surreyfed

Update on 2019/2020 resolutions process

As the 2020 NFWI Annual Meeting was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the two resolutions due to be discussed were not able to be debated or voted on by delegates.

The NFWI Board of Trustees has decided that in these exceptional circumstances, the results of the shortlist selection process will be used as a proxy for the Annual Meeting vote.

In the shortlisting selection stage, two resolutions (stem cells and modern slavery) attracted a clear majority of selections from members (over 70%).

The NFWI Board felt that this was the most democratic means available to determine the outcome of this year’s resolution process, taking into account time and resource constraints and the challenges of the current lockdown period. The Board also wanted to recognise the huge amount of time and effort that members, WIs and federations put into the resolutions process this year.

This means that the two resolutions have now been adopted by the WI, and members are free to campaign on these issues. The resolutions are as follows:

A call to increase potential stem cell donor registration

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. We call on all WI members to promote registration to the database to avoid people dying whilst waiting for a match.

End 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 NFWI calls on the Government to protect victims of modern slavery in the first instance and deliver longer term support to help them rebuild their lives. We call on our members to raise awareness of the prevalence of modern slavery throughout society and to campaign to defeat it.

Further information, next steps and a breakdown of the shortlist selection results can be found on NFWI’s website

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These free online wellbeing courses are not organised by The Federation, but are by a WI member.

They may be of interest to you.

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The Lady Denman Cup Competition is a long running, prestigious competition, attracting a high level of interest from members year after year.  The current lockdown situation maybe challenging for many, but its the perfect opportunity to encourage members to develop or learn new skills and take part in activities which wouldn’t have perhaps normally captured their interest, or been able to give the time to.

For this reason, a creative writing competition could be the perfect way for people to ‘escape’ and let their imaginations run wild and I am pleased to confirm that the Lady Denman Cup competition will continue this year.  However, a decision has been made to extend the competition timescale; following discussions with a number of federations, we are aware that some federations have had to furlough staff, which would mean administering the competition would either be very difficult or impossible.  By extending the timeframe, the competition not only becomes open and fair to all who wish to take part, but it also helps reduce the pressure off everyone involved.

The theme for this year’s Lady Denman Cup is “What I heard on the bus”

Using no more than 500 words, WI members are invited to submit a piece of writing, either comical, serious, fact or fiction, based on a conversation they have overheard, or imagined they had heard, on the bus.

To allow a fair and standardised competition timescale across all WIs and federations, the NFWI has set a closing date of Friday, 18 September 2020 for members to submit their entry to their Federation office.

After this date, federations have until Friday, 16 October 2020 to select up to three entries to go forward for national judging.  Results will be announced by mid-December 2020.

A revised schedule, individual entry form and federation entry form will be available to download from MyWI shortly.

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Circumstances permitting, towards the end of May we will be sending the following to all treasurers:

• Form for Additional Membership Fees
• Application Form for Independent Financial Examiners
• Confirmation of the Federation Public Liability Insurance if your WI has paid its contribution with membership fees earlier this year
• A list of additional speakers for the 2020 Year Book which should be passed to your programme planner

There may be additional items so please check the contents letter which comes with the pack. If you are a treasurer and do not received any/all of the above, please contact the office urgently.

Many Treasurers are now working on the accounts from an Excel spreadsheet which includes a financial statement. If, however, you still require two A4 copies of the financial statement, please email the office info@surreyfedwi.org.uk and these will be posted to you.

Diane Sanderson, Federation Secretary.

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A tide of emotions: but there must be Hope

Having experienced great relief on our return to the UK in early March, after surviving a once-in-a-life-time sandstorm and a COVID-19 outbreak at a nearby hotel, I was looking forward to a full diary of WI events.

