News

A small step for woman, a giant leap for mankind?

WHILST studying at a Yorkshire grammar school in the late 1960s, I became a keen supporter of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Ramblers’ Association. The latter was to help in the fight to keep paths open along the Pennines, the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors.

A few years later, at Surrey University, I continued to campaign as I joined demonstrations against cuts in education funding and apartheid. It was not surprising therefore that alongside music, I studied Man, Environment and Pollution.Through this I was introduced to Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring, which predicted that the use of toxic chemicals in the countryside would bring ecological disaster. Much of what she forecast would have come to pass if her controversial views had not been listened to, but not before parts of America had become silent. Large populations of bees had been destroyed and wildlife decimated.

Although significant restrictions in the use of agricultural chemicals took place during the 70s, and with the banning of DDT in the UK in the 1980s (do you still have any of this hidden in a garden shed or greenhouse? Do look, you may be surprised), the increase in the use of toxic chemicals was reversed. It took the WI, along with other agencies, through the significant 2009 SOS for Honeybees Campaign, to recognise and then to act to reverse the continuing decline of the honeybee population in the UK.

My primary reason for joining the WI in 2009 was to campaign, thus my WI induction coincided with the honeybee campaign. It got me off to a flying start, but only at a local level. So, as Chairman, one of my initial aims has been to bring campaigning to the forefront of Surrey Federation endeavours.

I am delighted therefore to announce that the Federation now has a Public Affairs Committee, with a brief to identify, promote and support NFWI campaigns, both past and present, and particularly, but not exclusively, where they might have a resonance with the lives of women in Surrey.

The committee will include Angie Leach (vice chair for all things resolutions and campaigns);Toto James (vice chair, who is sitting on the NFWI Public Affairs Committee for the second year running — congratulations Toto); our resolutions officers, climate change ambassadors and Daisy Leach, one of the youngest members of our Federation.

Watch out then for the campaign initiatives as they unfold. Engage, discuss with your fellow members how your WI can participate. Remember that each one of us can make a difference through the tiniest of actions, whether it be to pot up bee-friendly plants, hide the clingfilm, wear a garment one more time before washing it, or recycle it.

Your small change might just launch a ‘butterfly effect’ that percolates across the world. —

Carol A. Gartrell, Federation Chairman

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It has come to our attention that members are using recycled jam jar lids. While jars may be recycled, lids may not, the Federation advises. The seal is not effective and can allow bacteria to enter.

The responsibility for ensuring the criteria is correctly followed lies with the person or people organising an event at which these products are served or sold.

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WHILST studying at a Yorkshire grammar school in the late 1960s, I became a keen supporter of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Ramblers’ Association.The latter was to help in the fight to keep paths open along the Pennines, the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors.

A few years later, at Surrey University, I continued to campaign as I joined demonstrations against cuts in education funding and apartheid. It was not surprising therefore that alongside music, I studied Man, Environment and Pollution.Through this I was introduced to Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring, which predicted that the use of toxic chemicals in the countryside would bring ecological disaster. Much of what she forecast would have come to pass if her controversial views had not been listened to, but not before parts of America had become silent. Large populations of bees had been destroyed and wildlife decimated.

Although significant restrictions in the use of agricultural chemicals took place during the 70s, and with the banning of DDT in the UK in the 1980s (do you still have any of this hidden in a garden shed or greenhouse? Do look, you may be surprised), the increase in the use of toxic chemicals was reversed. It took the WI, along with other agencies, through the significant 2009 SOS for Honeybees Campaign, to recognise and then to act to reverse the continuing decline of the honeybee population in the UK.

My primary reason for joining the WI in 2009 was to campaign, thus my WI induction coincided with the honeybee campaign. It got me off to a flying start, but only at a local level. So, as Chairman, one of my initial aims has been to bring campaigning to the forefront of Surrey Federation endeavours.

I am delighted therefore to announce that the Federation now has a Public Affairs Committee, with a brief to identify, promote and support NFWI campaigns, both past and present, and particularly, but not exclusively, where they might have a resonance with the lives of women in Surrey.

