Archived Reports and Photos
November 2019
We decorated our sponsored town community garden this week with knitted poppies, as part of the Remembrance event on Sunday 10th November. We have had many compliments paid from passing locals and drivers, as our garden is in a prominent position at the top of the town.
November 2016
In November our Craft Night was making Christmas related items.
Our WI laid a wreath for Remembrance Day.
Our speaker was Peter Wood - The Chair Bodger and our fund raising efforts for the year culminated in a cheque being presented to Heather Grose.
Our skittles team played against Swannington WI for a place in the quarter finals. Our very able member kept score.
December 2016
The Ashby Santa Fun Run kicked off the month of December.
For our monthly Craft Night Christmas tree decorations were created.
A trip to Chatsworth house was also organised by some of our members. Some great displays and decorations. Well worth the visit.
Our strollers Christmas lunch held at Hicks Lodge was the reward after a wintry walk.
Our December monthly meeting, a Victorian Christmas, also included a seasonal carol by our choir.
January 2017
In January 2017 some of our members went to see Grease at the Curve Theatre, Leicester. It was a very enjoyable evening which also involved dancing in the aisles by our more lively members.
Our skittles team played a semi final match against Narborough & Littlethorpe WI and after drawing the match we won the decider.
February 2017
The intrepid Power Walkers braved the elements in 60mph. Well done!
At our monthly meeting all of our members were given a Green Felt Heart for their comments on Climate Change. Some of the hearts had been made at our Craft Group evening in February. Our strollers also feature in our Hearts.
The Long Alley Skittles Final took place in Syston against Greetham WI. We won. Well done to all members who played at each and every match as their contribution was invaluable.
March 2017
A Making and Doing session was arranged for our crafty members to attend and help out with our Knit and Stitch projects.
Our President collected the Long Alley Skittles Winners shield at the ACM which was also attended and enjoyed by a few of our members. The flower display, which represented our Northern Lights group, created by our floral experts was fabulous and awarded Third Place in the Munro Cup competition.
Our monthly meeting speaker The Bee Farmer gave a very informative talk on the lives of bees and how to keep them. Our members have BEEn making knitted bees for our garden at the top of Market Street.
Our Annual Charity Skittles Evening was a great success raising money for the Air Ambulance. The competition on the night was close but eventually Team E won.
October 2016
This month was our AGM and 7th Anniversary where we lost 2 members of the Committee but gained another 3, goodbye to Jane and Deb and welcome to Helen, Lorraine and Terri. The new Committee consists of Carole Booth (President), Lorraine Cooke (Treasurer), Jean Morrison, Margaret Baxendale, Elaine Anderson, Polly Morgans, Helen Baker, Helen Hassan, Lorraine Taylor & Terri Eydman. In the photos you can see Carole and Lorraine, Carole and Val and members taking their seats. We had refreshments of coffee/tea and cakes made by the committee and stayed in the lounge for the competition and a quiz arranged by Polly.
Photos show Carol Land - winner of the quiz and Margaret Berry - winner of guess the weight of the pumpkin and Deb in the middle with the flowers she received from the WI now that she was standing down.
At the end of September there was a good tidy up of the garden area, cutting back of the plants but also removing the overgrown lavenders which were also replaced, leaving the garden looking tidy and ready for the planting of bulbs at the end of this month.
The Strollers had a walk at Ticknall and finished with refreshments at the tearoom at the village store, joined by a Golden Eagle no less!
Our skittles team won their second match 4:1 against Woodhouse Eaves and are looking forward to the next round to be played by the end of November.
The total number of bras donated by our members reached a staggering 258 for the charity Against Breast Cancer who fund research to improve detection and improve survival after diagnosis, Margaret Baxendale led this initiative and it was very well supported. We also supported Deb in her Macmillan Coffee Morning which was held at the WI coffee morning in October and raised £580 (which includes monies on the day, gift aid and text donations). Thanks to all ladies who have helped and donated.
Lots of things to look forward to, we have an evening at Kwik Fit on car safety and maintenance, a trip to Chatsworth and a theatre trip in the coming months as well as quite a few of our members taking part in Ashby's Santa Fun Run and all our usual extra clubs and activities. If you haven't been along to our coffee mornings, reading group, strollers, nordic/power walking, darts, choir, craft or gardening groups but are interested then newcomers are welcome at all of them and positively encouraged as all these clubs would benefit from higher attendance and the orgainsers/leaders would appreciate the support.
