WI JERSEY REPORTS

Issue 04/16

www.thewi.org.uk

Federation Sports & Leisure A group of members took part in the annual Canasta Tournament. Although the Hall was chilly, brains were not frozen – particularly those of Anne Pasturel and Sheila de Caux who won the Trophy, presented by Maureen de Gruchy, with a score in excess of 13,000 points.

(l-r) Anne, Maureen, Sheila Crafts & Art 22 ladies came along to enjoy another successful dabble day. When embroidering flowers onto a card or making a cross stitch key ring the ladies needed good hand/eye coordination for threading the needles. Making the pop-up cards and the decoupage cards certainly called for very careful scissor skills, the quilling required much patience when trying to coil the lengths of very narrow paper, while the book-folding needed stamina to fold all those pages.

The overall outcome of all these crafts was some fine work for which all the ladies should be extremely proud.

At lunchtime most took advantage of the homemade soup & bread on offer as well as the lovely cakes supplied by members. A big thank you to all the tutors and helpers on the day. Fundraiser A group of Jersey WI Members were shocked by the news items on the flooding in the UK. Many of those affected are WI members and others were helping by running food banks, shelters etc. We wanted to show support from our Island.

The afternoon tea attracted over 120 people made up of WI members and members of the public and it was an enjoyable way to fundraise.

Our china was much admired

The servers had tea too Jersey Eisteddfod The Federation entry in the Needlework & Textile Art section gained a Platinum Award. A sterling job by all the members who made the squares depicting their own WI.

Judge's Comments: ‘A good way to display and advertise your WI groups that are on your Island. Each one is an interesting technique making two interesting banners.’

WI News Grouville Members were at The Moorings, Gorey for the WI Annual Dinner. It was a very fitting day as it was International Women's Day, which Betty Hambly mentioned in her speech.

Betty went through the Formalities before we got down to enjoying a lovely meal. Jo and her staff did us proud. It was a very pleasant social evening.

Greve D’Azette Members were treated to a presentation by Norma Batchelor entitled “Travels With Polly”. Nothing to do with parrots, Polly turned out to be a 19 foot Polenssaa Motor Home in which Norma and her husband have spent many enjoyable holidays since 2000. On delivery of the vehicle to Jersey, Norma had thirty minutes driving practice before setting off for Polly’s first voyage around England, taking in Norma’s home county Lancashire, then on to the lakes, Oxford and Torquay. On their second trip, the couple travelled to Austria for a wedding in Vienna, where Norma remembered a can of Guinness exploding at altitude! Some of Norma’s more exciting driving memories included getting stuck under a low bridge in York and putting up an awning in a gale on Bodmin Moor – this exercise took four hours! Despite some setbacks, Norma always feels safe with Polly. She thanks her whenever they manage to negotiate a bad bend or steep hill and she never travels without her St. Christopher medal. Polly has, in

fact, become a part of the family over the years and Norma says good night to her when she passes her in the driveway at home and assured us that the only way to travel is by mobile home First Tower & Millbrook Joan Wright was extremely interesting and informative. Under the heading of “Car Booty” she displayed a wonderful collection of articles obtained from car boot sales, shops etc. all with amazing histories. She began with Bertie Basset, and gave out liquorice allsorts to members, lovely little Raggedy Ann and Norah Welling dolls, two story book dolls (one in French) and a Paul Smith hare. A Keiller marmalade jar prompted a history of one brother moving his factory to Guernsey, and travel posters, match box covers and tea pots all proved very interesting.

Also attending our meeting was Sarah Jordan from Linus Project to accept more blankets assembled by members and friends and to give us an update on the need for various sized blankets, large ones in football colours etc. for older children. A lunch at Highlands is to take place in April.

A well-attended ‘Hug-a-Mug’ was held at Gwen Blampied’s home with five delicious soups to choose from, plus tombola, cake and book stalls. The ‘Name the Pig’ (knitted by Norma Parker and entered in the Eisteddfod where it won a Gold Certificate) was won by Rosemary Hill, the prize being a bottle of champagne.

Trinity For Joan Wright “Car Booting” is more than picking up a bargain. She attends car boot and jumble sales buying items to add to her collections which include Nora Welling dolls, a Paul Smith rabbit, a Boots jug and basin set, Bryant and May match boxes, advertising for railway journeys and items bought at Vide-Greniers in France. Many were bought at bargain prices when the sellers did not appreciate their true value. A doll collection bought for one pound in the seventies is worth over thirty five pounds for each doll today.

