News

That mailing? It’s more than just paperwork!

“IN January each WI secretary receives a bundle of paperwork from the office, i.e. the pink WI list, two copies of the Yearbook, speakers’ booking forms and speakers’ feedback forms. Have you ever wondered what this can be used for (besides collecting dust)? “ – Angie Leach explains why some paperwork is so important and useful in running your WI.

Navigate to Page 4 on  January’s edition of Surrey WI News.

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SOS FROM OUR TREASURER

WILL 2021 be the last year your WI was able to use a Surrey Independent Financial Examiner?

The majority of WIs in Surrey had their accounts examined by a Surrey trained and appointed examiner in  2021.  But this is under threat in 2022 due to a shortage of examiners. If this happens, every WI will have to find their own examiner, as accounts have to be examined before being presented to members at the annual meeting.

Several WIs commented that their examiner lived on the other side of Surrey, and asked why couldn’t they have one closer to home.  This was unavoidable as only one current examiner lives to the west of Guildford and obviously she could not do all the examinations for that half of the county.

In the next few months some examiners will be stepping down and unless they can be replaced, we will not be able to cover all the WIs who would like an SFWI appointed examiner

Can you — or someone you know — help us to keep this service  going? All potential examiners will receive training and do not need to have any prior knowledge of preparing WI accounts, or even to be a WI member.

Most of the Surrey examinations take place in October and November leading up to our annual meetings in November.  The WI pays a small fee for each examination. About the only requirement is that you like figures and have the time to do it. You might be a WI treasurer wanting to help others. You might have recently retired or otherwise have spare  time, or you might know someone who could join the team — a partner, parent or a friend.

To find out more, please email Sheena Landgraf, the Federation treasurer at treasurer@surreyfedwi.org.uk

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The great outdoors is just that – great!

“WHEN I opened the June copy of Surrey WI News, I didn’t expect to see an article about a bursary for a Forest School Assistant Level 2. My stomach did a happy dance!” writes Nell Pink of Cheam WI. Find out how she got on when she won a bursary to train with Surrey Wildlife Trust.

Navigate to Page 4 on  January’s edition of Surrey WI News.

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Dear all

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas.

There will be a mailing to all WI secretaries at the end of January/beginning of February. We have spent a lot of time in December working through the information forms provided by WIs to check that the information on MCS is correct, so that these lists are as accurate as possible. The mailing will include the following, but please check the letter for up-to-date details:

Presidents and Secretaries List 2022; Annual Review 2021; Two copies of 2022Yearbook (please use this edition to book speakers); Delegates’ programme for the Annual Council Meeting (ACM) in March; Letter about the Council Meeting together with Standing Orders for Council Meetings; Minutes of the 2020 ACM.

WIs that have opted to use Office 365 will only receive the Yearbooks and a delegate’s programme for the ACM.

All non-data protected information will be on our website at surreyfedwi.org.uk under the document library. Please look at the website, which we update regularly with new files and documents and there are lots of resources. Hard copies can be posted to you on request.

Karen Whitehead
Federation Secretary

Karen, Jeanie and Katie would like to wish all our members a healthy and happy 2022.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

January’s Surrey WI News is now available for you to read online.

This month’s edition includes Annual Council Meeting; The Speakers, Forest School, Treasurers SOS, crochet workshop plus lots more! 

Please click on the following link to view on your phone, tablet or computer via Flipsnack the January’s edition of Surrey WI News.

If you would like some help accessing the digital version of SWIN, there is now a user guide on how to access the online version, download it and print it. The user guide can be read here.

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My dream for a new tomorrow

January, the time for resolutions, but also a moment for refection and evaluation of the year just passed, and what a year it has been.

So much has happened that we could have never thought possible, even when Covid19 emerged from China. Months of seclusion and isolation from family, friends and fellow WI members, the loss of loved ones, and the challenges of everyday living when nothing was normal, nothing was easy and in a world where so much had changed.

We have adopted a new vocabulary, of ‘furlough’ and ‘self-isolation’ and have discovered new modes of communication — Zoom and Facetime, and many of us have acquired a new level of IT skills.

Covid-19 has been the biggest challenge to the world since World War II, yet unlike then, when WI members could meet and pull together, we have had to endure the last 18 months largely on our own.

What has impressed me the most during this time has been your resilience, ingenuity, imagination, commitment and self-sacrifice. I have read about your actions during lockdown to support your communities and have been humbled at the way that you have contributed in so many ways, making scrubs, kit and laundry bags and mask adapters for NHS staff, helping at food banks, meals on wheels, collecting prescriptions, being that vital good neighbour and much, much more. You are truly inspiring women, and the WI is justly proud of you all.

As we move forward, our WIs are enjoying great success, with members delighted to be back together and some new WIs opening. Welcome Warlingham Village and Fairlands WIs.

Challenges

But some are also facing new challenges, falling membership numbers resulting in reduced income, low take up of nominations for committee and officer roles, increased Health and Safety demands made by venues, rising bank charges and many other issues, even the threat of closure.

These challenges are different for each and every WI. Why not ask yourself if you could play a role in your WI, join the committee, become an officer, lead an interest group? You may surprise yourself and you would most certainly make a difference. Together we can rebuild and redevelop, revive and restore, renew, revitalise, rejuvenate, reinvent and recreate our Federation and our WIs. The new world is our oyster.