September 2016
The main news of the month has been our change of venue. Our meetings are now held at Ashby Baptist Church. We also tried a change to the format to fit the venue and we will be listening to feedback to see if we can improve. Space is a consideration but the kitchen area is so much nicer and the social at the beginning of the evening seemed to work well with everyone chatting and mixing. Our speaker for the evening was Linda Hill with her 17 pans, a quiz based presentation on her collection of very varied pans from her travels and cooking experiences, some of which you will see in one of the photos below.
The photo above shows the Craft Group's paper cutting results from September's crafting workshop, beautiful! Next month is a a fun evening making vintage bunting from fabric pieces and old jeans, members will have had an email with further details from LindaMott.
This month's walk was a Calke circular and another beautiful day for it. Elaine had her camera with her and took lots of lovely shots, if you are a member of our WI and are on Facebook you will have been able to see them at a much better resolution than I can put on here but I have included a few of them. The ladies look like they are having a great time.
We had our first skittles match of the new season in Loughborough against Thorpe Acre, a team who have won the trophy before. We won the match though and so are through to the next round, against either Nailstone or Woodhouse Eaves - Val is our leader and was scorer and photographer! There are quite a few of us signed up this year so the team may be quite different next match.
August 2016
To start this month's newsletter let's just go back to the end of July - Fri 29th - our Charity Committee led by Susan Strong had organised a Charity Concert by the Melbourne Operatic Society with our very own WI Choir as a supporting act (in red below) for Songs for a Summer Evening. The Operatic Society members gave their time free of charge and the team sold tickets for what was a really enjoyable and entertaining evening. It would be nice to support the Operatic Society for their next ticketed show which will be the Pirates of Penzance. Watch out for advertisements at WI or on Facebook.
Also in July as mentioned last month we were awarded the Civic Society's Environmental Improvement Award for the garden we tend at the top of Market Street, Jean Morrison, Val Moreland & Elaine Anderson accepted this on behalf of the Garden Gang, on the first photo you will see them at the awards evening. The Civic Society used Elaine's photos to present the nominations to the public vote. In the second photo Jean and Val have just been given the plaque by Julia Fraser of the Civic Society and WI member. Hopefully you will be able to admire it soon in location at the garden.
Now for August itself...........we had a great turn out at the Coffee Group where Karen took donations towards Macmillan and cake and biscuits were served. Karen has kindly agreed to let Deb Winkles host a Macmillan coffee morning at our October Coffee Group meeting where there will be coffee/tea and plenty of cake - more information nearer the time. Two very successful events were held on Tuesday 16th, the Strollers walked from Albert Village, led by Julia and Barbara and in the evening Val had set up a social skittles evening open to all to give team players a practice run for their match in September - I understand "The Others" aren't available in September which is unfortunate as they beat "The Team". Well done The Others!!
For our evening meeting on 17th we had a returning speaker, David Bell, local historian and author to talk about the Ladies of Leicestershire, from Lady Jane Grey - who we had at least heard of, to Claire Hollingworth born in 1911 and still alive at the time of writing after having had a very adventurous life as a journalist paving the way for the war correspondents of today and Mary Linwood a celebrated needlework artist during her lifetime achieving international fame for her embroidered pictures which were copies of well-known paintings by artists such as Raphael, Rubens and Gainsborough and whose embroidered pictures are still available to view in the V&A and on request at New Walk Museum and Gallery in Leicester and many more interesting ladies in between including Alice Hawkins suffragette who worked in Shepshed at the Equity shoe factory, a pastel portrait artist and a lady who worked behind enemy lines during the war.
It was our last chance to fund raise for this year's local charity and the bring and buy theme was crafts and run by Val. We also have an ongoing collection of bras for a cancer charity that it going well, if you forgot yours or didn't come to the meeting you can still donate next month. This was also our last meeting to be held at Manor House School. Thanks to all our volunteers and committees for our first 7 years and as always at this time of year we are looking for new committee members to take us forward for our next phase at our new venue Ashby Baptist Church on Brook Street. There are opportunities every month to help with serving refreshments and the picture below shows Laura Bryant, Kate Collier and June Scott who were this month's volunteers. Ann Baker and Shan Milward were our raffle ticket sellers. Going forward we will not be holding raffles at our meetings (although we may hold them at coffee mornings) but instead we are looking for innovative suggestions for fundraising that do not include the gambling element of raffles.
You will find archived Monthly Reports from January 2014 onwards via the links below: