2015 Other Activities

Annual General Meeting - October 27th

This meeting takes place at Spinney Hill Theatre, Northampton on Tuesday 27th October. The guest speaker will be John Craven who is well known for his appearances as a presenter on BBC Sunday evening Countryfile programme.

International Day for Rural Women - ACWW - Meeting at Milton Malsor Village Hall on Thursday October 15th 2015.

11 members of Milton Malsor and Collingtree WI joined members from all over the County to hear Jackie Gregory from West Midlands Federation talk about her work monitoring women in Third World countries to improve their standard of living. She also spoke about the forthcoming 28th Triennial Conference which is to be held at the University of Warwick from 17-23rd August next year. It is 76 years since it was last held in this country so she tried to encourage members to take part.
Bags of crafts to give to international members at the conference and broken jewellery were collected to be recycled. 
A cream tea was enjoyed by everyone. 

Great British Menu - Weekdays from August 3rd for several weeks. BBC2 7.30pm

Although not directly connected to our WI, it is of interest to most members. Each week three chefs compete in their regional competition with 4 dishes suitable for a banquet celebrating 100 years of WI. Prue Leith, Oliver Peyton and Matthew Fort are the judges who choose the chef to go through to the final round every Friday.

What fascinating meals they came up with -  the worthy winners cooked their courses at the banquet in London for the lucky WI recipients and families.

Centenary Tea - September 15th

With the National WI celebrating a 100 year Anniversary in 2015, Milton Malsor and Collingtree WI have decided to undertake a Centenary Tea on Tuesday September 15th in Milton Malsor Village Hall. Everyone is invited to join us for 'tea and cake', partake in a raffle and peruse any displays that we have. The Hall will be open for business from 2.30pm to 4.30pm.

Hope to see you there.

Milton Malsor WI will also be celebrating 90 years and Collingtree WI, slightly more.

Tea towels with a similar message to the poster will be on sale at the tea party. Come and buy one.

Tea Towel Poster

The Tea Party was very successful with committee members working hard beforehand and on the day to make the Hall look welcoming and colourful. Several people commented on how inviting it looked with a bank of colour provided by flowers and plants, the raffle table splendid with delightful hampers of toiletries and interesting foods, plus the WI Cookbook and displays of photographs from our archives. Two large tables were set up in the centre so that people were not isolated and could chat freely. The sale of tea towels went well and we hope to have them all sold by Christmas. It was lovely to see young mums who brought their children in after school to share the day and maybe some of them will try out our meetings now that they have seen us in the flesh and realise how welcoming we are!

**** Hot off the press**** All Tea Towels now sold out - October 20th 2015. ****

A big thank you to all members for contributing to the cakes and raffle and for being there on the day.

Tea Towel

Centenary Celebrations

Centenary Celebrations

Centenary Celebrations

Centenary Celebrations

Craft Table 

A Proposed Walk will take place on Thursday August 20th for anyone interested. We will meet at 11am in Upton car park - Upton Country Park near Sixfields, in order to walk along to Kislingbury for lunch at the Cromwell Cottage. This is a gentle walk on the flat and takes up to an hour. Anyone who wishes to join us for lunch and not do the walk should be at the pub by about 12. If anyone requires a lift, ring Brenda or Sheila a day or two before.

Upton Walk 

Review of the walk.

4 members, 2 husbands and a dog enjoyed a gentle walk to Kislingbury past bushes full of sloes and elderberries, over a small river, alongside a lake alive with ducks, geese and other wildfowl, watching buzzards circling overhead and sidestepping a grass snake en route for the Cromwell Cottage. Quite a nature walk! We met up with 5 other friends (4 members and one husband) who couldn't make the walk this time and enjoyed a lunch before 4 of us set off to walk back to Upton with a slight detour around Kislingbury.

Waterperry Gardens - July 15th

A low key visit is planned for Wednesday 15th July  to Waterperry Gardens near Wheatley in Oxfordshire. The trip will use members' cars rather than a coach and details will be sorted out when numbers are definite.

Not enough members were available on the day so individuals who were interested, decided to make their own way there throughout the summer. As you can see from the photographs it is a wonderful place for lovers of gardens. There is also a fascinating museum with a detailed collection of tools and memorabilia from bygone days, a garden centre with shop  and an upmarket gift shop. The Tea shop sells home made food for snacks and lunches and is not to be missed. As it is less than an hour away from us, I recommend you pay Waterperry a visit sometime.

