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.....
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| 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!
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| 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....
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| Our membership queue |
It was very exciting to see our first official member sign up....
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| 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....
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| You voted yes! |
Next came the signing of the constitution, which was done by our president Cat and our Secretary Laura....
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| 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!
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| 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.....
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| Pom pom making! |
And ladies enjoyed showing their makes...
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| Finished paper flowers |
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| 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 .
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| 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!
Thank you for popping by today,
the Bake, Natter & Roll Committee
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