Normality was the order of the day. I attended Elstead WI’s very special 100th birthday celebration and enjoyed, with around 40 Surrey members, the Spring residential weekend at Denman. I drafted my May column, a light-hearted missive, focussing on the celebration of May Day: Maypoles, Morris Dancing and Monty Modlyn, and even a little licentiousness and debauchery (relating to the origins of May Day celebrations, I assure you). I then moved on to address the VE Day commemorations, the role of WI members in WW2, their significant contribution to the war effort and post-war, as they looked to the promised future with an aim to change the world. I finished with an exhortation to members to support climate change initiatives, that have “rallied the population in a way that has not been seen since WW2” (Caroline Lucas MP, March 2020). I find it very hard to believe that I wrote this as late as mid-March!

Can you recall your last ‘normal’ WI encounter? On Wednesday, March 11, I went to a very well attended Emlyn Down Group Meeting, and what a very special day it was. We made a mosaic for the garden, engaged in relaxed conversation, shared a fish and chip lunch and participated in a very well organised meeting — thank you, it was a lovely day. Even a few hugs were exchanged. Maybe the last for some time, for some!

Over the next few days disbelief set in as the implications of COVID-19 struck, like a tsunami. Our world was turned inside-out, or rather, outside-in. Only four days later we were cancelling the Annual Council Meeting, then very quickly the demise of very many Surrey WI events, including Worplesdon WI’s Centenary and Bronzefield Bees’ 10th birthday, followed by a torrent of cancellations which included all Surrey WI and SFWI events until the end of June.

Reality now began to kick in. Could this be happening? The amount of work involved in hibernating the Federation kept me focussed for the first month and insulated me from the reality of what was happening in the outside world. A new, strange vocabulary emerged, of furloughing (formally a leave of absence granted to a member of the services or a missionary) and of shielding and social distancing. Our personal challenge was to address protocols, to work out which category we, our family and friends fitted into, and to restructure our daily lives accordingly.

Reality has become uncertainty. Nothing is clear, nothing is definite. We are in a constantly changing world where the goalposts move daily. Even the familiar things of life have changed their function. My handbag has become a receptacle for keys. The front door has not been unlocked for a month, my car’s boot is where the delivery driver leaves the food, which I obsessively spray with disinfectant (a freebie from Hampton Court Flower Show) and leave to decontaminate.

Amidst all this has been the arrival of Spring, and with it hope, but also guilt. COVID-19 has given us the gift of time, and with it more of a sense of awareness. It been hard not to celebrate the idyllic breaking of spring. To walk in the garden, to hear the dawn chorus uninterrupted by the drone of traffic. The sunsets seem more perfect. Is this a direct result of the drastic fall in air pollution? When was the last time the trees burst into leaf, silhouetted against a sky devoid of vapour trails? Guilt then leads to a deep sense of grief — for those lost, both known and unknown. Grief in being isolated from family and friends.
Grief for time lost, never to be reclaimed. The yearning to hug one’s children and grandchildren, to spend time with those who are most dear to us, and the question, that sits in the shadows, when will we see them again?

Guilt re-emerges. Why them and not me? What can I do to make a difference? However hard it is, the single most important thing we can all do at this stage is to stay at home. Inaction seems the exact opposite of what the WI is renowned for, but for the moment this is by far the best thing we, as individuals, can do.

But there is hope; there must be hope. In the words of the 14th Century Dame Julian of Norwich (who you may be familiar with if you, like me, have been avidly reading Elly Griffiths’ books, inspired by her literary lunch) and who, even though she witnessed the ravages of the Black Death, believed that:
“All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

And finally, in the words of Queen Elizabeth II, a member of the WI for 77 years:
“We will be with our friends again;
we will be with our families again;
we will meet again.”
(April 5, 2020).

Take care and stay safe.
Carol A. Gartrell, Federation Chairman

The photo shows Carol in her garden, sitting in the willow dome she has created, after learning how to on a course at Denman

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Thank you Wallington and Carshalton Women’s Institute

It started with a gorgeous cake made for Wallington and Carshalton’s (aka The Lavender Bags) 10th birthday. We liked it so much a tea towel in the same pattern was created and given as a present to each member at the party. A challenge was also thrown down:
Take the tea towel with you on your holidays, trips, outings or celebrations and get a picture of yourself proudly displaying it.