Waterperry Gardens 
Waterperry Gardens 
Waterperry Gardens 
Waterperry Gardens 

Westonbirt School Visit - June 18th

A trip is planned for Thursday June 18th 2015 to visit this superb building near Tetbury in Gloucestershire. It is next door to the more well known Arboretum but there are no plans to combine the two on this visit because of time constraints. The coach will leave Milton Malsor at 10am with a stop in Burford for refreshments and a look around. The visit at Westonbirt is scheduled to start at 2pm with a talk and tour of the school. We must bear in mind that it is a working school so walking around should be done in a quiet manner. Following the tour we will be given afternoon tea and then time to wander around the gardens before leaving at approx. 5pm. 

The cost of the visit is £24-26 depending upon numbers and will include all the above except any refreshments purchased in Burford. Members of Milton Malsor and Collingtree WI and Milton Historical Society have been invited and there will probably be spaces for anyone else if they would like to ring Brenda on 858866 to add names to a list.

For more information on Westonbirt School, see the school's website.

Westonbirt

Mikron Theatre Company  - June 6th

On June 6th at Blisworth there was a production of Raising Agentsone of the 2015 shows produced and performed by the Mikron Theatre Company who tour the canals on their narrowboat Tyesely. The Rectory field filled up and the show began. And what a show! The production was about the 100 years of the WI and the 4 actors, -two male and 2 female were superb! Their homework had certainly been done and the facts, humour, sidelines and skills shone through. The audience - a huge mixture of WI members, husbands, friends and interested villagers were laughing, clapping and generally having a great evening. One of theme made a superb woman, extremely camp with some lovely moves! They all sang, played instruments and acted - what talent. We look forward to seeing them again as they visit the area every year.

Mikron 

Centenary AGM - June 4th

On June 4th at the Royal Albert Hall, Lorraine will again be representing us at the AGM. The Meeting is to be broadcast to several cinemas in the country enabling more members to 'take part' in the event. Cineworld at Sixfields is one of those and 3 members are going along for the day. There are still tickets available from WI House.

AGM at Cineworld 
Members enjoying the lunchtime sunshine at Cineworld 

This year's Speakers will be Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, British former wheelchair racer, parliamentarian and television presenter; Lucy Worsley, English historian, author, curator and television presenter on historical programmes and Helena Morissey CBE, CEO of Newton Investment Management, founder of 30% club which campaigns to recruit 30% of boardrooms to include women. As well as this work commitment, Helena is also a mother of 9!

The Resolution - Failing to care - assessment of need in long term care will be debated.

The Resolution was eventually thrown out even after an amendment and much discussion. We hadn't been aware of a proposed amendment although some WIs obviously were. Perhaps they had an Advisor to their May meeting. Whatever happened to emails? Eventually after quite a time of discussion and paper finding, a motion was passed to move to the next item on the agenda. The Speakers were excellent although we did wonder why there is a need for 3 speakers when the day is so long anyway. The Choir were good singing three songs and the fashion show was unusual with intricately knitted garments made by WI members and modelled by Kingston University students. The Royal party looked delightful and The Queen spoke to members from the lectern.

Fruit Cake

Buckingham Palace Garden Party  - June 2nd

To commemorate the Centenary of the WI, there is to be a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in the presence of the Duchess of Cornwall on June 2nd. One member of every WI in the UK is invited and our lucky member is Lorraine Bunting.

Lorraine enjoyed her day, saying that everything was well organised and that she was impressed and excited by it all. She had one negative comment however, that many WI members flaunted the no photography rule and blatantly took photos inside the palace grounds.

Bluebell Walk April 22nd

A hastily arranged walk through the Hunsbury Parks to take in the wonderful display of bluebells in Grange Wood saw 5 members and 2 husbands enjoying a lovely sunny Spring morning on April 22nd. The walk started at the Pyghtle Way end of the park, following the winding pathways towards Tesco, across to West Hunsbury near the Ironstone Railway with a coffee stop at the Drovers Return. Following a chat and drinks in the sun we ventured down the old drovers road (green lane) towards Ladybridge Drive, entering the park through side roads. A stroll around the lake and feeder watercourse took us across bridges and a field to end up back where we had started from, feeling happy and contented after a morning well spent.

Bluebell Walk

Bluebell Walk

Bluebell Walk

Bluebell Walk 

Garden Visit April 16th

One of our members very kindly offered her garden for an afternoon visit and this was on April 16th. A few members  went along for a stroll around the pretty Spring garden followed by tea and cakes in an adjacent garden belonging to one of our committee.

Garden Visit

Garden Visit

Garden Visit