68 existing members came to the meeting on 18th March and were joined by two new ladies who we welcomed to our W.I.
Despite all our programme planning, Jill Elliot our W.I. advisor was unable to come as was our self defence tutor, so we were delighted that Keith Hern a photographer, was able to attend at short notice. He gave a most interesting account, supported by some wonderful slides about an eight day promotional trip that he had been on in Zimbabwe. www.keithhern.com
SURREY FEDERATION 95TH ANNUAL COUNCIL MEETING: 18 MARCH 2013
Ann reported on her representation of our WI at the Surrey Federation 95th Annual Council meeting earlier that day. She had been delighted on arrival to be greeted by the Wimbledon WI contribution to the new wall hanging which had been commissioned for Surrey’s 95th Anniversary. The retiring Chairman, Elizabeth Fisher urged all WI members to attend the Scarecrow Trail being organised at Wisley on 18 July. This is the Federation’s major fundraiser for the year – 20% of the proceeds to Wisley and the remaining 80% to the Federation. There were 3 guest speakers during the day. The first Janice Langley who is a NFWI Trustee and told her about her experiences as Chair of the NFWI Membership sub-committee. The second was Simon Topman MBE who gave an amusing presentation about The History of Whistles and his company Acme Whistles which has its beginnings in Birmingham in 1870. The final guest speaker was Jennie Storr who runs a branch of the Speaker’s Agency and whose talk was called “And Another Thing”. This was another hilarious talk and started with her describing some surveys which had concluded that we were in danger of turning into Victoria and Victor Meldrews.
