Windmills WI

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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.

Silk scarves and their makers, February 2019. see Hallmark report 2019.

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

Coronation Tea. see report August 2023

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

Village Quiz April 2023

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 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."