June Newsletter
Next Meeting: Wednesday 26thJune at 7.45pm
This month, when you sign in, there will be a badge waiting for you with your name on it. Please pick up and put on – help us all to remember who we are!
Prof Mark Fielder from Kingston University, a former colleague of our membership secretary Sue Easmon, will give a talk on “Antibiotic resistance in man and animals. Have we reached break point?” A very topical and interesting subject.
Resolutions:
Last month we voted on the local buses and fear the smear resolution. At the NFWI Annual Meeting in Bournemouth both topics were debated.
• 96% of delegates voted to call on the government and local authorities to address the decline in local bus services.
• 97% of delegates voted in favour of ‘don’t fear the smear’, calling on WI members to take action to raise awareness of the importance of cervical screening.
Both will be the organisation’s campaigning focus going forward this year.
Attached is a report, from Sue Murphy our WI delegate, of her attendance at the Annual Meeting. An informative read if you want to know what goes one at this event.
Alma Vale Fayre:
This year the fayre is on Sunday 14thJuly.Once again, we will be holding a stall. We just hope the weather is a bit kinder to us than last year! We will need loads of contributions to make it go with a swing. From past experience, cakes, and biscuits go down best, with preserves less popular than at the Christmas Fair. Craft items are a bit of an unkown, but would be very welcome. Please can members bring their contributions to the June meeting (if they will keep), deliver them to the organisers, Sally and Val, the night before or bring them along on the day, preferably earlyish. Please remember that anything edible has to have a full list of ingredients so that we are compliant with food safety regulations. You can put the ingredients on a separate card, to be placed next to the item. We will also need volunteers to look after the stall through the day and will be sending round a sign-up sheet soon. When the weather is good, this is a really nice event and a good recruiting ground for us.
Durdham Downs Group Visit to the Botanic Garden
Thank you to those who have signed up and paid for our visit to the Botanic Gardens. There will be 22 of us, including some members from Blaise, Westbury Park and Brislington WIs. The tour will last approximately one and a half hours and there will be the opportunity to have tea/coffee, cake and a chat at the cafe afterwards. Please meet at the Welcome Lodge, (main entrance), The Holmes, Stoke Park Road, BS9 1JG at 1.40pm. Let us hope the weather will be kind to us – but just in case please come appropriately equipped!
Committee: We are still looking for new committee members. We need several new members in October, but please don’t wait till then! If you are interested talk to any of the Committee. You are welcome to come along to a Committee Meeting to see what goes on. We’re a nice bunch and meetings are fun!
ational Federation of Women’s Institutes 2019, Annual Meeting at The Bournemouth International Centre.
Delegate’s report:
We all arrived in Bournemouth on the Coach from Avon Federation and got to the hotel at approximately 5.00pm having had at least 2 diversions due to road closures along the way.
Our hotel was situated just 5 minutes’ walk from the Bournemouth International Centre, which is just another few minutes’ walk to the sea front.
As you can imagine, with so many ladies converging in one place, it was all very busy outside and inside the venue. In the foyer there were a range of stalls for members to look at , this included travel companies, Denman, WI Enterprises, and all the various NFWI committees – Craft, Public Affairs, Science, leisure , sport & Arts and NFWI digital service – with so many people it was nearly impossible to get to the stands as it was so busy.
Once we were all gathered in our seat the Annual Meeting proceedings began with Lynne Stubbings, the Chairman welcoming everyone, this was quickly followed by the singing of Jerusalem. This was then followed by the Appointments of Returning Officers and Tellers (some of the NFWI staff), then the Adoption of the Standing Orders.
The chair’s address – Lynne started by thanking all the NFWI staff and the board members for all their hard work during the year but also in preparation for the annual meeting , she then went on to talk about the involvement with England Netball - the Walking Netball initiative which began last year and is still ongoing. Now this year there is work going on in partnership with the Bowls Development Alliance, although Avon Federation have expressed an interest in this, we have yet to get the go-ahead in this area. There is to be a Performing Arts Week – 14-21th September, the Lady Denman Cup Competition 2019 – 500 words on ’Amazing Discoveries’. The Campaign team were thanked for their on- going work on resolutions which includes: Climate change, End Plastic Soup, Make time for mental health and so on. Lynne also made a plea for more members to come forward to be Climate Ambassadors. She also introduced Melissa Green, the new General Secretary of NFWI to the members present.
