Tuesday 20 February 2018

Turning the town green to #sharethelove!

We've been thinking about the lives and places we love and want to protect from climate change. The Women's Institute is part of the Climate Coalition, along with other organisations like the National Trust, RSPB and Oxfam. On the 14th February each year thousands of WI members across the country create and share green hearts to show the love and get people thinking and talking about what we stand to lose to climate change and want to protect. We were a couple of days late, but Bake Natter and Roll wanted to join in!

A lovely postcard was sent out in this months WI Life magazine, and on the NFWI website we found instructions how to make green seeded paper hearts from recycled paper (we used old newspapers). A couple of us got together during half-term to make them with our children and had a great time blending up wet newspaper and adding food colouring and seeds. We chose flowers which attract bees and butterflies.

One of our completed postcards with recycled paper heart filled with seeds

At our monthly meeting on 15th February members wrote on the back of the postcard some of the people, places and life they wanted to protect from climate change - these included polar bears, turtles, garden birds, the rainforest, bees and butterflies. Altogether we filled in 25 postcards, including some home-made ones, and attached a seeded paper heart to each one.

And then came the fun part! We hid the postcards in popular places round the town so people could find them. Harder than you might think with the weather we've had recently as they needed to be protected from the elements. On the back of the postcard we'd added contact details so people who found them could contact us via social media and find this blog.

Only a few hours later our first postcard had been found! Staff at Alice Holt Forest were delighted by their discovery and tagged us on their Facebook Page. We left several postcards at the visitor centre and café at this very popular local Forestry Commission woodland.

"What a great find by our colleagues yesterday - some #showthelove seeds! The hearts we found were made by Bake, Natter and Roll - Farnham WI to show the love for marine life affected by plastic pollution. We're really looking forward to planting and nurturing our seeds. How do you show your love for the forest at Alice Holt?"

We're so excited some of our postcards have been found! There are still more to be claimed though, at places including a local Children's Centre, Farnham Library, Farnham Museum and the Maltings.

Comment below if you find one, or to let us know what you'd like to protect from climate change!

Friday 2 February 2018

Curry Night

Last night saw another successful outing for the Bake Natter and Roll bi-monthly curry night!
Every other month we get together to try different local Indian restaurants, organised by members Gail and Jillian. We've enjoyed some great food, great company and quite a few bottles of wine!

Meeting up socially in smaller groups like these is such an important way to build the community of our WI - the monthly meeting passes so quickly, there can be different faces each time and not always a lot of time to mingle, so joining sub-groups or going on outings is the best way to get to know other members better.

We also have a newly launched Book Group, who have their first meeting in March, so we'll keep you posted about what we're reading!