The last year and a half has been challenging for us all, and at times the burden of being Federation Chairman has been truly great. On many occasions I have wondered what it has all been for and whether we would have anything left post Covid, but my commitment has been revitalised many times by two things.

The first is that the obstacles that we have had to overcome have been different, but certainly no greater, than those faced by previous generations of WI members, especially during WW2, and therefore I vowed not to let members of the past down.

And second, most of all by you, and your unstinting dedication to the WI.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you have done for your WIs and communities. I am assured by your actions, that our organisation is in strong and safe hands and will blossom as we embrace our new tomorrow.

And as we move into that new tomorrow and contemplate the future, I have a dream for our Federation. It is this. That our WIs will grow, will become more diverse in their makeup and will be welcoming of all. That they will represent the diversity of their community, that they will be bold in speaking out on behalf of all who identify as women, and shape positively the community in which they live.

Please make my dream a reality. After all you have achieved over the last eighteen months, I am sure that you can!

Carol A. Gartrell
Federation Chairman

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November is the month of remembrance, and this year it seems an especially poignant time as we
also remember those who lost their lives or were injured in the service of the Afghan people and, of
course, all who have lost their lives to Covid-19.
Many of you have already expressed a desire to offer help and support to the women of
Afghanistan. NFWI has produced detailed information, Take Action on Afghanistan that includes a
series of links which will enable you to do this in whatever way you choose.
As we approach Remembrance Sunday WI members from across Surrey will be commemorating the
day in many ways, attending Acts of Remembrance, laying wreaths, decorating their villages with
poppies — maybe as a topper for a letter box or, as with my WI, as a series of poppy-shaped wreaths
decorated with hundreds of poppies knitted by members that will be displayed in shop windows in
Bagshot.
Our county is home to two Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemeteries,
Brookwood, the organisation’s largest cemetery in the UK, and the Air Force Memorial at
Runnymede. Very many service dead are commemorated here, and amongst them are some of the
over 3,000 women who died during the two World Wars who served as pilots, in the Special
Operations Executive (SOE), as munition factory workers and on the battlefield. Also memorialised
are both suffragists and suffragettes.
A name that caught my attention on the memorial at Brookwood dedicated to those who died with
no known grave was that of Violette Szabo. She was a member of the SOE who, on her second
mission to France, was captured and tortured, but remarkably never gave up any information. She
was executed at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. For her service she was posthumously awarded
the George Cross.
Intriguing
Were you fortunate enough to hear the recent Zoom talk Grandma Flew Spitfires about the women
of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA)? One of the women spoken of was Amy Johnson, who in 1930
flew the 11,000 miles from Britain to Australia solo! During WW II she joined the ATA, flying military
aircraft across the UK. She drowned in the Thames when her plane ran out of fuel. Her life is
commemorated on the astonishing RAF Memorial at Runnymede.
But remembrance is not just confined to the war dead and Remembrance Sunday. On a recent WI
tour of the Grade I listed Brookwood Cemetery my eyes were drawn to a cordoned off, vast area of
bare earth. This is to be the final resting place of around 50,000 bodies exhumed during the building
of the railway project HSR2.
Brookwood cemetery contains many extraordinary memorials to a fascinating array of people with
intriguing stories. However the most memorable is that related to the Columbarium, built to house
the ashes of those cremated. Its most recent addition was an anonymous blue floral urn containing
the ashes of an unknown person that was found in a local branch of Sainsbury’s!
Remembrance, or remembering, seems to have become a constant theme over the last 21 months,
whether it be a person, a place or an action. I sincerely hope that as we emerge from beneath the
shadow of the pandemic, we will look forward once again. But what we have experienced will be
forever recorded in history.
A final act of remembrance, that you may have contributed to is the Remember Me… online book of
remembrance which has raised funds to build a memorial in St Paul’s to commemorate the dead of
the Covid pandemic, the first of its kind to be installed there for over 100 years “as a reminder of the
human cost of the pandemic.”
I would, however, like to return to those women of the past, known and unknown, who gave their
lives for the benefit of all, and will finish with the poem by Leo Marks, given to Violette Szabo as she
returned to France for what would be the last time and which she used to encrypt coded messages.
It reads:

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours,
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause,
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Carol A. Gartrell
Federation Chairman

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“Our Time” Charity Calendar 2022

THE Send women artists have excelled themselves with their 2022 calendar — it really is lovely! Several examples of each artist’s work are featured each month, giving you plenty to look at during the year and their talent shines through on every page. Some is by new recruits who only joined the Our Time programme in July this year.

The calendar costs £7, or WI members can buy two for £12 until the end of November.

The sale of work by the Our Time artists is facilitated by the Michael Varah Memorial Fund. To order, please call 01483 567688 or email your order to:

info@michaelvarahfund.org

stating the number/title and quantity of packs of the Christmas cards/postcards/calendars you wish to purchase. Postage and packing will be calculated on the weight of your order.  You will receive an invoice and details of how to pay. Pictures of the Christmas cards and postcards are in the October and November editions of Surrey WI News. The postcards would make great gifts for Christmas goody bags or prizes for WI competitions.

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