Jenny – WHITLEY WI

October meeting – Saving the Planet

Cllr Matt Bryan from Chester West and Chester Council was going to talk to us about how CWAC propose to address the climate emergency on a local scale. However due to illness he was unable to attend. Instead Joan with the aid of her daughter Susan, stepped in to talk to us about how we as individuals can help lessen the effects of climate change. She navigated us through the confusion of the different sets of recycling symbols and informed us of how we can now recycle soft plastic, which is not at the moment collected by our council.…

Big Green Week

The Positive Planet sub-group organised a plant exchange and bug hotel building to mark the start of the Big Green Week on 18th September. WI members and their families enjoyed a lovely afternoon searching for suitable materials to make the ‘bugs’ comfortable! A big thank you to Susan Lynch and husband John for opening their garden to us and providing a venue for our bug hotel. The tea and cake was a lovely reward for all the hard work.

September meeting – Chocolate!

Building on the success of our August meeting Whitley WI met again in September and were treated to hand made chocolates courtesy of our speaker Andrew Thwaite who has recently taken over the York Cookery school and is an internationally renowned chocolatier. Andrew made the whole process look effortless and the end results were certainly very tasty.

The Whitley Olympics

To celebrate our first face to face monthly meeting at Whitley Village Hall since August 2020, we decided on a topical theme – the Tokyo Olympics. Pat Sharp organised a most wonderful evening of games, quiz and much more. Lots of smiles and laughter and we optimistically look forward to meeting up again in September.

Our Latest Tree Invaders

Ten of our craft group ladies helped dress the tree with yet more new residents.

Whitley WI July Meeting

Murray Jacobs, a Cambridge Green Badge Guide, gave us a fascinating Zoom virtual tour of a ‘Must See Street in Cambridge’. His talk about King’s Parade, which is in the main tourist area of Cambridge, included stories of a rather eventful visit by a monarch, student antics that hit the front pages, and intriguing details of King’s College Chapel, to name just a few. The Corpus, or Grasshopper clock, outside the Taylor Library is a gold plated stainless steel work of art. The grasshopper, or Chronophage meaning “time eater” at the top of the clock devours every minute as it…

Whitley WI May Meeting

At our May meeting Janet Patterson, one of our members, gave us a fascinating talk about her 24 years volunteering for the Save the Children charity. Her work started when she was a member of Greysouthen WI in the Lake District. Some of the WI members there volunteered at the Save the Children shop in Cockermouth and this prompted her to give it a go as well. The Save the Children charity was started in 1919 by Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton as a one off response to the starving children in Austria and Germany after the First…

Whitley WI April Meeting

At our April meeting on Zoom we had Angela McIntyre talk about her career working with the Homeless. It started thirty years ago when as part of an organised group, she would go once a week to help feed the homeless in Manchester with sandwiches etc. This led to doing voluntary work at Cornerstones in Salford; a day centre for the Homeless. Very soon after starting she was persuaded to apply for the post of Deputy and stayed working there for 25 years. People in need are given a welcome breakfast of tea and toast together with the option of…

Whitley WI March Meeting

At our March meeting via Zoom we had 28 members listening to an interesting talk given by Fenella Lipkin from a local Podiatry Clinic. As caring for our feet is something we all need to do, we found it very helpful to have many of common problems explained and to be given possible solutions and treatments. There was a Q&A session followed by a short feet related quiz. Our sub groups continue to be well attended and Joan hopes to start a new one on Local History very soon. We hope soon that some of our events and activities such…

Whitley WI February 2021 Meeting

Chris our President welcomed 30 of us to our Zoom monthly meeting. It was also Whitley WI’s 83rd birthday so we were all encouraged to bring a small cake to the meeting and also send in photos of birthday / special occasion cakes that we had made in the past. Our speaker for the evening was Dr Caroline Eames who talked about her 33 year career as a Forensic Scientist, giving many fascinating examples. Much of the work is based around Locard’s Exchange Principle; every contact leaves a trace of themselves at the scene while simultaneously taking something from the…