Windmills WI
From Lacey Green History
click Organisations for others
click The Womens Institute for the first afternoon Institute started 1924.
Windmills Evening WI was started in 1987 meeting monthly.
The following people reported to Hallmark on behalf of the Windmills WI in the 1980s and 90s - Nickie Tilbury 1, Helle Rosner 1, Bette Tyler 12, Pat Williams ?, Lilian Curnow 2, Val Drysdale 5 times
Hallmark January 1988. Report by Pat Williams
We celebrated our first Christmas with a meal prepared by members, and a variety of entertainments. Mrs. Kathleen Turner was a guest at the meeting and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. As well as showing their talents at cookery, the members proved themselves artistic too, with a very colourful array of crackers for the monthly competition.
At the January meeting, one of the members, Val Tilbury, showed another talent by giving a Keep Fit demonstration.
In March we are holding a coffee morning and bazaar at the Village Hall, with stalls including home made sweets and cakes, handicraft and stationery. We hope as many of you as possible will come along on that occasion. If the food produced by members for Christmas is anything to go by, there should be some delicious produce on sale. Hope to see you on Saturday 19th March, anytime after 10 am.
Hallmark November 2023. By Ann Bartlett Our speaker for August was Jennifer Shaw. Her talk had the title ‘Friends against Scams’. This was a very interesting talk and a subject that affects all of us at sometime.
September was our 36th Birthday meeting and we all enjoyed a slice of cake with a cup of tea or coffee. Vicki Scobie came again to help us ‘Paint our own Pottery’. This was a very enjoyable evening, we had painted with Vicki a year ago so it was lovely to do it again.
In September some of us also helped with the Macmillan Coffee Morning in the Village Hall.
October was our AGM and we had to decide on a new President. Ann was elected and seconded. We also welcomed a new member to our Committee Sue Dance. Vivien also presented and we adopted the Financial Statement for 2022/2023. Daphne read the Committee's Annual Report.
We then all enjoyed a glass of wine with nibbles and some social time together.
A few of us went to the Village Hall to see the Equus Productions perform 'The Good Life’. We all thoroughly enjoyed it – a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
This month on 21st October we are having our Jumble Sale in the Village Hall 2pm – 4 pm.
Next month our speaker will be Jaime Frow helping us to de-clutter – should be interesting.
December will be our Christmas meeting and we hope to have a Christmas Meal cooked by some of our members.
We meet at Lacey Green Village Hall, the first Wednesday in the month (except January) at 7.45pm. If you would like to join us you would receive a very warm welcome. We have interesting speakers and outings.
Hallmark 2019. Windmill WI report by Ann Bartlett
Our first meeting of the year in February was both entertaining and interesting. Our speaker was Anita Osborne who organised a Silk Painting workshop for us. She supplied us with plain white silk scarves and cards which we all enjoyed painting with some lovely results. Also this month a few of us enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea at the Red Lion in Bradenham. This was our first visit there and we were all pleasantly surprised with the tasty home cooked scones and cakes.
Our knitting group is going well and we have just completed twelve baby jumpers. Some of us were caught in the snow in January and it took ages to get home after our meeting in Walters Ash.
March - it was time for our bi-annual jumble sale again, they seem to come round very quickly but we always receive a great deal of jumble! We worked very hard in the morning sorting the jumble and setting up stalls, then had a very welcome drink and lunch at The Black Horse. The afternoon passed quickly selling to the many customers we had. The amount we raised was well worth all the hard work
Our speaker for this month was Peter Hague who talked about Yorkshire foods and traditions. This was a very interesting talk and we learnt all about Yorkshire Puddings.
Some of our members attended a Group Meeting at Flackwell Heath Methodist Church. The speaker was Christine Wallace talking about her time in the ‘Bake Off' tent.
David Dennis was our speaker in April talking about the butterflies of the Chilterns. David is the Chair of the local Butterfly Conservation Group and had a wealth of knowledge of the butterfly from the metamorphosis of the caterpillar to chrysalis and then the butterfly. He showed us some beautiful slides and gave us a really interesting talk. Some of us had a trip to The Peacock at Henton and had a delicious meal. We had a lovely time chatting and laughing.
Hallmark February 2021. Windmill WI by Ann Bartlett
We wish everyone a very Happy and Healthy New Year.
Due to Covid we are not having any meetings or activities at the moment. Four of us did walk around the village in December delivering Christmas cards, it was lovely to chat to the few members we did see.
Just before Christmas our member Jill Baker lost her very courageous battle with cancer and passed away peacefully. Jill was a very active member of our W.I. Her sewing skills were beautiful. She will be very much missed by us all. (click Chris & Jill Baker for more about Jill)
We are not having our sewing and knitting group at the moment due to Covid restrictions but hopefully we are all knitting at home. I am collecting blankets and angel pockets from members. Stay well and keep safe until we meet again.