The Hon. Treasurer’s Statement was brief but included some of the following figures:
Income of £3,608m and Expenditure of £3,422m with a Net income of £186million.
Income from Legacies amounted to £73,400.
WI Enterprises donation to NFWi was £890,000
Denman still has a deficit of £37,000 and this is predicted to continue for a few years, however much work is being done to make Denman more efficient.
Resolution –A call against the decline in local bus services
Therewere several speakers that talked for and against this resolution, it included links to loneliness and mental health for individuals, NHS transport cost have increased due to the fact that more people are using this facility as the local buses are not available to them.
Darren Shirley from ‘Campaign for Transport’ talked about the additional cost burden put on the NHS and also work that is being done on ‘Tracking the decline in Public Transport in England and Wales. Councils have reduced or taken away funding on many routes. There is also no bus company competition – competitive tendering does not seem to be taking place any longer? He also went on to say we should embrace change – share taxis for example.
The Resultsof the voting on this resolution were as follows:
FOR – 5729 AGAINST 262 CARRIED BY 96%.
The morning guest speaker was The Rt Hon, Lord Bradley of Withington, Chair of Care Not Custody Coalition.
He was a very knowledgeable speaker and used lots of statistics to put across issues – he talked about the work of the Prison Reform Trust in relation to mental health (MH) and the prison community. There needs to be more investment in training of staff in the Uniformed Services in relation to recognition of MH issues – probably the talk was too long for most members although a very important topic.
This was then followed by the presentation of the Prize winners of the Huxley Cup (flower arranging) and the Lady Denman Trophy.
In the afternoon there was the input on the 2ndResolution – Don’t fear the smear.
Again there were several speakers who spoke for and against this resolution.
There was a speaker from Public Health England and Robert Music, Chief Executive from Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust ( The Trust has been going for 20years) – this is the only UK charity for this type of cancer.
Two women lose their lives to the disease every day, 9 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every day and 75% of cancers can be prevented by early cervical screening according to the Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust website.
There is a HPV vaccine available to young people born after 1999 - more information on this on the Jo’s Cervical Cancer website. There was a Cervical Cancer Awareness week in January 2019 and so look out for the next one.
Theresultsof the voting on this Resolution were as follows:
FOR - 5788, AGAINST- 194 CARRIED BY 97%
This was followed by the guest speaker for the afternoon:Maggie Philbin, Broadcaster and CEO of the award winning organisation ‘Teentech’.
Maggie Philbin was an excellent and engaging speaker, who, will be remembered for Swap Shop and Tomorrows World, however she talked mainly about her work in setting up and working with ‘Teentech’. This is a charity she set up about 10 years ago as a result of her daughter Rose not being engaged with the science and technology classes in school. Teentech helps young people understand the opportunities in the Science, technology and engineering industries, no matter what their gender or social background. It is aimed at 8 – 18 year olds to help understand their potential and to raise aspirations. This is done by going into schools and a with them on a range of activities to promote opportunities in the areas of science and technology.
This is just a ‘snippet’ of the talk but there is lots more information on the website: www.teentech.com
The Chair, Lynne Stubbing’s, in her closing remarks mentioned that the Archivist, Ann Stamper is retiring from this role, and that Pat Tulip is stepping down as a Trustee. She also went on to say that there were more WI advisers required and at every opportunity ‘MyWI’ was mentioned and she encouraged all members to get on line – I can vouch that there is a lot of useful information there to support WIs. Finally the annual meeting closed with the singing of the anthems.
Report by Sue Murphy –
Delegate at the NFWI Annual Meeting for Clifton, Gloucester Road, Bromley Heath and Downend WI’s.