Travels With My Tea Towel has become a ‘thing’ and members have taken their gifts around the globe.

• • When Sue Holmes and Sandra Allwood brandished their tea towel in front of the Taj Mahal they nearly got arrested! Police rushed up in fury, saying they were absolutely forbidden to take pictures of “a political slogan”(!) at the site. If they persisted, the item would be confiscated and they’d be in deep trouble. In vain did they protest that this was no political poster, it was to celebrate the WI, but to keep the peace they posed empty handed and PhotoShopped the offending image in later.
  • Sue and her towel went on to pose at Colditz, escaped and brought her photo home.
  • Newly appointed co-President Maureen Lander and then President Jo Jones tucked their tea towels into their luggage when crossing the pond and posed in the Big Apple.
  • Maureen went on to let her tea towel catch the breeze in the Windy City, Chicago.
  • Jo also went to Turkey with Jill Heaney.
  • Greta had a much chillier experience, nearly freezing her tea towel rigid in the snowy wastes of Norway this Christmas.
  • Our other co-President, Sue Tattam took her tea towel on a very appropriate trip to the WI Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, then from beech trees to boats on a canal.
  • Marion Welch, afloat on Loch Ness, hoped Nessie could be sufficiently intrigued to make an appearance. Clearly the monster prefers to stay in the wet to drying up.
  • Committee member Joy Robinson went to the British Isles’ most westerly point in Co. Cork where the wind was so strong her tea towel had to be held in place by her daughter, who can just be seen crouching behind it.
  • She also displayed it outside MacCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere, famous for its appearance on the cover of a book by the same name. That picture featured a nun with a pint of Guinness but we feel it would have been much improved with our anniversary gift!

Joy Robinson

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The tale of Surrey’s lost village — found in a WI report

Sometimes a chance remark in a report sent in by a WI member catches the eye and warrants further investigation. That happened with a report sent in by Tessa Langmead, stating that a member active in Sidlow Bridge WI for more than 40 years told them about a historical connection with Duxhurst, Lady Henry Somerset and the Priory Museum at Reigate. They were trying to trace some artefacts connected to this time; the response was promising and a lot was learnt by members who were unaware of the connection.

That prompted me to want to know (a) what was Duxhurst and (b) who was Lady Henry Somerset. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, a fascinating tale unfolded.

Lady Isabella Somerset was the estranged wife of Lord Henry Somerset. She was also President of the Women’s Temperance Association. She leased the 180-acre Duxhurst estate, three miles south of Reigate, containing a manor house and a farm, and set about building a village for the care of inebriate women of all classes (the nearest seller of alcohol was a mile and a half away). It was opened in 1895 by Princess Mary of Teck (later Queen Mary).

Aristocratic ladies and stage celebrities suffering from alcoholism were accommodated in the manor house.

Inebriates of the “middle” classes lived in another house on the estate.

For the rest, Lady Somerset believed they should be usefully occupied, but in a setting as far removed from their previous life as possible. So she built a collection of thatched cottages arranged in a horseshoe around a village green. Each could house up to eight women, many from very rough backgrounds. The village had a hospital, laundries, workshops, a dairy farm, gardens, greenhouses, lavender fields — even a pottery. By 1902 it was claiming a 45 per cent success rate in curing alcoholism.

War work for women relieved the loneliness and unhappiness which made many of them turn to drink, so in 1915 Duxhurst was requisitioned as a Red Cross hospital. When the estate was decommissioned in 1917, Lady Isabella turned it into a children’s village.

Lady Isabella died aged 71 in 1921.The children’s village closed in 1923 and Duxhurst was used as a home for gentlefolk until 1936 when it was purchased for use as an orphanage. In WWII it was requisitioned as a cadet training centre and later became a camp for Italian PoWs. After the war the buildings were left vacant; by the 1960s most had been demolished. Today Duxhurst is known as Surrey’s lost village.

I thought I knew my home county but all this was news to me (and is, perhaps, to you). Isn’t it  amazing what treasures can be gleaned from a WI report!

June Green, Editor Surrey WI News.

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