Hello Ladies,
I must tell you about the most amazing art exhibition that I went to last Wednesday. It’s called ‘Frameless’ and is currently showing in a building just off Marble Arch, London. It is “a brand new culturally rich, immersive, multi-dimensional art experience,” and it is, quite simply, one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve ever had. The art literally engulfs you, and you become part of it. You can look it up on YouTube to see what I mean. If you ever have the opportunity to go to London to see it, you won’t be disappointed.
Thank You
To the Committee for a very productive meeting last Thursday. We covered a lot of ground and, as well as organising the November and December meetings, we are planning events for the future, using the feedback from your completed questionnaires.
Get Well Soon
I’ve been made aware that we have several ladies who either have on-going illnesses, are recovering from or are about to have operations, have had nasty accidents or who currently have Covid. So, I’d like to wish Lynda Bunker, Wendy Lewis, Val Dock, Rosemary Wilkie, Sarah Stanley, Pamela Andrews and Susan Maylam speedy recoveries from your ailments, and we hope to see you again at sub-groups and meetings, very soon.
Welcome
I’d like to offer a warm welcome to our newest member, Maureen W. I hope that she will enjoy our WI group and will be able to join in some of the many sub-groups and events. Maureen has been allocated to Carol’s Hub. The other members of her Hub may wish to introduce themselves to her at the next meeting.
Happy Birthday
The following ladies have birthdays in November and I’d like to wish you all a very Happy Birthday: Sharon C, 3rd Nov; June B, 11th Nov; Heather K, 20th Nov; Trish L 22nd Nov; Hev B, 30th Nov.
Good News!
Jackie has purchased a ‘sum-up’ machine for us which means that from our November meeting, she will be able to take credit card payments from you directly for deposits and events. This should make life a lot easier for both Jackie and members. Of course, BACs payments and cash will still be accepted.
Christmas Sale Table at Seasons
As you know, we have reserved a sale table at the Seasons Christmas Event on Sunday, 4th December, between 1200 and 1600, in order to raise funds for our WI. We’d like as many of you as possible to contribute to the sale table, either by making Christmas items/cakes to sell or by providing ingredients for others to make cakes. We have some fabulous bakers within our midst but it’s not fair for them to constantly bear the cost of the ingredients. Therefore, at the next meeting on 17th November, we will have a table set out for contributions of self-raising flour, plain flour, eggs, caster sugar, icing sugar, margarine, butter, mincemeat and dried mixed fruit.
We have already had several jars of chutney pledged. Other donations which would be suitable are pickled onions, mince pies, cakes of all description and craft items. Please make a list of the ingredients you’ve used for public display. We are now required to do this, by law.
Members of the Committee and Caroline L, who holds a Food Safety certificate, will ‘man’ the table on the 4th and we would ask other members to drop off their produce from 11.30am onwards. Please spread the word so that this event is well supported.
My Sisters’ House Christmas Present Appeal
Once again, we will be supporting the My Sisters’ House Christmas Present Appeal. We have done this for a few years now and our contributions are always gratefully received. If you’d like to contribute, please wrap a gift for either a lady or a child and label accordingly (lady, baby, girl aged ?, boy aged ?). We will be collecting gifts at our next meeting in November.
I recently received the following email from Michelle Sinclair:
Dear Aileen We really do appreciate all the support from groups like yours, it makes a massive difference to what we are able to do. I’m copying below some of the feedback from last year’s Gifting Days in case you want to share it with your members. Many thanks, Michelle Michelle Sinclair Fundraising and Supporter Engagement Co-ordinator Last year, thanks to amazing donations from our local community, we helped 306 families, making sure 507 children had something to open on the day. We also gave out bags of toiletries, foodbank vouchers and gifts for the women themselves. This is what some of our clients said last year about our Christmas Gifting: “I just wanted to message to say an overwhelming THANK YOU. You don’t realise the impact today has had on me and how my little boy is going to have such a lovely Christmas because of you guys. I haven’t stopped crying all day as it means so much. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and thank you again.” “I came to the gifting session this morning and just wanted to thank you all so much. I was totally overwhelmed by it all. I feel like I never look forward to Christmas as much as I should because of all the worry that I can't make it special enough. It really means more than I can explain having this extra support.” “I just wanted to say thank you again for all the support I received when I came in last week. I was so anxious to even come through the door. The gifting day was absolutely amazing and a huge weight has been lifted. I was so worried about disappointing my two girls this Christmas. My eldest daughter wrote a letter to Santa and all she asked for was stickers, so she is going to be over the moon with all the presents. I will be forever grateful and, hopefully, one day I will be in the position to donate back to help another mum. You are all so lovely and I am so thankful. Merry Christmas.”
Party Invitation
Once again, we have been invited to Westergate WI’s Christmas Party on the afternoon of Tuesday, 13th December. Jackie and Mo went last year and had a thoroughly good time. If any of you would like to go this year, please let me know asap.
A Novelty Idea for Christmas Presents
Many thanks to Gina who made me aware of an unusual idea for little Christmas presents or stocking fillers, which can be found at Heygate’s Bookshop at the railway station.
You can sponsor a lightbulb or multiple lightbulbs for the Bognor Illuminations in the name of your grandchildren, for instance. It costs £2 per bulb, for which you, or they, receive a certificate telling you which lamppost along the promenade your lightbulb will be on and you can even specify a colour. It may even be possible to specify a lamppost!
Gina has some of the forms you would need to complete, which she will bring to November’s meeting, but anyone can enquire in the bookshop. This is a good way to ensure that the lights stay on in Bognor and will support the efforts of the business development community in town which is trying hard to maintain our independent shops and the busy shopping streets in town.
Quiz Sub-group
A number of you have expressed an interest in Quiz Nights so we are thinking of forming a Quiz Sub-Group which would be able to take part in locally organized quizzes. If you would be interested in joining this sub-group, you will have the opportunity to sign up at the next meeting.
FUNNIES
FINALLY…
Don’t forget that you will find much more information about all things pertaining to the WI on the “My WI” website. If you haven’t already done so, it’s worth subscribing to the weekly ‘Denman at Home’ email for information on a whole variety of talks and courses. www.denman.org.uk/newsletter/
Just a reminder that, at the November meeting, we will be starting our voluntary £1 donation scheme to support the hire of the Seasons Hall.
Keep well everyone and I hope to see you at some of our sub-group meetings.
Aileen
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N.B. in the interest of Covid security, I would ask all members to continue to take a lateral flow test before joining any WI activity. Payments for all ARWI events from now on will go through Jackie and the ARWI bank account “Aldwick Revival WI, Sort Code: 60-03-08, Acc. No. 74259172.” Please make a note of this for future reference.
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