Hello Ladies,
It was truly heart-warming to see so many of you who turned up to our Annual Meeting last Thursday. I think that all went well judging by the positive feedback I received and all the empty plates! I felt that we had a really good atmosphere and that the ‘mingling’ went really well. For those of you who were unable to attend, I’ve attached the President’s and the Secretary’s reports to the email. Thank you to everyone who entered the Table-Top competition with your ‘old family photograph’. There were some fantastic entries! Derek the bartender was the judge and he voted my photograph of a family wedding in circa 1901 to be the winner! Yay!
THANK YOU
WELCOME
To Jan who has joined the Committee to cover for Carol during her temporary leave of absence. You are already a valued addition to the team.
GENERAL INFORMATION
A gentle reminder that April will be the start of a new financial year and your annual subscription of just £45.00 (of which we keep about half after contributions to our Federation and to NFWI are collected) will again help to boost our coffers. The subscription this year should be £48 but the Committee has decided to subsidize our members to the tune of £3.00 to help ease the cost of living. Please pay your subscriptions by 1st April via BACs or cheque “Aldwick Revival WI, Sort Code: 60-03-08, Acc. No. 74259172.” If you are not intending to re-join, would you please let your Hub Leader know so that our records can be amended (I hope this won’t apply to many of you).
A reminder of Upcoming Events
Sign-up sheets were made available last Thursday for the following events but if you didn’t sign up on the night or you were absent for the meeting, please let your Hub leader know which events you are interested in and we’ll add your name when we have our next committee meeting.
Please save the date for the following upcoming events this summer,
Saturday, 25th May at 1800, a Fundraising Cocktail Soiree. All welcome, members and non-members. Tickets £10 in advance.
Saturday, 6th July at 1400, ARWI Garden Party to raise funds. All welcome, members and non-members.
Thursday, 15th August at 18.30, a visit to Crosslands Nurseries, £5.00 per person. Bunches of Alstroemerias flowers may be purchased after the tour for £3.00 per bunch (cash only).
Organised Beach Litter Picks will take place at short notice, depending on the weather and the tide but we’d like to make this a regular event for our members.
Further details will be given nearer the time of each event.
Other non-WI events which are taking place in Bognor this summer are:
Funnies
FINALLY
I’m sorry that my update is a little short today and it’s not full of Easter recipes and ideas. My creative juices aren’t flowing as I’m feeling a little jaded from my birthday celebrations yesterday (thank you again for my card and good wishes). Please feel free to flood our Facebook site with Easter projects for us all to try. I also stayed up ‘til gone midnight watching ‘Top Gun Maverick’ again, this time on Netflix. I know it’s a load of far-fetched Hollywood schmalz, but I loved it!
Tomorrow, Ken and I are off to Norfolk for a week. Have a good week everyone and a wonderful Easter, whatever you are doing.
Aileen x
ARWI ANNUAL MEETING REPORT – 21.03.24
Good evening ladies, thank you for coming to our Annual Meeting this evening, it’s lovely to see so many of you here. And I’d like to wish a warm welcome to all our new ladies and visitors.
I can’t believe that it is now 2 years and 4 months since I took over as President from Caroline. The time has really flown by and I’m sure that the next eight months will also pass just as quickly.
I’ve been a member of Aldwick Revival WI since it’s inauguration in 2016. During this time, I have been fortunate enough to have visited a number of other WIs in the area and I can wholeheartedly testify that in my opinion, our WI is head and shoulders above the others. One of the aspects of our WI that makes such a difference is the wide age range of our members. About half of our membership are still working either full or part-time and this encourages the committee to arrange sub-groups, events and trips at different times of the day and days of week so that all members have the opportunity to take part. By attending these sub-groups and events it enables us to get to know each other better and I know that some great friendships have been formed.
I am of course indebted to the individual members of the committee who form your Hub Leaders and who’s individual areas of expertise bring variety and cohesion to our WI.