The committee will include Angie Leach (vice chair for all things resolutions and campaigns);Toto James (vice chair, who is sitting on the NFWI Public Affairs Committee for the second year running — congratulations Toto); our resolutions officers, climate change ambassadors and Daisy Leach, one of the youngest members of our Federation.

Watch out then for the campaign initiatives as they unfold. Engage, discuss with your fellow members how your WI can participate. Remember that each one of us can make a difference through the tiniest of actions, whether it be to pot up bee-friendly plants, hide the clingfilm, wear a garment one more time before washing it, or recycle it.

Your small change might just launch a ‘butter-fly effect’ that percolates across the world.

Dr Carol A. Gartrell, Federation Chairman

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A couple of insurance items have arisen:

Cash

Hopefully you know that cheques and cash should be banked within seven days of receipt. This is a requirement of charity legislation and our insurance. Our insurance policy has a limit on how much cash is covered when not kept in a safe.  As most of us do not have a safe at home, a larger sum of cash might not be insured even overnight. If your WI is holding an event and anticipates making more than £1,000 in cash from takings/floats combined, please contact me with details. I would like to know the date of the event, when you expect to bank the money and the maximum cash you will hold so that I can get the policy updated to cover all the cash from your event.

Car insurance

Are you covered for any mileage you do for the WI? Driving to your WI meeting you are covered under your normal “social, domestic and pleasure” cover (SDP). Anyone who commutes to work by car will have SDP+ commuting (SDPC) cover.  If you claim mileage from your employer you will have SDPC+business (SDPCB).

Mileage done on official WI business, i.e. delivering the year-end papers/books to the independent examiner, is volunteer mileage. Most insurance companies do not charge extra to add cover for volunteer mileage if you ask them, and if you have SPDCB that will probably cover you, but you might want to check that you have the car insurance you need.

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CONGRATULATIONS to Angela Poole (Warlingham WI) and Marion Mitchell (Churt WI) the winners at our Annual Croquet Taster Day

We woke up on Friday, 30 August to a beautiful sunny day day – what more could we ask for?  Perfect weather for fun and laughter at our Croquet Taster Day at Surbition Croquet Club.

After a short introductory lesson on how to play golf croquet we were split into teams. Pimms O’Clock at  12:00 noon was followed by our first proper game. After a delicious lunch with wine at 1:30pm we played our second and third matches, which resulted in our final winning team.  Huge congratulations to Marion Mitchell (Churt WI) and Angela Poole (Warlingham WI) – Well done ladies!  Prizes were a bottle of fizz and a lovely floral bouquet. We rounded off the day with afternoon tea with homemade cakes, which was were served on the patio outside the Club House.  Thank you to the team at the Club for looking after us so well.

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An early birthday present from my husband in December 1981 was a BBC A computer. It arrived by post; I unpacked it then and there, connected it to a TV monitor and to a cassette player as a data storage device. How excited, proud and up to date I felt! My experience of a computer up to that point had been at housed in a locked room the size of a semi-detached house at university.  All that it was capable of was cataloguing the library books!

Today, microprocessors are central to our everyday life — whether it be in the mobile phone, washing machine, car or even a toothbrush! For many of us, the word processor has replaced pen and ink, the internet the encyclopaedia and dictionary, and social media personal interaction, enabling communication at high speed. We access the internet for a weather forecast, a route to a destination, suggestions for holiday choices and even recipe ideas. The internet offers us information and connection to others at a speed that we could never have believed.

So you can imagine how delighted I am to tell you that from the beginning of this month, our rather dull current Federation website hosted by NFWI has been replaced with an ‘all singing, all dancing’ lively and engaging new SFWI website which you can access at www.surreyfedwi.org.uk

This is the brainchild of Jane Randell, who with the expert advice of Toto James and the professional copy-editing skills of June Green, have been beavering away on its creation. My grateful thanks to them all.