Hallmark November 2022. By Ann Bartlett
Our August Meeting was held at The Sports Club. The speaker was Geoff Farrer Brown a volunteer speaker from the Medical Detection Dogs. He had with him his lovely black Labrador called Peppar who was an Administrator dog for the charity. Geoff's talk was very interesting and informative, explaining how the dogs could detect cancer, Covid and other illnesses in people.
September was our 35th birthday meeting and we celebrated with cake and wine. The speaker was Jeff Rozelaar telling us stories of the controversial figure of Princess Margaret. A very interesting talk.
At the end of September many of our members helped and attended the Macmillan Coffee Morning which was a huge success. The October meeting was our AGM. We listened to the Annual Reports from Pat, Daphne and Vivien. Nobody had opted to come off the committee so all positions stayed the same. After the business of the AGM we enjoyed social time, chatting to each other and having tea and cake.
In October a group of us met up and enjoyed a very good lunch at the Red Lion at Bradenham. Next month we are hoping to go to Hartwell Garden Centre.
We meet at Lacey Green Village Hall, the first Wednesday in the month (except January) at 7.45pm. If you would like to join us you would receive a very warm welcome.
Hallmark May 2023. By Ann Bartlett. We had our first meeting of 2023 in February. Our speaker for the evening was Sandra Williams who is our village Horse Whisperer. Sandra has had a love of horses for many years and her talk was very interesting.
We also had our postponed Christmas meal this month. Our meal was served by caterers and was delicious. Afterwards we listened to Ken Brazier and his group singing popular songs – very enjoyable.
Our Knitting and Stitching Group is going very well and we are up to 13 members.
John Tyler was our speaker for our March meeting. John lives locally and worked in nature conservation for over 25 years. His talk was called 'The Countryside in Spring’, the colour slides of the flowers and animals were beautiful and a very interesting talk.
Also this month we had our Jumble Sale which went really well, not so much jumble as last time but lots more people. A very big queue greeted us when we came back from lunch.
For our April meeting our speaker was Ailsa Anderson. Ailsa was Press Secretary to the Queen for many years. She talked about her career and what it was like working for the Royal Household. This was a really entertaining and interesting talk.
We meet at Lacey Green Village Hall, the first Wednesday in the month (except January) at 7.35pm. If you would like to join us you would receive a very warm welcome.
Forthcoming Events: By the time you read this we will have hosted the Village Quiz on Tuesday 25th April.
3rd May – We are having an afternoon meeting to discuss the Resolution to be voted on at the National Federation of Woman's Institutes 2023 Annual Meeting. We will then enjoy a tea with bubbly and a cake to celebrate the Coronation.
4th May - some of us will go to the BFWI Council Meeting in Aylesbury
Hallmark August 2023. Ann Bartlett reported - "We had some very sad news in June. Pat Rushmore, our President for many years had died. Pat was in hospital in Italy at the time and will be very much missed. Her memorial service will be at St John's Church on 21st July at 1 pm. Also, in May, Mary Hazelton one of our long standing members died.
In April we hosted the Village Quiz which was a huge success as we hadn't had one since the start of Covid. Our team didn't win but it was a great fun evening. In May we discussed this year's Resolution - Clean rivers for people and wildlife, this will be voted on at Cardiff. After this we had our Cornation Tea and raised a glass to the King."
Hallmark December 2024. By Ann Bartlett. Our Speaker for September was Rosie Isley from the Wild Rose Flower Company. Rosie talked about the love of Locally Grown Flowers and showed us how to arrange these beautiful flowers.
On the 18th August we had the very sad news that Daphne had died. Daphne had been our Secretary for many years and was a very active member of our WI. She was much loved and will be so missed.
In October we had our Annual Meeting and Carole Green our WI advisor attended to guide us through procedures.
An auditor was appointed for the coming year. We heard the Treasurer's report and the President's address. Ann was elected President for the coming year. We also welcomed three new members to the committee. Debbie and Phil will be sharing the role of secretary.
In November we had 'A Tutu sweet Journey’ from Tutu Chocolates. This was a lovely evening learning how the cocoa bean turns into chocolate and of course there were many samples.
December will be our Christmas meal when we shall enjoy a meal cooked by some members of the committee and listen to Christmas Carols.
We meet at the Village Hall on the first Wednesday in the month (except January) at 7.15pm. If you would like to come and join us you would receive a warm welcome. We have lots of interesting speakers and outings.
Hallmark March 2025. By Ann Bartlett. This will be a short report as we have only had one meeting this year. We had a very enjoyable Christmas Meeting with a delicious meal put together by some of the committee. We also had a quiz and listened to carols.
In February we had John Tyler with a talk 'Reading the Countryside’. John's talks are always very interesting especially as a lot of his slides are of local places.
In March we are due to have Bill Hamilton speak to us – Man on the Spot.
On 15th March we are having a Jumble Sale. We will receive Jumble in the Village Hall from 10.30 but no Electrics or large pieces of furniture.
We are having an outing to Greatmoor in March.
We meet at the Village Hall on the first Wednesday in the month (except January) at 7.15 pm. If you would like to come and join us you will receive a warm welcome. We have lots of interesting speakers and outings.