WI Meeting Minutes
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March 2020 |
Our March meeting was led by Irene Evison, championing Nearly Wild Weaving. “Nearly wild” comes from the fact that Irene goes outside and weaves the view. The techniques that she uses are identical to those used in the Powys Castle and HamptonCourt tapestries; they go back hundreds of years.
Sometimes the best thing is being out in nature and outdoors which creates memories whether or not the weaving is successful. Sometimes Irene creates a community weaving project – she did one at Treflach Farm on their open Fandango day.
Irene invited members to view and touch a display of her tapestries, some of which have been printed as cards. A very popular one with members was a weaving of one of Irene’s own Jacob sheep in the medieval style using wool from the sheep!
Another tapestry on display was inspired by the sound waves of – lots of thought but a simple technique. Another was based on grass pushed by the wind in the Orkney landscape.
The technique for wild weaving uses a frame set up with warp threads then the yarn is woven in and out. Old picture frames can be used as the frame and they are easy to take outside to use in the open air. Mercerised cotton, wool, spun or raw and even recycled T shirts can be used for the weaving.
There is a British Tapestry Group and Irene brought some of magazines including one with an article she had been asked to write.
Irene had set up frames ready for the group to use then she demonstrated how to weave the ready cut lengths of wool between the warp strings and push them down with the fork. We all loved having a go ourselves and several members have plans for continuing at home.
As usual we made plenty of plans for the next few months including crafty activities for the Oswestry show, organising teams for the Maesbury WI quiz, discussing our vision statement for the WI, planning our contribution to the Hill Walk Charity Weekend and looking forward to an open evening at Llanyblodwel.
Trefonen WI would like to invite all readers and friends to our own open evening in Trefonen village hall at 7.30 on Thursday 2nd April to meet award winning wildlife photographer, Lindsey Bucknor OBE, and hear his talk Botswana, Botswana which describes his life under canvas photographing the rich and varied wildlife of Africa. Please join us if you can. Tickets £4 on the door.
For further details please contact Victoria 07773364992.
Sometimes the best thing is being out in nature and outdoors which creates memories whether or not the weaving is successful. Sometimes Irene creates a community weaving project – she did one at Treflach Farm on their open Fandango day.
Irene invited members to view and touch a display of her tapestries, some of which have been printed as cards. A very popular one with members was a weaving of one of Irene’s own Jacob sheep in the medieval style using wool from the sheep!
Another tapestry on display was inspired by the sound waves of – lots of thought but a simple technique. Another was based on grass pushed by the wind in the Orkney landscape.
The technique for wild weaving uses a frame set up with warp threads then the yarn is woven in and out. Old picture frames can be used as the frame and they are easy to take outside to use in the open air. Mercerised cotton, wool, spun or raw and even recycled T shirts can be used for the weaving.
There is a British Tapestry Group and Irene brought some of magazines including one with an article she had been asked to write.
Irene had set up frames ready for the group to use then she demonstrated how to weave the ready cut lengths of wool between the warp strings and push them down with the fork. We all loved having a go ourselves and several members have plans for continuing at home.
As usual we made plenty of plans for the next few months including crafty activities for the Oswestry show, organising teams for the Maesbury WI quiz, discussing our vision statement for the WI, planning our contribution to the Hill Walk Charity Weekend and looking forward to an open evening at Llanyblodwel.
Trefonen WI would like to invite all readers and friends to our own open evening in Trefonen village hall at 7.30 on Thursday 2nd April to meet award winning wildlife photographer, Lindsey Bucknor OBE, and hear his talk Botswana, Botswana which describes his life under canvas photographing the rich and varied wildlife of Africa. Please join us if you can. Tickets £4 on the door.
For further details please contact Victoria 07773364992.
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February 2020 |
What makes the holes in Emmental?
You’d have learned the answer to that and many other cheese based conundrums if you’d joined us for our February meeting in the village hall when we enjoyed a Cheese Quiz very ably organised by Pam.
We started with 8 cheeses and the remarkably difficult challenge of identifying the name, country of origin and animal producing the milk. This led to some intense discussions about Wensleydale versus Lancashire, Stilton versus Roquefort and what produces the milk for Feta as we nibbled samples with bread, olives and grapes and enjoyed a glass of wine.
Twenty five further cheese based questions had us wracking our brains about what makes the holes in Emmental, what Stinking Bishop is washed in and where we would know Peter the Goatherd from before we finally named dishes from lists of their ingredients.
Gill thanked Pam for organising such an enjoyable and tasty event and a good chance to get to know each other better.
We made plans for a further quiz at Maesbury, social events, theatre groups, craft shows and charity fundraising. It’s going to be another busy year!
If you think you’d like to find out more, please join us for Nearly Wild Weaving, making tapestry with natural materials on Thursday 6th March at 7.00pm in Trefonen village hall. Visitors and new members are always welcome. For further details please contact Victoria 07773364982 or check out our burgeoning website on trefonen.org.
You’d have learned the answer to that and many other cheese based conundrums if you’d joined us for our February meeting in the village hall when we enjoyed a Cheese Quiz very ably organised by Pam.
We started with 8 cheeses and the remarkably difficult challenge of identifying the name, country of origin and animal producing the milk. This led to some intense discussions about Wensleydale versus Lancashire, Stilton versus Roquefort and what produces the milk for Feta as we nibbled samples with bread, olives and grapes and enjoyed a glass of wine.
Twenty five further cheese based questions had us wracking our brains about what makes the holes in Emmental, what Stinking Bishop is washed in and where we would know Peter the Goatherd from before we finally named dishes from lists of their ingredients.
Gill thanked Pam for organising such an enjoyable and tasty event and a good chance to get to know each other better.