So, I’d like to give my heartfelt thanks to:
Carol, Vice President, who continues to be my “Right-hand man”. She is always willing to step into my role if I’m unavailable and has selflessly opened up her home on several occasions in order to facilitate fundraising events and pre-meeting organisation. I think that the smell of moss from our wreathmaking session has just about been cleared from the fabric of her house!
Sarah H, our Secretary continues to record and produce the minutes of committee and monthly meetings and manages the correspondence from both the National WI and the West Sussex Federation. After stringent culling, she issues relevant missives to our members and to the committee.
Some of us have benefited from her special prizes for our monthly raffles and she ably manages our tea and coffee supplies each month.
Jackie, our Treasurer. I can’t improve upon the accolade that I bestowed on Jackie last year. It is a role that most of us would find daunting but with her background in finance, Jackie continues to seamlessly manage our WI account and collect money from very many different funding streams. Jackie continues to bring along raffle prizes which she has stored for us and always goes the extra mile when items need ordering at short notice. I loved the way that she casually mentioned to me at the last Dining Divas meal, that the Auditor approved her bookkeeping and signed it off for the end of year audit. I am truly in awe of her!
Lindsay – Membership Secretary. Lindsay has had a very challenging year with her house move and lost the use of her computer for several months. However, despite this, she has somehow manged to keep on top of all our membership details and not only records our attendance at meetings but also ensures that we all receive our monthly WI magazine and have access to all National WI online systems. She will once again grace us with her awesome Bingo Caller talent later on this evening.
Sharon – Welfare.
Once again, I can’t better the accolade that I bestowed upon Sharon last year. It is Sharon that personally hand-delivers all our birthday cards and continues to monitor the welfare of our membership. She also oversees the collection of voluntary contributions for refreshments and again, hand delivers, often with another member, the donations to the various charities that we support.
Penny – Events and Sale Table
Penny has proved to be a most valued committee member this year by single handedly raising more funds for our WI than anyone else has ever done. Through her weekly Dance/Arerobics sessions, she has raised in excess of £595.00. So, I’d like to thank her very much and the ladies who support these weekly sessions. At each meeting, Penny takes charge of the Sale table, ably assisted by Carol and other committee members. As many of you know, Penny will shortly be moving back to Devon and we are going to miss her very much.
Sarah S – Social Media, IT and Book Club
It seemed prudent to bring Sarah on to the committee earlier this year as she plays such a vital role in keeping our Facebook, Instagram and ARWI website updated. Again, this is no mean feat and requires a certain level of IT expertise. Sarah continually makes suggestions for extra trips and visits and is eager to organise them. She oversees the Book Club sub-group and is going extend this by starting an afternoon Book Club sub-group.
Once again, I’m most grateful to those amongst you who regularly contribute in a variety of ways to the smooth running of meetings and enrichment of our programme of activities, sub-groups and events. They do this even though they have no direct committee responsibilities:-
Thank you to Val & Doreen Lwho run the monthly raffles at our meetings; to Barbara Boniface who organises the monthly walks; to Gina who organises theatre trips; to Gill who organises walks around Arundel, assists with the quiz sub-group and who is always willing to step in to run the raffle if either Val or Doreen aren’t available; to Caroline who organises Cereal Killers each month; to Jenny who collects the bottle tops at the meetings each month. And to anyone who I have forgotten, Thank You!
I’m pleased to report that most members of the current committee are happy to stand for another year. However, my three years as President finishes this November and I will be standing down then. Carol will also be standing down as Vice President at the same time. A new President and Vice President will be nominated from the committee and voted in at the November meeting and new committee members will be voted in. In order to make the change over for new committee members as smooth as possible, they will be invited to shadow a current committee member prior to joining the committee, either in November or at the next Annual Meeting. We have already begun the process of succession planning by inviting any interested members to attend a committee meeting.
Finally, I’d like to thank you all for your continued support and for embracing the various sub-groups, events and Hubs. It is, indeed, my privilege to be your President.
