because crafting stimulates the use of many different areas of the brain – working memory and attention span, visuospatial processing, creativity and problem-solving abilities – there is a hypothesis that it can help keep the brain young by preventing cerebral atrophy and significantly delaying dementia.

crochet-rug_ms_step-1As if our new Flying Fingers group didn’t already know this!

In case you don’t know, Flying Fingers meets monthly with the objective of making things for ourselves and others. You can choose to knit clothes for premature babies, you can sew bags to sell at our Farmers’ Market stall or you can just bring along a project you happen to be working on. Any and all crafters are welcome.

The next Flying Fingers get-together is on Monday 7 April at 10am at Val Puddiphatt’s. For more information, get in touch with Lis on (01736) 754146.

downloadSo come along and make your brain happy!

 

 

Stick with Foncho!

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Stick-with-Foncho-logo-yellowMeet Foncho. He’s a man on a mission. He knows first-hand that cheap bananas threaten farmers’ futures.

Over the past 10 years, the typical price of a banana in the UK has nearly halved, whilst the cost of production has doubled. Foncho thinks this is unfair. And so does the NFWI.

He traveled from his banana farm in Colombia to the UK for Fairtrade Fortnight, to ask Vince Cable to investigate unfair supermarket pricing practices and act to protect the producers of the UK’s favourite fruit.

Click here to sign the petition to make bananas fair. The petition is put forward by the Fairtrade Foundation and is backed by the NFWI.

You can also use the Fairtrade website to find out which local supermarkets stock fairtrade products. Remember, every time you buy a fairtrade banana, it’s a signal to the supermarkets that we value our food, we value the people who grow it and we expect supermarkets to value them too.

Who did their shopping today?

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Avril Woolcock (WI Advisor and member of Gwinnear WI) with the CFWI table at Sainsbury's.
Avril Woolcock (WI Advisor and member of Gwinnear WI)
with the CFWI table at Sainsbury’s.

If you paid a visit to Sainsbury’s today, you might have seen some familiar faces!

Our County Federation set up a table at the entrance to Sainsbury’s, and some of us spent the day distributing information about the W.I. and answering questions to women who might be interested in joining.

Braving the cold, we shared our enthusiasm and hopefully recruited a few new members for various Institutes throughout the county.

Diana and Jane were spotted this morning – did anyone else stop by later in the day?

New Wave vs Old Wave?

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There’s an excellent piece about the W.I. in the Huffington Post today. Click here to read it.

It’s mainly about new W.I.s, particularly the ‘new wave’ institutes which have been popping up recently and how they differ from more traditional institutes.

It all got me thinking – is there a difference? And I don’t think so. While it’s lovely to have new W.I.s around and especially lovely to know that younger women are interested in joining, I don’t think what we do is really any different from what they do.

Our Crowlas & Ludgvan ladies are certainly not members of the ‘blue rinse’ brigade and neither are any of the other local W.I. members we know!

Like the new Gloucester Road W.I. in Bristol, we have  a lot of activities outside of our monthly meeting.  Like the Burton Belles, we use social media to keep in touch and get our message out. Like Manchester W.I., our members are an eclectic mix of ages and backgrounds. And like Buns and Roses, we’re interested in everything from crafts to resolutions.

So hats off to Crowlas & Ludgvan! A perfect balance of new and old wave!