April 2016

KIRTON AND FALKENHAM WI

Next meeting: Thursday May 12th at 2.00pm in Kirton and Falkenham Village Hall.
There will be a discussion and vote on the resolutions to go before the National AGM followed by games
No competition
Trading Stall: miscellaneous

APRIL REPORT 2016
I hope everyone will take a look at the advert for our trip to Newmarket’s Ladies’ Day on the 7th July which will be found elsewhere in this review. We are hoping to fill a full-sized coach and therefore, if you would like to join us, – men, women and children are all welcome, – we would be very happy.

As mentioned in the January write up our Annual Group Meeting will take place in Trimley St Martin Memorial Hall on the evening of April 26th. The entertainment will be provided by a folk group called Shipshape. They will play two sessions, one before the refreshments and one after.. If their name is anything to go by I hope they will give us a few sea shanties. One element of the group meeting is always a competition and this year the subject is ‘A useful object made from a vinyl record (sacrilege as far as I’m concerned!) or a light-hearted poem, song or nursery rhyme’. If the latter is chosen then the song is to be performed by 3 to 5 people and the recitation by 1 to 2. For our entry we decided on the song, unwisely perhaps considering that the entertainers are professional singers and will probably show us up. Nevertheless we are now getting down to serious rehearsing.

Our meetings always start with business and any relevant correspondence. This is usually followed by a speaker, after which we end with tea and a chat. At the April meeting among the correspondence received was a flyer titled: ‘The WI Sustainable Gardening Hanging Brasket Competition 2016’. Well, what is a ‘Brasket’? Believe it or not it’s a brassiere filled with soil and planted with either flowers or edible plants! According to the flyer, ‘Due to their shape, bras make ideal hanging baskets – they can be used singly, in pairs or as bunting. WIs are invited to use their imagination and have some fun by sewing the cups or under-bra seams together and filling as normal’. Suggestions for planting include flowers, herbs, salad leaves, strawberries or even tumbling tomatoes. The bra can be dyed a suitable colour to go with the planting scheme. The best three ‘braskets’ will win vouchers from Sutton Seeds worth £50, £100 and £200. All well and good I think but what do you do with these garden ornaments once autumn arrives? I wouldn’t recommend returning them to their original use!

Our speaker for April was Mr Mark Mower who came to talk about ‘Suffolk Murders’. Mark is a crime writer who has produced work in both the fiction and non-fiction fields. Among his many books can be counted ‘A Farewell to Baker Street’ in which he has thought up some more cases for Sherlock Holmes to solve, ‘Zeppelin over Suffolk: the Final Raid of L48’ and ‘Bloody British History, Norwich’. In his talk he told us about several cases which he has written about in his book ‘Suffolk Murders’ all of which happened in the nineteenth century. At the moment he is working on a book about America’s greatest counterfeiter as well as running a course for the Workers Educational Association titled ‘Murder, Mystery and Mayhem’.

At next month’s meeting we will be considering the two resolutions to be put to the vote at the Annual National WI Meeting in June so it is time for members to read up about them and decided if they want to vote in favour or against. The information can be found on pages 21 and 22 in WI Life, the magazine that is sent out to all paid-up members.

V E Bines