For every item she buys there is a history or story behind it. Many have Channel Island connections and it was interesting to learn that behind a Keiller’s marmalade jar bought years ago from David Hicks for a pound was the story of how girls from Scotland were brought over to work in the Guernsey factory, and Victor Hugo wrote of hearing them singing on the way to work near Hauteville House. St Ouen March is a busy month for our WI as we hold the first Jumble sale of the year. Happily it was another successful sale, and also enabled us to have some fun together, whilst setting and clearing.

At the monthly meeting, Members were expecting a cookery demonstration, but ended up with a talk by Heidi Grimes on Gastro Technology for school children. This involved seeing how cookery is now taught in schools and what the children are expected to understand. Sadly it made us all realise that children will have no useful practical cooking skills when they set off to university! St Martin The meeting started by welcoming Sarah who is a potential new member and her Mum, visiting from England, and then moved on to give hearty congratulations to our Eisteddfod winners, Jill Campbell (Platinum and Gold plus the Dunell Trophy), Sheila de Caux (2 Golds), Barbara Le Troquer (Gold), Betty Dartnell (2 Platinum and 1 Gold), Anita West (Silver). Two of our members who entered in the Floral Art through the Flower Club, Kay Laverty and Elinor Mc Fadden won Platinum and Silver respectively. We mentioned our Canasta winners Anne Pasturel and Sheila de Caux. Following that we handed over to Chloe who gave us a run down on what we should be doing and, more importantly, not doing to our skin. Our president was taken to task over the fact that she uses wipes all the time, she will try and do better! It was remarked that they are good for removing stains from carpets (our president said she used them for that too). Chloe is a beautician who runs her own business, and lectures at Highlands College. It was a lively, lovely girly evening.

St Lawrence President Mary Hill welcomed the speaker for the evening, Keith Perchard of the Jersey Branch of Amnesty International. This organisation came about as more and more abuses of human rights were discovered in many parts of the World. He advised us of some of the 30 rights included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and booklets listing these were available for Members to read. Amnesty International has over 2,800,000 members worldwide and has around fifty bases in many countries. Mr Perchard spoke of the prisoners of conscience that had been helped by campaigns led by members of Amnesty International. Letters can be addressed to Embassies in both London and in the countries where abuses of human rights take place. They can also be addressed to the prisoners themselves as these can be a great encouragement and comfort to them when they know that people around the world care St John After ‘Jerusalem’ was sung Rosie Bleasby, our Vice President, told the members that it was exactly 100 years since Hubert Parry composed the tune and explained how it came about to be the WI anthem. We then had a very interesting talk from Toby Aubert from the Jersey Fire & Rescue Service. He told us that the service was there to save life & property, as a Humanitarian service (dogs & horses etc) and to protect the environment. They dealt with 1500 calls last year which included road traffic collisions and working with the paramedics as well as with the coastguards with rescues at sea. They helped climbers and walkers, people in flood conditions, animals in trouble and dealt with the wild fire at St Ouen. We saw a short video showing how quickly a fire can take hold and how quickly the smoke spreads when doors aren’t closed. Toby emphasised the need to check smoke alarms in homes on a monthly basis. St Helier Sirens

Sirens in full swing

Members were treated to a demonstration of Morris Dancing by the Jersey Lilies. Dressed in their striking new red and black dance uniforms, they performed a series of dances from the Cotswold and Border traditions, as well as one from New Zealand, and a locally-written rope dance. The Borders dances are apparently favourites with the team, and included some surprisingly aggressive stick moves.

Sirens members were asked to join the final dance but were not let loose with the sticks! The fund-raising stall at the meeting offered homemade preserves and handmade cards and Easter gifts. Our February Social was postponed but we are hoping for better luck with our visit to Liberation Brewery in March!

St Clement

Jill Squires was obviously really happy decorating her own ornament.

Members braved the most terrible wet, stormy weather to make their way to Love Bird Too in St. Lawrence. Their day was brightened by painting on plates, mugs and ornaments some of which were shaped as animals. The painted items were to be fired by the company. Before getting started they were given advice on the paints and told how colours would look darker and brighter after firing, which brushes and special tools could be used for certain details and how many coats of paint were needed to achieve the desired results.