Federation trustees and those with other key roles have also collaborated in the pooling of a vast amount of information and images detailing everything you would ever want to know about SFWI in an eye- catching and friendly manner. It will be a source of information as well as a promotional tool, and will celebrate all that is Surrey Federation of WIs.

Make time to browse the website and you will be rewarded for your efforts — if you have an interest in SFWI, then there will be something for you. You will no longer need to search for details of the event or workshop you are attending or look for the document you need that you know that you have somewhere. Everything will be in one place — on our new website.

As we move into our second century it seems a logical and fitting step to take. It will enable us all to keep in touch in a way and at a speed that has never before been possible.

Food for thought: I wonder how SFWI will be communicating with its members in 2119? I suppose we will never know.

Dr Carol A. Gartrell, Federation Chairman

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Anyone who likes to sing, whether a WI member or not, is invited to an open rehearsal of the Surrey Serenaders choir to be held on Saturday, 5 October at Albury Village Hall from 10.00am to 12.30pm.

All music will be provided (although you don’t have to be able to read music) along with refreshments. So please come and have a go to see if you like it.

The Surrey Serenaders were formed in 2013 with the aim of entering Singing for Joy, the NFWI Centenary Choir Competition. The choir reached a peak of about 35 members in 2016 when they were finalists in the competition.

Choir members agreed to carry on after the competition because they enjoyed the pleasure of singing and the friendships that resulted. In recent years numbers have dropped off due to ill health and family commitments. Fewer than 20 singers now usually attend rehearsals, so we are looking to recruit new members.

The Serenaders meet twice a month at Albury Village Hall, The Street, Albury, GU5 9AD. Sometimes we are invited to perform at WI and other events and where possible we enter competitions. Membership costs £10 a year with a £5 per person charge at each rehearsal. This is a voluntary choir, so members are not paid expenses, but we have a qualified Music Director and a very capable pianist who both charge for their services. We also have to pay for the hire of the hall for rehearsals.

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August and the show season has been in full swing, and what an impressive one it has been so far. The Surrey County Show, masterminded by Barbara Cavalier, set the season off to a very good start with some wonderful crafts, cookery and preserves on display, the launch of our new Federation logo, demonstrations and campaign displays. Their reward: winning 1st prize for the WI marquee. Congratulations to all who made it such a successful day.

The WI also had an impressive presence at the Cranleigh Show and if you haven’t visited a show yet this summer why not head for the Edenbridge and Oxted Show over the August Bank Holiday — and visit our marquee there if you can.

If you have you been to a show, were you impressed by the WI presence and all there was on display? Maybe you entered a competition or ran a stall, or simply searched the WI out to purchase a cake or preserves. One is never disappointed by either. The WI is not just Jam and Jerusalem, although we shouldn’t be ashamed of this moniker. Campaigning has also been at the forefront of our show presence. Our participation at these events is crucial in order to promote and sustain our membership.

I was lucky enough to be invited to judge the WI crafts at the South of England Show this year. What an impressive display of skills. I judged patchwork, embroidery and an amazing posse of scarecrows (what is the collective noun for a group of scarecrows? Your suggestions please). The winner was the mermaid, pictured next to a Donald Trump.

Have you ever thought about competing? Perhaps you take part in WI and group competitions, but not in the bigger events. Even I have done it. If you fancy competing next year, the Federation’s competition season starts with the Eileen Bowler with entries displayed at the Annual Council Meeting in March. This year the brief is a photographic one — more details in next month’s magazine.

Why not learn a new skill or craft over the winter so that you can compete next year? We have a variety of craft and cookery workshops coming up at which you can develop your skills, or maybe you could visit Denman, either on a specialist course or one of our residential visits.

Last year I acquired and planted a fruit cage and made some strawberry beds. My freezer has since been filling up. This Autumn I plan to improve my jam making skills. I recently learnt that jam makes a different sound when it has reached the setting point, so as a musician, this should make it easier, we shall see. This is my challenge. What is yours?

— Dr Carol A. Gartrell, Federation Chairman

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