We made plans for a further quiz at Maesbury, social events, theatre groups, craft shows and charity fundraising. It’s going to be another busy year!
If you think you’d like to find out more, please join us for Nearly Wild Weaving, making tapestry with natural materials on Thursday 6th March at 7.00pm in Trefonen village hall. Visitors and new members are always welcome. For further details please contact Victoria 07773364982 or check out our burgeoning website on trefonen.org.
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January 2020 |
The first meeting of 2020 saw us gathering in the village hall to catch up with old friends, meet new members and welcome visitors as we raised a glass of fizz to toast health and happiness in the New Year.
Next K led us in a discussion of this year’s resolutions so that we could make an informed choice about which one to vote for. Our votes are then passed to the national organisation and will lead to the next national WI campaign.
First we looked at a call to increase potential stem cell donor registration. We learned that there is an urgent need to increase the number of people registered on the aligned UK stem cell registry in order to provide potentially life-saving treatment to people of all ages with certain blood cancers.WI members could promote registration to the database to avoid people dying whilst waiting for a match. The next proposed campaign related to female crash test dummies and was a surprise to us all.
Women are significantly more likely to die, or be seriously injured, in car crashes than men. The safety testing is done using ‘normal’ male dummies. The only woman test dummy is from the tiny 5th percentile and in the passenger seat! The WI would call on the government to mandate equitable testing with female crash test dummies to that of male dummies in regulatory vehicle safety tests; and for consumer organisations, such as EuroNCAP, to include a gendered breakdown in their published results.
The third proposed resolution concerns modern slavery.
There are tens of thousands of victims of modern slavery hiding in plain sight in the UK. Modern slavery has severe consequences for the health and mental wellbeing of survivors. The WI would call on the Government to protect victims of modern slavery in the first instance and deliver longer term support to help them rebuild their lives rather than the current 45 days maximum and a culture of regarding the victims as illegal immigrants. Our members would work to raise awareness of the prevalence of modern slavery throughout society and to campaign to defeat it.
We then discussed a difficult subject entitled Time to talk about death and dying.
64% of people in the UK think that we do not talk enough about death in this country, yet these conversations can be really helpful in enabling people to receive the end of life care they would want. In order to demystify a natural part of life, and support more people to share their wishes, the WI would upon members to encourage open discussions about death and dying.
Finally we looked at a proposal focused on protecting our precious helium.
We were interested to learn that Helium is a precious resource that is widely used in healthcare, medical and scientific research, but it is non-renewable and in short supply. The campaign would call on WI members to help raise awareness of the need to conserve helium, and on government and industry to work together to ensure it is used responsibly, and to support innovative research that could address the shortage such as reducing use or improving capture and recycling.
Discussion continued over refreshments and then we voted. All the proposals received support but in Trefonen the largest number of votes chose to raise awareness of the gender inequality in vehicle safety testing by advocating the proper use of female crash test dummies. Support for the victims of modern slavery was a close second. We’ll have to wait to see how the national vote goes.
Next month we meet on Thursday 6th February for the world famous Cheese Quiz. Visitors and new members are always welcome. Please contact Victoria for more details 07773364992.
Next K led us in a discussion of this year’s resolutions so that we could make an informed choice about which one to vote for. Our votes are then passed to the national organisation and will lead to the next national WI campaign.
First we looked at a call to increase potential stem cell donor registration. We learned that there is an urgent need to increase the number of people registered on the aligned UK stem cell registry in order to provide potentially life-saving treatment to people of all ages with certain blood cancers.WI members could promote registration to the database to avoid people dying whilst waiting for a match. The next proposed campaign related to female crash test dummies and was a surprise to us all.
Women are significantly more likely to die, or be seriously injured, in car crashes than men. The safety testing is done using ‘normal’ male dummies. The only woman test dummy is from the tiny 5th percentile and in the passenger seat! The WI would call on the government to mandate equitable testing with female crash test dummies to that of male dummies in regulatory vehicle safety tests; and for consumer organisations, such as EuroNCAP, to include a gendered breakdown in their published results.
The third proposed resolution concerns modern slavery.
There are tens of thousands of victims of modern slavery hiding in plain sight in the UK. Modern slavery has severe consequences for the health and mental wellbeing of survivors. The WI would call on the Government to protect victims of modern slavery in the first instance and deliver longer term support to help them rebuild their lives rather than the current 45 days maximum and a culture of regarding the victims as illegal immigrants. Our members would work to raise awareness of the prevalence of modern slavery throughout society and to campaign to defeat it.
We then discussed a difficult subject entitled Time to talk about death and dying.
64% of people in the UK think that we do not talk enough about death in this country, yet these conversations can be really helpful in enabling people to receive the end of life care they would want. In order to demystify a natural part of life, and support more people to share their wishes, the WI would upon members to encourage open discussions about death and dying.
Finally we looked at a proposal focused on protecting our precious helium.
We were interested to learn that Helium is a precious resource that is widely used in healthcare, medical and scientific research, but it is non-renewable and in short supply. The campaign would call on WI members to help raise awareness of the need to conserve helium, and on government and industry to work together to ensure it is used responsibly, and to support innovative research that could address the shortage such as reducing use or improving capture and recycling.
Discussion continued over refreshments and then we voted. All the proposals received support but in Trefonen the largest number of votes chose to raise awareness of the gender inequality in vehicle safety testing by advocating the proper use of female crash test dummies. Support for the victims of modern slavery was a close second. We’ll have to wait to see how the national vote goes.
Next month we meet on Thursday 6th February for the world famous Cheese Quiz. Visitors and new members are always welcome. Please contact Victoria for more details 07773364992.