Pauline Daly, President, chose a plate to work on and concentrated hard on depicting an animal scene from her grandson's favourite book. Afternoon tea was then enjoyed at the cafe on the premises. What a pleasant way to spend a wet Wednesday afternoon.

St Aubin & St Peter

Sarah Ferguson is still keeping very busy and occupied since leaving the States of Jersey. Sarah is on the Board of Trustees for Maison St Brelade, she is also a Trustee for Age Concern. She told us that that Age Concern runs Computer Classes for any older person who wishes to learn more about them, cooked lunches are also available each week day at a very reasonable cost. Sarah also writes in the JEP with her views of Life in Jersey and how the States continue to run our island. Sarah’s talk was very interesting and informative. La Pouquelaye In spite of the awful weather there was a great turn out of members to listen to a very interesting and entertaining talk from the Smokehouse team. Matt and Sam’s enterprise began on a very small scale but has now grown to supplying many outlets with their products and they are now part of Genuine Jersey. They explained about the history of smoking food to preserve it, the variety of food that can be smoked and the different processes used. We really enjoyed sampling some of their products, the smoked salmon and smoked Jersey butter being particularly good, and quite a few of us bought the butter to try at home - very good to cook scrambled eggs and omelettes apparently. Plans were made for the Lapwings to see the film ‘Brooklyn’ with a meal first.

Longueville Having cancelled the February meeting because of the stormy weather, members welcomed the WI Strictly Easy Dancers to their meeting one month later than originally planned. As a result of the change of date, only five dancers were able to make it, but they provided an enjoyable evening's entertainment. After demonstrating four dances, the group invited members to join in a final dance.

Jane, Joy, Jane, Lilian and Ann Several did so, whilst others joined in from their chairs by waving cheerleader type pompoms, following the movements of the dancers. After refreshments had been served, Joy Thomson introduced Laura, the Earth Hour Bear. Laura has travelled the entire Country to raise awareness of Earth Hour, and Jersey was its final stop, before Earth Hour Day. Laura was photographed with everyone present and then with the Strictly Dancers, before everyone headed home after yet another fun evening. Le Hocq March is a very busy Birthday month for several of the Le Hocq members. A select number of members attended the meeting, bringing unwanted Christmas gifts to supply the raffle table. Everyone went home with a prize (and not the one they came with!). Following the lively official business, where the social fund was rebranded as the Bucket Fund, all joined in a practice game of bingo, in preparation for the social fundraising evening later in the year. It was quite surprising to find that a fair few ladies had never played the game. Comments such as "it’s very stressful isn't it", "hang on - what did you say", and my favourite "90? - we only go up to 80" abounded round the room. Once all the prizes (of chocolate eggs) had been won, all retired to eat birthday cake. La Moye

The competition was an Easter posy

Spring was very much in the air as we welcomed Deirdre Shirreffs as our speaker for the evening . We were given a fascinating powerpoint presentation on wild flowers through the seasons based on the book which she has written called ‘Wild Flowers in Jersey’. There are 1,500 species of wild flowers in Jersey and Deirdre gave us many insights into the medicinal properties of some - herbs such as fennel for cooking, which ones are best for flower arrangements and those fruits

found to be safe for eating or making into drinks such as sloe gin and elderberry wine. She explained the different types of orchid found in Jersey and how prickly burdock had been the inspiration for the discovery of Velcro. Deirdre showed great enthusiasm and love for flowers which helped to brighten a rather cold , damp evening. and copies of her book were available to purchase at the meeting . Our competition this month was for an Easter Posy.

Hel’s Belles Bill and Greg took us on a marvellous coffee adventure from Brazil to Sumatra and even Guernsey where a small amount of coffee is grown in greenhouses. We were also treated to the delicious Bean Around the World carrot cake to accompany the coffee tasting. Even non-coffee drinkers were interested in the roasting process, civet coffee and how coffees are sampled for purchase. Last month a few intrepid members and Crystal, the guide dog puppy, went on a ghost walk. The weather was very inclement and whilst we saw no ghosts, we felt like death warmed up. This month's social is a meal at Bento's.

Why retirement is excellent

Question: What's the biggest gripe of retirees?

Answer: There is not enough time to get everything done.