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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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Can you help Send Inspired WI to collect ring-pulls from aluminium cans?

They would like to make more dresses like the one shown at Cranleigh Show, but don’t have the supply of rings.

If you can help please get in touch with the Office who will arrange for delivery.

Thank you in advance for your help.

We are delighted to launch our new logo and new colour scheme!

Here is a little background information into our new logo and how we arrived at it in more detail.

So, why the new look?
Our old logo was not actually a ‘logo’ – we used photos and a drawing of the badge. It was not easy to use on documents and branded merchandise, as we did not have any artwork. In addition, we’re working on our new website, and this highlighted the need for a proper logo. The old logo had served us well, but we were aware of something new and wanted something to represent Surrey Federation today.

Our new direction
We asked Karen Horan, a graphic designer and member of Battersea WI, to design our new logo. We wanted a logo which represented Surrey, which also would also work well with the NFWI logo (as they sometimes appear together).

Our previous logo was blue and showed King Edgar’s crown with some oak leaves. Extensive research into Surrey and logos showed that Surrey County Council dropped the crown in the 1970’s. When we researched what Surrey represented, we were struck by the leafy nature of our county and wanted to represent it as a whole, hence the variety of leaves and different shades of green.

As with any logo, we wanted our new logo to convey everything the federation and the WIs which made up Surrey stand for. It also had to be versatile and adaptable, and work in different contexts and still be recognisable, in both colour and black and white. After several weeks of development, we finally arrived at our final design!

We are really pleased with our new logo and hope that you like it too. The five different leaves represented are: oak, birch, beech, hawthorn and horse chestnut. The coming together of the different varieties of leaves from trees within Surrey represents the federation of the many WIs in Surrey and the positioning represents both ‘reaching out’ and ‘bursting forth’.

We believe that the logo stays true to our roots with an eye to the future, evoking sense of modern structure with full flexibility. We’re really excited about it and would like to hear any feedback you wish to share.

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