Alnmouth WI, January meeting

Compliments of the season to everyone. It’s good to be back to normal and a fair proportion of the members of Alnmouth WI battled the elements and made it to our first meeting of 2016.

Janis, our president, warmly welcomed us and started the meeting by thanking all who had helped make our Christmas party such an enjoyable night.

The food was excellent, our ‘in-house caterers’ were up to their usual standard, the Hindmarsh Hall looked very festive having been beautifully decorated by our very accomplished florists, and the welcome glass of Proscecco didn’t come amiss to get us in the party mood.

The atmosphere was great, with lots of hilarity and chat, helped by a game called ‘measles’, trying out our dancing skills to the Strictly Come Dancing theme. There was also our traditional exchange of presents. It finished all too soon with the singing of Auld Lang Syne.

Yvonne and Janis then got down to the business of the evening, going through all the correspondence, including various events and invitations, suitably noted in our 2016 WI diaries. In particular, a ‘winter warmer lunch’, organised by Longhoughton and Boulmer WI, and a meeting of our Hotspur Group, both in February. Quite a few events were listed in our Federation Newsletter also so there’s plenty going on over the winter.

This is the month we have to pay our subscription so Claire Smith, our treasurer, was kept busy.

Our speaker had, unfortunately, to cancel at the last minute because of flooding so Janis and Yvonne took the opportunity to discuss the Resolutions.

Each year members have the chance to put forward issues that they want the NFWI to campaign on or raise awareness about and have done since the WI was formed in 1915. There are some still relevant today. All of the successful Resolutions over the years are on the NFWI website and are really interesting.

Yvonne quickly gave a talk on each one, as listed in WI Life, and then threw the discussion out to the floor, which promoted many diverse opinions.

Although members are asked to consider these resolutions and select which they would like to take forward for discussion and final voting at the annual meeting in June, Janis took a ballpark count, out of interest, and by a show of hands, it appears food waste seemed to get the most votes, with mind and body very close.

It was an interesting night and after all that discussion we were more than ready for a cup of tea and a mince pie, which set us in good stead to face the elements again.

Our speaker next month will be local historian John Yearnshire with a talk entitled Forensic Science, which we are looking forward to.