Saturday 30 January 2016

Our First Meeting - January 2016

Hello and welcome back to Bake, Natter and Roll - the Farnham WI blog!

On Thursday 21st January we officially became a WI group, with 69 ladies signing up to be members on the night. If you've popped by our blog previously you will know a little about our history and why we started this group, so today we're going to tell you a little bit about that first meeting.

As you might have guessed from our name we love a spot of cake and so a cake table will be a regular feature of our monthly meetings.....

Lydia and Laura preparing the cake table

Currently members of the committee have been providing the rather scrummy cakes at each meeting, but in the future we are looking to run a cake rota with our members....any willing volunteers please get in touch!

The scrummy cakes - which was your favourite?

As with anything new there is always a little nervousness that people might not turn up on the night, we might have prepared all that cake and have no one to eat it! 

But we shouldn't have worried - word had spread on social media and we had a queue of lovely ladies waiting to join us when we opened the doors at 8:15pm....

Our membership queue

It was very exciting to see our first official member sign up....

Our first member!

At the first WI meeting there is a certain amount of official bits and pieces that you need to complete in order to form the WI officially. We had our local WI Advisers join us again, and following a general welcome from our President Cat, they shared a little history of the WI with us. 

Did you know that the first Women's Institute was formed in Ontario, Canada? To find out more about the fascinating history of the WI visit their website.

Next came the voting - first an agreement that the WI should form and second that the members were happy with the proposed committee....luckily for us everyone was happy....

You voted yes!

Next came the signing of the constitution, which was done by our president Cat and our Secretary Laura....

Laura and Cat sign the constitution - making us an official WI

Once all the official bits were finished the fun could commence and we dedicated the rest of the evening to crafting. The original idea was to hold a speed crafting session, with ladies moving between tables to try the crafts. But as we found out....it's quite hard to move over 70 ladies in a small-ish hall!

Let's craft!

Instead we decided to move the crafts around and everyone got to try one or two of the following:
pom pom making ...with forks
fabric flowers
paper flowers

There was plenty of nattering as the crafts got underway.....

Pom pom making!

And ladies enjoyed showing their makes...

Finished paper flowers

A paper flower being modelled

Ladies also had the opportunity to sign up to the various interest groups which will start running soon - from gardening to wine tasting from papercraft to pudding club, there really is something for everyone! More information to follow soon.

Everyone who attended the evening also went home with a lovely goodie bag which included our provisional programme (beautifully designed for us by Helix) and also some lovely goodies donated by Neals Yard in Farnham .

Our beautiful programme designed by Helix

All in all it was a very successful first meeting and we can't wait to see everyone again next month. 

Our next meeting is on Thursday 18th February where we will be enjoying an introduction to mindfulness with speaker Suzette Jones....and of course we will be enjoying a spot of cake!

Don't forget to pop by our Facebook page or Twitter to see our latest news!

Thank you for popping by today,
the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee

Saturday 23 January 2016

A new beginning....

Hello and welcome to the Bake, Natter & Roll blog!

We are a brand new Women's Institute (WI) group based in Farnham, Surrey who meet on the third Thursday of every month. This Thursday night was our first official meeting and we welcomed 69 new members - which is amazing!

Bake, Natter & Roll - The Farnham WI Committee

But before we tell you about our new adventures, why don't we share a little of our history with you....because you can't just start a WI. 

Our journey began last year when our co-founders Cat and Kate decided that Farnham was missing a group where women could make new friends, learn new skills and share experiences. They liked the idea of joining a WI group, but couldn't find one locally that suited the experience they wanted....so they decided to start their own!

Cat started a Facebook page to gauge interest in a group like this and was overwhelmed by the amount of ladies who responded. An initial meeting was arranged with a WI Adviser to talk about the idea some more and to see if there were enough willing volunteers to form a committee. Interest in the group was mounting all this time and in November 2015 we held a preliminary meeting so everyone could find out a little more and vote on a name for the group!

We expected about 40 ladies to turn up at the preliminary meeting.....and were totally amazed when we welcome about 60 into the hall for an evening of natter and cakes! 

It was great to meet so many like-minded ladies.

Bake, Natter & Roll Preliminary Meeting - October 2015

On the night we voted to start the new WI group and also voted on the name.....

Bake, Natter & Roll (Farnham WI) was born!

Fast forward to the 21st January and a committee of seven ladies were waiting nervously to see how many people would actually turn up to the first meeting and would want to join us...but we shouldn't have worried....

Bake, Natter & Roll (Farnham WI) first meeting - January 2016

Over 70 ladies joined us for cake and speed crafting! 
But we will save that for another blog post.

We're a WI Group for the young and the young at heart.....our provisional programme for 2016 includes, among other things, an introduction to mindfulness, a talk on social media and a wine tasting evening....but don't worry there will be plenty of crafts, cakes and the odd bit of jam making too!

There will be cakes....

.....and some crafts!
The Committee is made up of:

Cat - President
Laura - Secretary
Miriam - Treasurer
Kate - Vice President
Lydia - Vice President
Rachel - Vice President
Judith - Membership Rep

Take a peek at what we all look like in the photos on the sidebar! If you see us at a meeting or in Farnham don't forget to say hi!

We hope you will follow us on our adventures on the blog....you can join us on Facebook and Twitter too! We'd love to hear from you, so please get in touch!

Thank you for popping by today,
the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee