The Clifton Women's Institute

Unfortunately Dr Abigail Fraser has been admitted to hospital and will not be with us on Wednesday. We wish her a speedy recovery and look forward to hearing her talk at some time in the future. Meanwhile we are very grateful indeed to our substitute speaker, who has kindly stepped in at very short notice to give us a talk we've had in mind for a while: OUR CITY, OUR MONEY. WHY LOCAL IS BETTER Ken Simpson on The Bristol Pound We'll have an opportunity to purchase Bristol Pounds  which Ken will be bringing with him, together with directories of all the Bristol shops and businesses that accept our very own local currency.

I'd like to remind you about the appeal we received (see post from 2 December) for volunteers to assist in a study connected with MS research in case you didn't have time to consider it in the busy pre-Christmas period. They're seeking mature healthy women to undergo tests aimed at measuring how performance in simple repetitive cognitive tasks is affected by tiredness. The whole procedure took a little under 1.5 hours altogether, and the experience was very interesting. I can't pretend that the brain scan was actively enjoyable, but it was OK and the paper tests before and after the scan were quite fun. Please do consider volunteering - you might well be giving a valuable gift to somebody unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with MS in the future. Thank you.

Recycling is the buzz word, and I bet we've all received something over Christmas that secretly we would be happy to part with ... well don't leave it hanging about and getting in your way, bring it to the January meeting for the raffle! It's sure to be just the right colour/size/perfume/ flavour for somebody else!

In March we'll be having a talk on millinery, and our fundraising activity will be a handbag and scarf sale. So if you're treating yourself to a new handbag for spring or adding to your scarf collection for a change of accessories, please weed out any handbags or scarves that you no longer wear and bring them along to the March meeting. Or indeed you could wait till then and buy your new accessories at a very reasonable price from the 'pre-loved' accessories table! Better still, both! - buy some new, donate your old and then buy some new-to-you as well! That way you get double the accessories AND help raise funds for Clifton WI.