I’d like to offer these reports for your approval….
Proposer – Sharon
Seconder – Sarah S
Aileen
President ARWI
21/03/24
ALDWICK REVIVAL WI ANNUAL SECRETARY REPORT AGM 21st MARCH 2024
Good evening ladies, for those of you who don’t know me my name is Sarah and I’m the secretary of our illustrious committee. For the past 5 years I have held this post and when I was preparing this report and looking back on previous years I can only say how proud I am to be part of our WI, we continue to go from strength to strength and have achieved and participated in some amazing events, we really are an amazing bunch of ladies, I’d like to present a quick summary of the previous year and highlight some of the events and speakers we have had, we continue to enjoy our dining divas meals, our afternoon teas and cereal killer’s breakfast club, I think between the three groups there isn’t a restaurant or cafe left in Bognor we haven’t visited.
We start the recap in March 2023.
MARCH 2023. We held our AGM and enjoyed a pizza night we also had the amazing Lindsay as our resident bingo caller.
APRIL 2023. Our speaker was Bella Cobby an extremely talented award winning milliner who demonstrated how to make a badge for a hat, we all enjoyed being creative and all our ladies did an amazing job and produced some beautiful badges.
MAY 2023. Malcolm Wells was our speaker for the evening an ex army musician who regaled us with tales from behind the scenes at Buckingham Palace and his experiences of being a medical assistant in the Gulf War. This was also the month of the Kings Coronation and we had planned to all meet and celebrate in Hotham park and watch on the big screen but typically this was cancelled due to rain !
JUNE 2023. Kathryn Slatter was our speaker tonight ,she is the CEO of a charity called Life Centre who support people who have experienced significant trauma and complex mental health challenges although at times her talk was extremely sad and emotional she also made us aware how important and valued her work is.
JULY 2023 SUMMER PARTY ! We pulled out all the stops and dressed to impress, our theme was A Day At The Races we dug out our hats and dresses and enjoyed a fabulous evening placing our bets and enjoying a feast of sharing platters and Pimms. The lovely Drew Howard (my son) was an excellent race host for the night.
AUGUST 2023. We had the month off which is a tradition in the WI and is officially our summer break.
SEPTEMBER 2023. We enjoyed hearing from two of our lovely ladies Gina Page and Clare Goddard who spoke about their respective experiences working in the House of Commons and bike riding from Lands End to John O Groats, two very different and interesting topics throughly enjoyed by all.
OCTOBER 2023. We had one of favourite speakers return for tonight’s meeting Andy Thomas who is a joy to listen to, he spoke about Lewes and the history they have with bonfires and November the 5th and shared some fascinating insights and facts.
NOVEMBER 2023. We were getting creative again tonight and had an excellent demonstration from a professional florist on wreath making, we all had a wonderful time making a Christmas wreath using beautiful natural materials and foliage.
DECEMBER 2023. Our annual Christmas party was a blast we were entertained by Vintage Candy who sang some great songs and bravely allowed us to participate as well, we were treated to a glass of fizz on arrival and all joined in to provide delicious food to share which I think really sums up the whole ethos of the WI. We enjoyed a very festive Christmas meal at Chichester college as well.
JANUARY 2024. Another year has passed and we kicked off the new year by having the very knowledgeable Vikki a driving instructor who talked about road safety and updated us with new Highway Code regulations and also enlightened us with some information about our driving licences.
FEBRUARY 2023. Tonight we enjoyed a fascinating talk from Sussex Underwater, they spoke about the wonderful conservation work they do to preserve Kelp in the sea and how diverse our marine life is, we also enjoyed our first Dining Divas meal which was a delicious carvery at The Anchor pub in Sidlesham.
I hope you've enjoyed listening about all the wonderful speakers we’ve had, I think you’ll agree when I say we’ve had an amazing year. I’ve enjoyed being your secretary and thank you all for your continued support.
Sarah H
Secretary
21/03/2024
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